Some writers used to commit error in writing sentences. This is because of the “lack of clarity” and “lack of agreement and consistency” in sentence writing.
Lack of clarity may be due to the following reasons; faulty pronoun references, dangling and misplaced modifier, faulty parallelism, improper subordination of one idea to another and run-together or fused sentences.
Lack of agreement may also due to the following; lack of agreement between subject and verb, incorrect and inconsistent tenses and unnecessary shift in person, number and voice.
Lack of clarity in the sentences can be due to the “faulty pronoun reference”. This is committed when a pronoun is wrongly used in replacing a noun. To be able to use the correct pronoun, it is important to make sure that the correct pronoun is used by testing each of the word for its meaning.
“Modifier” is used to explain define or add details to other words or ideas in the sentences. Sometimes the modifiers are found to be dangling or misplaced resulting to the lack of clarity of the idea.
Sentence clarity may also due to “faulty parallelism”. The elements should be put in the grammatical form (gerund, infinitive and the like) to be able to see the relationship clearly.
It may also due to “subordination of one idea to another”. The proper subordination must show that the less important idea is dependent on the more important idea.
“Sentence fragment” is also one of the reasons why the lack of clarity is established. Sentence fragment means that sentence may look like a complete sentence but actually they are not. Another thing that causes lack of clarity is the “run-together or fused sentences”.
The lack of agreement and consistency in a sentence may be cause by the “lack of agreement between the subject and the verb”. A writer can avoid this by identifying the verb and the true subject in a sentence and finding out whether the subject and the verb in the sentence agree in the number and in person.
The next cause is the “use of the incorrect or inconsistent tenses”, one should stay with same tense, it might be present or past. This situation will not be applicable when the sense of the sentence demands the change of the tense. The reason for this is that the time relationship must be found to be consistent and logical.
The lack of agreement and consistency can also be a cause of “unnecessary shifts in person, numbers, and voices”. The writer should remember that with tenses, the aim is consistency; that means, avoiding a sudden shift from active tense to passive without having a good reason to do.
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