Summary
In this chapter, you focused on revising your sentences to make them clear and concise.
To make your sentences clear, you need to
l be specific and
l avoid jargon.
To make your sentences concise, you need to write
l only the necessary words
l only one idea per sentence
l usually in the active voice.
Finally, you need to use plain and modern English (instead of "old fashioned business English").
Summary Exercises
There are two exercises in this section. In Exercise 1, you'll review what you learned in this chapter. In Exercise 2, you'll practise revising a letter to make your sentences clear and concise.
EXERCISE 1
Revise the following sentences to make them clear, concise and modern. Type your answers in the space provided.
1) I acknowledge receipt of your letter which was written on 4 June.
I received your letter of 4 June.
2) In compliance with your request, I will send you the PIL information tomorrow.
As requested, I will send you information on the Personal Instalment Loan (PIL) tomorrow.
3) We cannot provide a new cheque book immediately due to the fact that it takes a few days for printing.
We are unable to provide a new cheque book immediately as it takes a few days to print.
4) With reference to the captioned subject, I am pleased to inform you that your application is successful. [the "captioned subject" is "HSBC Classic Visa card"]
I am pleased to inform you that your application for an HSBC Classic Visa card is successful.
5) Kindly fill in the attached form and forward it to me at your earliest convenience.
Please fill in the attached form and send it to me by 4 June.
SUMMARY EXERCISE 2: LETTER TO MR PERRY
In Chapter 3 you drafted a letter to Mr Perry and then revised the document for completeness. In Chapter 4, your revised the paragraphs of the letter to make them cohesive.
In this exercise, you'll revise the letter to Mr Perry again. This time, you'll try to make the sentences clear and concise.
To do this exercise, you'll need the letter that you revised in Chapter 4.
Check each sentence to ensure that it is clear and concise.
To make a sentence clear, you need to
l be specific and
l avoid jargon.
To make a sentence concise, you need to
l include only the necessary words
l include only one idea
l avoid the passive voice of the verb
l avoid old-fashioned business English.
Write your revision on a piece of paper.
When you've finished revising the sentences in your letter to Mr Perry, keep both the "first draft" and this "third revision". You'll need them in Chapters 6 and 8.
Well Done!
You've now completed Chapter 5!
In this chapter you continued to look at the fourth stage of the Writing Process: Revise.
So, now you know how to
write clear and concise sentences
revise sentences to make them clear and concise.
In the next chapter, you'll continue to learn how to revise your documents. You'll discover how to revise your sentences to make them courteous.
See you there!
