Accurate Written

Discourse: Sentences
and Paragraphs
 CONCISENESS avoids…
Four key principles of good writing 1. wordiness
2. redundancy and
3. padding

FORCEFULNESS uses…
1. economical sentence
2. periodic sentence and
3. of parallelism and balanced
structure
 1. Careful review of writing
mechanics
2. subject-verb concordance
Four key principles of good writing
3. agreement of pronoun and
its antecedent
4. grammatical conventions

REFINEMENT is…
1. Careful review for
conciseness, forcefulness and
correctness
Conciseness is possible
by deleting unnecessary
qualifiers and eliminating
‘weasel words’ and make
your writing short by
avoiding redundancy and
getting rid of padding.
Conciseness

Wordy: Violent death has now become a commonplace

thing, a thing of everyday occurrence in life (Jacobs and
Jacobs, 167)
Better: Violent death has become commonplace.
Wordy: It was pink in appearance.
Better: It was pink.
Tip 1: Eliminate ‘weasel words’.

Wordy: Display the bulletin in an area where it is

conspicuous.

Concise: Display the bulletin in a conspicuous place.

 Tip 2: Eliminate redundancies or delete
unnecessary modifiers.
Small (in size) prove (conclusively)
Blue (in color) (each and) every
Round (in shape) (true) facts
(Positive) benefits connected (together)

Sometimes the meaning of a word or phrase implies its modifier.

anticipate (in advance)
completely revolutionize = revolutionary
Tip 2: Eliminate redundancies or delete
unnecessary modifiers.

Full and complete hopes and dreams

Each and every first and foremost
Whole entire true and accurate

Wordy: Education is always and forever my parents legacy.

Concise: Education is forever mu parents’ legacy.
Tip 3: Delete unnecessary qualifiers
Actually basically very Practically
Really probably definitely
Somewhat kind of extremely

Wordy: Because a great many of the words in this sentence are

basically unnecessary, it would really be a very good idea to edit
somewhat for conciseness.
Concise: Because many of the words in this sentence are unnecessary,
we should edit it.
Tip 4: Avoid “which”, “who”, and “that” clauses

Use adverbs and adjectives in place of phrases and clauses whenever

possible.

Wordy: The actor, who was very nasty, stole the scene.
Concise: The nasty actor stole the scene.
Tip 5: Use the active voice since more words are
required to be written in the passive voice.

Wordy: It was voted that there would be a drive for

the cleaning up of the city creeks and rivers.

Concise: We voted for a drive to clean up the city

creeks and rivers.
Tip 6: Do not overuse prepositional phrase.
(verbal deadwoods)

Come to an agreement Agree

Do a repeat Repeat
Make a comment Comment
Make an analysis Analyze
Make mention of Mention
Raise an objection Object
Act 1: Correct the sentences below to achieve a
concise writing. Be guided by the tips.
1. Larger properties offer a variety of services for their guests.
2. Resorts typically are located in vacation tourist destinations or near
natural environmental settings, such as mountains, the seashore, theme
parks or other attractions.
3. Basically, there are five types of hotels.
4. Most hotels are properties that are commercial that cater mainly to
business people, tourists and other travelers who need accommodation
for a brief stay.
5. A number of residential hotels have dining rooms and restaurants
that are also open to residents and to the general public.
A. Economical Writing: Rewrite the following sentences, making
them as economical as possible by rewording the underlined
expressions entirely or by leaving out the unnecessary words.
Also omit qualifiers

1. Hotels, motels and establishments vary greatly in size

and measurements and in the services they provide and
extend.
2. They comprise almost all types of hotel establishments
and tend to provide more and more services and more
offerings than other lodging places.
3. There are five basic types and kinds of hotels and
motels.
B. Periodic Sentence: Revise the following sentences, making
them periodic to achieve forceful writing. Be guided by the
underlined expression(s) as your signal.

1. Guests use these hotel for a minimum of 5 consecutive

nights typically.
2. Hotels and other accommodations are as diverse as the
many family and business travelers they accommodate
apparently.
C. Parallel Sentence: Make the ideas in the given expression below
parallel by matching, nouns, verbs, phrases, or clauses—whether items
are in pairs or in series. Revise the underlined expressions below as
directed to achieve forceful situations.

1. Correct to achieve series of prepositional phrase.

Hotel establishments vary greatly in size and also including
the services they provide.
2. Correct to achieve series of nouns.
There are five basic types of hotels-commercial, resort,
residential, extended-stay and hotels that offer gambling in
the premises.
C. Parallel Sentence: Make the ideas in the given expression below
parallel by matching, nouns, verbs, phrases, or clauses—whether items
are in pairs or in series. Revise the underlined expressions below as
directed to achieve forceful situations.

Correct to express a consistent series of subordinate

clause that reinforces the ideas of the independent clause.

3. At casino hotels, if you gamble, you will win or lose;

suppose you do not risk your money, nothing will be lost or
won.
C. Parallel Sentence: Make the ideas in the given expression below
parallel by matching, nouns, verbs, phrases, or clauses—whether items
are in pairs or in series. Revise the underlined expressions below as
directed to achieve forceful situations.

Use parallel structure with items joined by correlatives –

not only… but also; both… and; neither… nor; either…or;
and so on.
4. Hotel is a commercial establishment. Motel is also a
commercial establishment.
5. Neither the guests not also the hotel personnel like to
vandalize the hotel rooms and other facilities.
Forcefulness, to Lewis
(220) is the result of
carefully choosing the
most distinctive way
of saying what the
writer means, of
expressing himself
with individuality.
Economical Writing
1. Do not include a word or word group that is not
likely to contribute to the effect that you want to
produce.
2. Do not mention anything your readers are
already supposed to know.
3. Do not use wordy phrases and sentences.
Economical Writing

I wish to state that I have not yet received the shirts

which I ordered on October 18.

Economical: I wish to state that I have not yet

received the shirts which I ordered on October 18.
Periodic Sentence

When a complex sentence with main idea or

principal clause is at the end, it is a periodic
sentence.
(dependent/subordinate clause) (independent/main clause)
Because she is generous and friendly, Ashira is popular.
Periodic Sentence

Use simple, compound and ordinary complex

sentence to achieve sentence variety.

(adverb) (simple sentence)

Certainly, you have to be friendly and generous to be
popular.
Parallelism and Balance
1. Express similar ideas in similar forms.
2. Match nouns with nouns, verbs with verbs,
infinitives, prepositional phrases with
prepositional phrases, independent clauses with
independent clauses.
Parallelism and Balance
Not Parallel: Early to bed and rising early makes a
man healthy, gives him wealth, and he will be wise.
Parallel: Early to bed and early to rise gives a man
health, wealth, and wisdom.
Parallel: If a man goes to bed early and rise early,
he will be healthy, wealthy and wise.
Parallelism and Balance
Not Parallel: Early to bed and rising early makes a
man healthy, gives him wealth, and he will be wise.
Parallel: Early to bed and early to rise gives a man
health, wealth, and wisdom.
Parallel: If a man goes to bed early and rise early,
he will be healthy, wealthy and wise.
Works Cited

Pesirla, Angel O., Edwin A. Pilapil, etc. Writing Prowess across the Disciplines.
Malabon City, Philippines: Mutya Publishing House Inc., 2013.