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!
(来源:中国物流论坛
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