Writing Topic Chapter 10

This chapter is about adding words to sentences that are needed. The chapter starts out by saying that you should not omit (leave out) words that are necessary for grammatical or logical completeness. According to the chapter, "in compound structures, words are often omitted for economy." It gives an example of this which is "Tom is a man who means what he says and [who] says what he means. The chapter says that these omissions are acceptable as long as the omitted words are common to both parts of the compound structure." If the shorter version of the compound structure is not grammatically correct than the word must be put back in. An example that is given of this is: Some of the regulars are acquaintances whom we see at work or [who] live in our community. The word who must be put back into the sentence because whom... live in our community is not grammatically correct.The word "that" should be added to a sentence if there is a possibility that the sentence could be misread. An exapmle of this is "Looking out the family room window, Sarah saw (that) her favorite tree, which she had climbed so often as a child, was gone." The word "that" needs to be put in after "saw" because Sarah did not see her favorite tree. She saw that the tree was gone.

This chapter also states that words may need to be added to make comparisons logical and complete. An example given of this is "The forests of North America are much more extensive than (those of) Europe." The words those of need to be added to the sentence because forests need to be compared to other forests, not the country where the other forests are located. The word "other" must sometime be added to the sentence to make the comparison logical. "Jupiter is larger than any other planet in our solar system." Other needed to be added to this sentence because Jupiter cannot be larger than itself. The word "as" must also be inserted into sentences to make a comparison grammatically correct. "The city of Lowell is as old (as), if not older than, the city of Lawrence." The last thing this chapter states about comparisons is that they should be complete enough so that the reader can understand what is being compared. Saying "Brand X is less salty is incomplete because you do not know what Brand X is being compared to. Saying "Brand X is less salty than Brand Y" shows what you are comparing Brand X to.

The last thing that this chapter talks about is adding the articles a, and, and the to a sentence where it is necessary from grammatical completeness. A lot of times these article are omitted in things like recipes or other instructions that are meant to be followed while they are being read, but these omissions are not inappropriate for almost all other forms of writing. The last thing that is stated in this chapter about adding articles is that it is not always needed to repeat articles with paired items, but it is necessary to have the articles included in the sentence if one of the items requires a and the other requires an.

I pretty much already add these words to senteces when they are necessary. I chose this chapter to hopefully help out all of you, my classmates, but I will continue to make sure that I add words to sentences when they are necessary.