写作 Chapter Three Base3.pptVIP

Examples Unemphatic: The painting has subdued tone, great feeling, and a length of about three feet. Emphatic: The painting, about three feet long, has subdued tone and great feeling. 2) Balanced Sentences Balanced sentence depend upon repetition—sometimes of the same words, always of the same grammatical structures: phrases, clauses, sometimes the whole sentences. Arranging Ideas Effectively Example 1 Virginia Woolf repeats the same adverb, changing the verb each time to achieve this impressive sentence: One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well. Example 2 Mark Twain balances independent clauses for a comic effect in this line spoken by the narrator of A Dog’s Tale: “My father was a St. Bernard, my mother was a collie. but I am Presbyterian.” Arranging Ideas Effectively Comment: While parallel structure lends itself particularly well to emphatic sentences, the technique is fundamental to all good writing. If we by chance put together a sentence involving two similar elements or a series of them, our readers expect these similar parts to be balanced (or parallel). Such a structure may occur whenever you join parts of sentences with any of the coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, for, nor, yet, so). Arranging Ideas Effectively Activity Consider the problem first in this simple example. Clyde likes to smoke and drinking. Example Comment: Your readers expect those italicized parts to sound alike, to be balanced in construction, like the following: Clyde likes to smoke and drink. Clyde likes smoking and drinking. The first sentence uses infinitive phrases with to understood before drink; the second one uses two gerundial verbs. Therefore, they are both identical in sound and construction. Arranging Ideas Effectively Activity Let us try a more typical example -the kind of sentence you’re likely to write in a hurry and should put into parallel structure when you revise. Example Politicians today