Memorandum

To: Oscar Oswald

From: Brayden Jacobs

Date: August 30th, 2022

This memorandum details the grammar and style used in a prior piece of my writing that you requested.
After reviewing this essay, I have listed explanations that discuss the prose and technical style of this
piece to show where it could be improved upon.

Be Concise:

Being concise means to be able to give the most information in the fewest number of words, but still be
comprehensive.

Unnecessary Repetition: In my essay “Plumwood’s Shadow Places: Overcomplication and Vague

Solutions” there were a few spots where I had not only repeated similar ideas, but also repeated
the same words. For example:

- “Although Plumwood’s argument is very complex and deals with an extremely

complex issue, it struggles to relate to the audience due to her complex sentence
structure and a poorly structured argument.”

To reduce the usage of the word “complex”, synonyms could be used, so that the thesis does
not repeat the same word three times.

- “Plumwood does not provide much evidence considering how much she wrote” and
“Her argument is not built on a foundation of solid evidence which makes it
extremely easy to counter;”

The two quotes above say almost the same thing; One of the two could be deleted and the
paragraph would not lose any value.

Redundant Words and Phrases: I did a very good job about not using redundant phrases and
was unable to find any in the essay. As shown below:
Project 1 Brayden Jacobs 2
-“Plumwood does not provide much evidence considering how much she wrote. Most of
her essay is the same few pieces of evidence being reused and discussed for multiple
paragraphs until the reader is fed up and tired of that piece.”

This sentence is straightforward and contains no redundant phrases or words.

Dead Phrases: In this essay there were a few instances where I used dead phrases. For example:

- “In the essay this is one of many examples where she does this.”

To improve this sentence, I would remove the “In the essay”. This does not add any substance to
the essay.

Unnecessary Modifiers: I was able to find a few unnecessary modifiers in my essay. An example
of one is:

- “Although Plumwood’s argument is very complex and deals with an extremely

complex issue, it struggles to relate to the audience due to her complex sentence
structure and a poorly structured argument.”

This one sentence has two unnecessary modifiers that if removed would greatly simplify the
sentence, but still convey the same information.

Be Precise:

Being precise means to be accurate and exact, based on the knowledge of the audience.

Audience Levels of Technical Expertise: My essay is targeted towards an audience of people

with a high school education or higher. If my audience were still in high school, there were a few
things I would change. For example:

- “She does not directly appeal to pathos, but when defining shadow places, the
reader begins to realize that people who work in these shadow places live extremely
difficult lives and the companies that employ them pollute their homes.”
Project 1 Brayden Jacobs 2
Since people in high school may not know what pathos means, I would switch it out to “She does
not directly appeal to emotion”.

Level of Specifics and Detail: For the target audience the essay is as specific as it can get,
drawing in details from the source the essay critiques, but also explaining terms used in the
source essay. For example:

- “’The very concept of a singular homeplace or ‘our place’ is problematized by the

dissociation and dematerialisation that permeate the global economy and culture’
(139). According to Plumwood the idea that we have our own regions where we
reside is false because almost everything we possess and consume originates from a
far-off land. She then mentions the idea of shadow places, or the places in our world
where factories and labor are outsourced so that goods can be mass produced at a
low cost.”

The excerpt above shows how the quote was introduced, explained, and then a concept defined
in the original piece was defined so that the audience can have a complete understanding.

Be Direct:

Being direct means keeping the writing as simple and straightforward as possible.

Active or Lazy Verbs: I used both active and lazy verbs, but mostly used lazy verbs. Some examples of
this are:

- “The essay, “Shadow Places and the Politics of Dwelling” by Val Plumwood, awakens
the reader to the fact that as a society, people of western culture pay no attention
to where possessions were made, who made them, and the time that went into
them.”

- “Plumwood’s essay is a complicated work with many rhetorical strategies used

effectively, but there are also numerous components to Plumwood’s argument that
she did poorly.”

“Awaken” is an active verb that is a bit more precise than a word like show, but on the other
hand, “used” is vague and could be swapped out for something like “employed”.

Active Versus Passive Voice: I was unable to find any instances of passive voice, but there is a
large amount of active voice being used. For example:
Project 1 Brayden Jacobs 2

- “’Plumwood begins by introducing the idea of how people believe they are
connected to the region they live, but she then states, “The very concept of a
singular homeplace or ‘our place’ is problematized by the dissociation and
dematerialisation that permeate the global economy and culture’ (139).”

In this example, Plumwood is doing the action, meaning that it is written in an active voice.

Stress Position: There are a few instances where the paragraph doesn’t end in a stress position,
as the example below shows:

- “Her decision to write in such a complex manner makes her writing ineffective
because people who may agree with her point can potentially struggle to
understand her essay, effectively making her argument a jumble of meaningless
words on paper for people who may not have a formal education or struggle to
understand complex writing styles.”

The paragraph builds up to the last sentence where I then used the stated information to make
a claim, but then added more detail after the claim which makes the sentence finish off weak.

Noticeable Grammar Errors: In my essay, I was unable to find any grammatical errors.

Conclusion: I noticed that I happened to not be super concise in my writing, but to improve upon this I
would like to spend more time on my future writing to proofread and simplify sentences to make them
more straightforward. If you have any questions about this report, please let me know.