Now that you understand what is at stake, the real question becomes how to monitor and remove gobbledygook. For this activity you must read:
- Chapter 4.4 Style in Written Communication (Links to an external site.)
- Lanham’s Paramedic Method: A Cure for Sick Sentences
- WAC Writing Guides Paramedic Revision
, a method of analysis blocks of text for wordiness and clarity, invented by Richard Lannon, who provided us with the Warren Buffett example in The Ethics of Word Choice reading.
https://fiu.instructure.com/courses/103099/pages/the-ethics-of-word-choice
If you are unsure of what a preposition is, my 3rd grade teacher told us it was “anywhere a mouse can go”: over, under, through around, to, from, etc…Her method doesn’t really cover some of them, like of, about, and that, but it helps. Here’s some more preposition clarification, should you need it, from our friends at Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab (The OWL). (Links to an external site.)
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/594/01/
After reading these selections, practice the Paramedic Method in the FIU setting
and submit the assignment here.