RE: Sentense construction

["Lauren" <lt34 -at- csus -dot- edu>]

I did reverse the numbers, hence my follow-up post.  I avoid leading
sentences that are followed by bulleted lists as a personal rule.  I was
taught to avoid them, unless the bullets complete a leading fragment.
Personally, I don't like the convention of a leading fragment and I prefer
bulleted sentences to be complete sentences that are introduced by a
complete sentence.  The re-reading issue bothers me too, but some people
write that way anyway.  I made a point to mention the rule to follow when a
list item is a completion of a leading fragment, rather than say that my
writing preference to avoid the fragments is the only way to write.
Bulleted points, like a list of terms or applications don't require complete
sentences, but I still prefer to lead with a complete sentence that ends
with closing punctuation.  The individual points in such a list do not
contain closing punction. 

Lauren 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Fred Ridder [mailto:docudoc -at- hotmail -dot- com] 
> Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2007 12:16 PM
> 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
> Subject: RE: Sentense construction
> 
> 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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