RE: Sentense construction

Subject: RE: Sentense construction
From: "Lauren" <lt34 -at- csus -dot- edu>
To: <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2007 13:10:55 -0800

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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