RE: Sentense construction

Subject: RE: Sentense construction
From: "Fred Ridder" <docudoc -at- hotmail -dot- com>
To: lt34 -at- csus -dot- edu, richard -dot- combs -at- Polycom -dot- com, hemang -dot- phenix -at- gmail -dot- com, techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2007 15:16:13 -0500

Oh, no, here we go with passive and active sentences again...

I'm hoping against hope that Lauren's posting simply reversed the
numbers when she started discussing "active" vs. "passive", because
from a grammatical point of view the fist example is passive voice
(some points are listed by an implied actor [the writer]) and the
second one is active voice ("we" discussed some points).
Or maybe this is another issue of the infamous "neutral stance"?
Or another case of the "semantic" voice where "active" voice
(with quotes) actually signifies the grammatical passive voice
and "passive" (with quotes) actually means active?

And as far as lists go, *I* was always taught to avoid writing bullets
that are a continuation and completion of a fragmentary stem
sentence because that form requires more effort to read (you
have to keep re-reading the stem--mentally if not physically--to
properly parse each bullet item). And even if I were to use that
form of list, it is the one case where I would tend to *not* use
a colon at the end of the stem because there's no need for
major stop punctuation in the middle of a sentence.

-Fred Ridder


From: "Lauren" <lt34 -at- csus -dot- edu>
To: "'Combs, Richard'" <richard -dot- combs -at- Polycom -dot- com>,"'Hemang Antani'" <hemang -dot- phenix -at- gmail -dot- com>, <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Subject: RE: Sentense construction
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2007 10:29:36 -0800

Hemang,

I don't like, and was taught to avoid, leading sentences that end in a
colon, unless the bullets complete the leading sentence. In this case, I
would avoid the colon and lead the list with "The points from the meeting
follow."

I would also probably, depending on the context of the document, include
some identifier about the meeting in the sentence, whether it is a meeting
name or a date.

Additionally, both of the proposed sentences are acceptable, but sentence 2
does need the comma that Richard pointed out. The differences between the
two sentences are that 1 is "active" voice and 2 is "passive" voice. This
is important to know if someone should mention the voice in the document.

Lauren

> -----Original Message-----
> From: techwr-l-bounces+lt34=csus -dot- edu -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+lt34=csus -dot- edu -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
> Behalf Of Combs, Richard
> Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2007 7:35 AM
> To: Hemang Antani; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> Subject: RE: Sentense construction
>
> Hemang Antani wrote:
>
> > Which of the following sentence construction would be suitable for
> > American
> > readers:
> >
> > (1) Listed below are the points discussed during the meeting.
> >
> > (2) During the meeting we discussed points listed below.
>
> "During the meeting, we discussed:" -- followed by the bullet list.
>
> Discard unnecessary words. :-)
>
> Richard
>
>
> ------
> Richard G. Combs
> Senior Technical Writer
> Polycom, Inc.
> richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
> 303-223-5111
> ------
> rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
> 303-777-0436

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References:
RE: Sentense construction: From: Lauren

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