Page 91 - English for Writing Research Papers

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The OV demonstrates that the excessive use of commas is a sign of lazy writing.
The writer simply begins a sentence and keeps adding details to it, without thinking
about how the reader will assimilate all these details. It also indicates that the writer
is probably not clear in his / her own mind about what he / she wants to say.

Note that the RV:

• uses more words in total, but is considerably easier to follow

• rearranges the various subordinate clauses and puts them into a more logical
order and in separate sentences

• divides up the information into paragraphs – the first explains the rationale,
the second shows how the investigation was carried out. This makes the con-
nection between ideas much clearer

Commas can also be dangerous if you use them to build up a series of phrases each
of which describes the previous one, as in S1.

S1. In particular, the base peak is characteristic of the fragmentation of dehydroabietic acid,
the main degradation marker formed by aromatization of abietadienic acids, the major
constituents of pine resins.

Initially when reading S1 it seems that the peak is a characteristic of a series of
items separated by commas. Then as we read further we understand that the main
degradation marker is not in fact a second element in a series of items. Given that
the main degradation marker comes immediately after dehydroabietic acid we
assume that this acid must be a marker . We then realize that in fact it refers back to
fragmentation . S1 thus requires much interpretative effort by the reader and is better
rewritten as in S2:

S2. The base peak is characteristic of the fragmentation of dehydroabietic acid . This frag-
mentation is the main degradation marker formed by aromatization of abietadienic acids,
which are the major constituents of pine resins.

S2 divides S1 into two separate sentences and also clarifies the relationships between

the various elements.