8 December 2011

  Image by Qole Tech

When my husband and I travel by car, he usually gives me the task of being the navigator, because I’m good at reading maps and he thinks he’s good at driving. I’ve never really liked navigating, however, because (1) I get nauseated when reading in a moving vehicle and (2) I end up being more of a ‘nag-vigator’ when my husband pays more attention to everything else than he does to the road.

I’ve often thought about installing a GPS device (Global Positioning System) to provide directions on where to go – and how to get from one place to another – but haven’t yet. Until then we’ve decided to keep peace in the family by ‘letting Deborah drive and Michael be the navigator/sight-seer’.

What does this have to do with writing?

Navigation is a valuable concept when you write. And whether you realize it or not, you’re probably already a pretty good ‘writing navigator’.

Remember reading about how pilots trim aircraft in the Business Writing with TASTE book? They do that to keep the plane on course and flying smoothly.

Trim your documents for coherence

At the TRIM stage of writing we use a list of techniques to check a document and ‘trim’ it for clarity, coherence and conciseness.

One type of ‘trimming’ to make a text coherent (and perform the equivalent task of GPS navigational devices) is to use conjunctions, which guide readers and help them know ‘where you’re going next’ in a document.

Not only do proper conjunctions guide readers to follow your line of thought; they also make the text read more smoothly – like flying in a plane that doesn’t experience any turbulence.

The jobs of conjunctions

Conjunctions show various relationships between words, phrases and sentences. Some of their most common jobs show the following:

·      Cause & Effect

·      Reason

·      Sequence

·      Comparison & Contrast

·      Additional information

Example

Let’s look at a paragraph where I’ve taken out all the conjunctions.

This past year, you’ve done very well on the job. You’ve received commendations from several customers. You’ve taken the initiative to expand your knowledge by attending external courses. You’ve improved your skills through an attachment to the sales department. We appreciate your hard work. We have recommended a step increase in your salary. There are some ways for you to do even better next year. Being attached to the sales department, your sales have only improved marginally over the year. We want to see greater improvement in the coming year. We’d like you to consider how to build stronger ties with your own team. Several of them have told us that you seem reluctant to socialize outside of work.   

Is the meaning of this paragraph completely clear to you? What do you think about how the text reads?

Now let’s look at the same paragraph with conjunctions added in.

This past year, you’ve done very well on the job. You’ve received commendations from several customers. You’ve also taken the initiative to expand your knowledge by attending external courses, and you’ve improved your skills through an attachment to the sales department. We appreciate your hard work and have recommended a step increase in your salary. However, there are some ways for you to do even better next year. Despite being attached to the sales department, your sales have only improved marginally over the year. So we want to see greater improvement in the coming year. We’d also like you to consider how to build stronger ties with your own team, because several of them have told us that you seem reluctant to socialize outside of work.  

This paragraph is not only clearer than the one above, but it also reads more smoothly. 

It’s easy to spot the change of direction (from positive remarks to negative) with the sentence that begins with ‘however’. And the sentence starting with ‘despite’ shows contrast between two ideas (the attachment and marginal improvement in sales). These are examples of how conjunctions work as ‘GPS devices’ for your readers. 

One common mistake with conjunctions

Frequently writers use ‘on the one hand / on the other hand’ incorrectly. For example

û  On the one hand, we have tried to solve this problem by hiring staff with more experience. On the other hand, we have been providing more training and development for our current staff.

The phrases ‘on the one hand’ / ‘on the other hand’ are used to indicate a contrast between two things. The two sentences above do not talk about contrasting elements, but rather about additional information (a total of two ways to solve a problem).

Here is one way to correct that paragraph, using the conjunction also to indicate additional information:

ü  We’ve been working to solve this problem by hiring staff with more experience. We’ve also been providing more training and development for our current staff.

Next week we’ll consider some other types of ‘GPS navigational devices’ to use in your writing.