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1. Become a Pro Backup e The manual for people who use the worksheet that lets them manage the design of their office e The office copy of the manual explaining how to design the management of worksheet users e The manual for worksheet users who focus on design management in offices Of course without knowing more the reader could only guess which meaning was intended This kind of push me pull you process drives people right off your site EXAMPLES Before We re sorry but the product specification of the selected hardcopy output device lacks the request ed status indicator liquid crystal displays as well as the supply feed extension mechanism Before There is a need for annual testing of both untreated water and treated water for a determination of contaminant levels Before The system model security software made an investigation into the clock set violation breach Before The intention of the site development project team is to meet the beta deadline even if that means the excision of some features Before Then there was a review of the file format conversion module After We re sorry but the selected printer lacks two things you asked for the LCD display and an extra large paper tray After Every year we should test both treated and untreat ed water to determine the level of contaminants After The security software investigated the attempt to reset the system clock After Our proj2. Net Spirit Human Style Genres Become a Pro Backup Blow Up Nominalizations and Noun Trains BACKGROUND Rescue the verb On the Web people feel impatient with any text that seems ambiguous or hard to understand Turning verbs like suggest and define into nouns like suggestion and definition may seem innocu ous but if you keep transforming actions into things your prose As those move easiest who have gets clotted Readers struggle to figure out who does what because learned to dance j the prose seems full of objects with only a few fuzzy actions True ease in writing comes from art not chance Alexander Pope An Essay on Criticism Compare Our general suggestion is that your definition of the goal should probably have greater precision We suggest that you define the goal more precisely Which sentence can you understand more quickly The second one probably It tells you who is talking and makes clear what they want you to do It s more precise When you turn a verb into a noun you are nominalizing a horrible thing to do An obvious indication that you have just 209 Hot Text 210 Web Writing That Works nominalized a verb is that the word gets longer often by adding a Latinate suffix like tion ization or worse But nominalizations occur whenever you make a verb do a noun s work even when it s the same word Compare Upon the receipt of our product please conduct a review
3. ect team intends to meet the beta dead line even if we have to drop some features After We then reviewed the module that converts our files to other formats 211 Hot Text Web Writing That Works See Bush amp Campbell 1995 Horton 1990 Price amp Korman 1993 Tarutz 1992 Waite 1982 Williams 1990 212 For your review only Excerpt from Hot Text Web Writing that Works New Riders Copyright 2002 by Jonathan and Lisa Price All rights reserved No part of this book shall be reproduced stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means electronic mechanical photocopying recording or otherwise without written permission from the authors theprices theprices com The Prices 918 La Senda Lane NW Albuquerque NM 87107 No patent liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information contained herein Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book the publisher and authors assume no responsibility for errors or omissions Nor is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein ISBN 0 7357 1151 8 Library of Congress Catalog Card 2001089176
4. of the contents of the box When you receive our product please review the con tents of the box Don t abuse a verb by making it act like a noun e When the nominalization trails after a nondescript verb as in may register improvement get rid of the verb and turn the nominalization into the main verb may improve e When the nominalization follows a phrase such as There is lop off that phrase change the nominalization into a verb and discover a new subject For instance There is a development from our European office might be changed into Our European office has developed Untie the noun knot To compress a bunch of concepts into a single phrase profession als often chain together a series of nouns such as office design management worksheet user manual Unfortunately ordinary folks have trouble teasing apart the sequence figuring out which noun goes with which other one and what the whole shebang means They re often another form of jargon a shorthanding of longer concepts But clarity demands that the editor unpack the noun string Bush and Campbell 1995 Noun strings are often ambiguous because people can consider several nouns as a unit modifying something else but then recon sider and see several other nouns as a complete descriptive phrase getting an entirely different viewpoint For instance a reader might consider these interpretations Net Spirit Human Style Genres
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