{"id":37964,"date":"2017-02-23T03:33:49","date_gmt":"2017-02-23T11:33:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/world.edu\/?p=37964"},"modified":"2017-02-23T03:33:49","modified_gmt":"2017-02-23T11:33:49","slug":"its-all-about-wordplay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/its-all-about-wordplay\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s all about wordplay"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"passive-voice-versus-active-voice\"<\/a>I quite like a short sentence. And a phrase by itself. Only for stylistic purposes, you understand. Nevertheless, it\u2019s important to vary sentence length, otherwise your reader goes to sleep.<\/p>\n

I prefer\u00a0the active voice. And don\u2019t let anyone tell you can never start a sentence with \u2018and\u2019 or \u2019but\u2019. You can, but it\u2019s wise not to overdo it.<\/p>\n

I enjoy the occasional one sentence paragraph too.<\/p>\n

And questions? Well, the odd one here or there is a welcome change from sentences. But too many? They make you tired, don\u2019t they?<\/p>\n

I really can\u2019t bear extremely long sentences which contain lots of ideas all of which are cobbled together with conjunctions and you can\u2019t really tell which of them is more important because it just reads like a long list and by the time the reader gets to about this point it gets really hard to keep track of what is going on so they generally just give up.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a syntactical long move too, very popular in some French theory, with sentences full of commas, each with their own qualifying phrase; I\u2019m sure you can think of something you\u2019ve read like this. While this comma-heavy sentence, not to be confused with commatisation of identity groups, might be intended to slow the reader down, as Pierre Bourdieu suggests, it can make for difficult reading, particularly if you aren\u2019t used to it.<\/p>\n

Equally difficult is the passive voice. The writer is rendered invisible when passive voice is used. But more importantly, excessive use of the passive is stultifying. It\u2019s often useful to know who is writing, or who has acted. You don\u2019t get that information when you use the passive voice.<\/p>\n

What also irks me is the sentence that starts with \u2018what\u2019. What is important is to get to the point. What could be wrong with that? (See what I did there. It\u2019s not always true.) It would be so easy to cut out the \u2018what\u2019. Instead try \u2013 it\u2019s important for a sentence to get to the point. Or better still, I prefer a sentence that gets to the point. A sentence that starts with \u2018what\u2019 is irksome\u2019. I always tell people, \u201cI am generally irked by a sentence starting with \u2018what\u2019\u201d.<\/p>\n

And a bit of humour keeps the reader interested. Even the\u00a0\u00a0occasional illustration can provide a welcome distraction from all that is \u2018academic writing\u2019.<\/p>\n

However, as with any play, you do have to know when wordplay should come to a .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I quite like a short sentence. And a phrase by itself. Only for stylistic purposes, you understand. Nevertheless, it\u2019s important to vary sentence length, otherwise your reader goes to sleep. I prefer\u00a0the active voice. And don\u2019t let anyone tell you can never start a sentence with \u2018and\u2019 or \u2019but\u2019. You can, but it\u2019s wise not […]\n… learn more→<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":37965,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[13315],"coauthors":[11733],"class_list":["post-37964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-higher-education","tag-academic-writing"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIt\u2019s all about wordplay - World leading higher education information and services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/its-all-about-wordplay\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"It\u2019s all about wordplay - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I quite like a short sentence. And a phrase by itself. Only for stylistic purposes, you understand. Nevertheless, it\u2019s important to vary sentence length, otherwise your reader goes to sleep. I prefer\u00a0the active voice. And don\u2019t let anyone tell you can never start a sentence with \u2018and\u2019 or \u2019but\u2019. 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