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Writing the Perfect Sentence: Recasting Options


When building a sentence, perfection is a tangential art: it is not in the being but in its relationships. A sentence may be perfect in this place, at this time, for this audience. But it may be entirely appalling or meaningless elsewhere.

Building the perfect sentence in context requires the ability to play with structure. Here are ways to recast your sentences so you can build the perfect one where, when, and for whom you write. They are all mostly shown through examples:

Subject Clause

That Rebecca would harbor doubts was inevitable.

Instead of: Rebecca would inevitably harbor doubts.

Extraposed Subject Clause

It was inevitable that Rebecca would harbor doubts.

Instead of: Inevitably, Rebecca would harbor doubts.

Cleft

It was Jack who convinced Rebecca. It was Rebecca who(m) Jack convinced

It was at the hospital that they met Randall.

Instead of: Jack convinced Rebecca. /

They met Randall at the hospital.

Pseudo-cleft

What Jack wanted was to adopt the baby.

Instead of: Jack wanted to adopt a baby.

Fronting for Meaning

For several days, she could not feed the baby

Instead of: She could not feed the baby for several days.

Fronting for Effect

Somewhere in La Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember, and not too long ago, lived a gentleman, one with a spear gathering dust, an aging shield, a skinny old horse, and a hunting hound.

Instead of: A gentleman with a spear gathering dust, an aging shield, a skinny old horse, and a hunting hound lived somewhere in La Mancha. in a place whose name I do not care to remember, and not too long ago.

Existential Clause

There was a moment of doubt.

Instead of: A moment of doubt appeared.

Dummy Subject

There ensued a long discussion.

Instead of: A long discussion ensued.

Verb Choice

You can substitute a gluten free mix for wheat flour.

You can replace wheat flour with a gluten free mix.

Typical verb choice pairs include: give/receive, buy/sell, come/go, rob/steal, lend/borrow.

Passive Voice

Use the passive when the agent is unknown, expressed by a heavy phrase, irrelevant to how the object is viewed or so relevant you want it to make an entrance!

Kennedy was assassinated.

Instead of: Someone assassinated Kennedy.

A Little Background

Four things to remember about sentences:

Linearization

Sentences unfold linearly: They organize sequentially a mesh of multidimensional thoughts. Word order provides cues to meaning. The ability to change word order to a certain extent yields marked versus unmarked sequences.

Example: Floyd is amazingly tall. / Amazingly, Floyd is tall.

Syntax

Sentences have internal hierarchical structure: syntactic functions provide slots to place participants, events, and circumstances. Syntactic functions include subject, verb, object, complement, and adjunct. The subject of a sentence is the main character in the event communicated by the verb. The object is a supporting character. The complement and the adjunct are modifiers. The complement is a necessary modifier while the adjunct is optional.

Example: Oddly, the professor judged the answer appropriate.

Semantic Roles

Sentences convey information about who did what to whom, when, where, how, and why by way of semantic roles. These roles are not marked by order, declension, or syntactic function and include agent, theme, experiencer, location, goal, etc.

Example: He followed the map to the end of the trail.

Semantic roles help express the point of view of the writer.

Example: At a crucial moment in the game…

a- …Neymar fell and could not recover the ball.[theme]

b- …Neymar was pushed to the ground and lost the ball.[patient]

c- …Neymar saw the ball get away after tripping on a lump in the field.[experiencer]

d- …Neymar scrambled along the ground and could not recover the ball.[agent]

Information Structure

Sentences are constantly balancing the news they offer the reader with what the reader already knows. Typically, a sentence starts with a known or given point to anchor the communication. Then, it offers new information about that anchor. This is called topic and remark, theme and rheme or given and new. And—you guessed it—traditionally, this is expressed in syntax by the subject and the predicate.

Why Shake Things Up?

The classic English sentence unfolds as subject-object-verb, or SVO, with the topic of communication as the agent of the event. But it does not always have to be that way.

You might read in style guides that you should avoid this structure or that, for being too wordy, indirect, or cumbersome. The problem with banning recasting structures because of their appearance is that you are dismissing their use.

So why would you want to deviate from SVO order? To create coherence in the text through cohesion. Coherence is the togetherness of a text. Cohesion is the visible thread of that unity. Weaving different structures into the text makes it more interesting and tightens it up.

By relocating elements, you can rearrange the structure and distribution of the information provided while preserving the semantic roles of the event communicated.

Topicalizing: making an element the topic of your sentence.

Fronting: moving an element up the linear chain to clarify meaning or for effect.

Sifting: placing an element with old, known, or given information before an element with new information.

Shifting: relocating heavy phrases rightward to lighten the strain on the reader’s memory.

Isolating: Separating bad neighboring elements that would otherwise create ambiguity or mistakes.

Joining: Bringing references and antecedents closer together to expedite processing.

Here are some great pieces: a Wildlife Habitat Council post about opossums by Colleen Beaty and a National Geographic article about the world's happiest country by Sarah Gibbens and Ciril Jazbec with wonderful examples of fronting, existential clauses, passives, and more--oh, and, great transitions using discourse markers, a topic for another day!

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