Final exam

It’s the end of spring semester — time to review. (You want to look good on your internship,  don’t you?) Here’s a quiz on what you’ve learned from this blog. What’s wrong with the following sentences written by students this academic year?

 

1. But it took one year for the European Union to sign it.

2. The main idea of every program, Precht said, was to use local resources and showing them culturally, historically and geographically.

3. She remembers when the South Bronx was on fire, people gathered together and fought against injustice and inequality.

4. Moreover, the streaming website usually leads with U.S. content, which has been either dubbed or subtitled, before expanding its catalogue to local movies and TV shows and believes in a low-priced subscription.
5. As a well-known advocate for Jewish issues, it seems that Nadler cares more about the Middle East than Eurasia.
6. The Treaty is considered an important step toward equal opportunity.

7. Her son now has a good life, even without the support from his father, whom is being chased by the social welfare office for failing his child support duties.

 

The answers:

1. “One year” is a little too precise; it’s not the way Americans speak or write. (Some? One? A?) Instead:

But it took a year for the European Union to sign it. 

 

2. The predicate — that’s the part of the sentence after was — requires parallel structure. To use and showing have equal weight in the sentence, but they’re not equal; one is a gerund, the other an infinitive. You have two choices:

The main idea of every program, Precht said, was to use local resources and to show them culturally, historically and

geographically.

OR:

The main idea of every program, Precht said, was using local resources and showing them culturally, historically and geographically.

I favor the two infinitives; otherwise, it sounds as if the main idea was using the resources. The infinitive also implies purpose. Incidentally, nice parallelism on culturally, historically and geographically.

 

3. What happened when the South Bronx was on fire? She remembers? Or people gathered together? This sentence cries out for  that.

She remembers that when the South Bronx was on fire, people gathered together and fought against injustice and inequality.

 

4. This one is a mouthful. It has too many conjunctions for one sentence — one either/or, two and’s — and too many ideas. As written, it’s not clear where on ends and another begins. It needs to be broken up:
Moreover, the streaming website usually leads with U.S. content, which has been either dubbed or subtitled, before expanding its catalogue to local movies and TV shows. It also believes in a low-priced subscription.
5. It is a well-known advocate? No, Nadler is  — so what precedes it is a dangler. Put the descriptive phrase as close as possible to what it describes:

As a well-known advocate for Jewish issues,  Nadler seems to care more about the Middle East than Eurasia.

 

6. Who considers the treaty (lowercase when not part of the proper name) an important step? In this case, blind and visually impaired people, but the writer didn’t tell us that. Whenever possible, write in active voice, not passive:

Blind and visually impaired people consider the treaty an important step toward equal opportunity.

 

 7.  One more time: who is for subjects, whom for objects. In this sentence, the pronoun is the subject of its clause. (Using passive voice confused the writer into thinking it was the object.) The sentence should read:

Her son now has a good life, even without the support from his father, who is being chased by the social welfare office for failing his child support duties.

 

Any questions? If so, please post them as comments.

With this post, English for Journalists goes dark (as we say on Broadway) for the summer.  Good luck with your internships!

Comments are closed.