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Memorandum
To:
From:
Date:
Subject:

Karen Thompson
Felicia Beehner
January 18, 2016
Project 1: Technical and Scientific Prose Style

This memo describes my findings after examining my prose style from prior writing. The sections
below cover the analysis of my writing for being concise, precise, direct, and stress emphasis. The
prior writing I used is a 10 page essay from an education class that I took last fall.
Being Concise
Dead Phrases: To be concise means to write only the necessary words to meet your purpose and the
needs of your audience. I tend to add extra words that do not add to the meaning of my sentences. For
example, I add words such as typically or simply when they arent necessary:
Creativity does not simply include the use of the imagination, like people typically think,
but in fact is much deeper.
The phrases not simply and like people typically think do not add much to the thought I was
trying to get across. My sentence could have worked without these dead phrases.
Word Choice: I noticed while looking at the word choice lists on pages 71-73 that I used the word
implement about 5 times in my essay. This could also be unnecessary repetition. I tend to use big
words when they arent necessary:
This balance is what makes creativity hard to implement, because we just dont have a
standard definition of creativity.
The text suggests using carry out instead of implement. I could have switched up a different word for
implement to decrease its use or replaced it with a simpler word to make it more concise.
Being Precise
Level of Detail: To be precise means to write the amount of detail appropriate to what readers need
to understand your purpose. I noticed I added a lot of extra information in my writing. For example, I
added an extra bit in the middle of a sentence for more information:
This is not true, as creativity involves a specific way of thinking outside of the box, which
anyone can do with varying difficulty depending on how their creativity was fostered, and it
is the easiest way to change the way children think.
This sentence is too long, complicated, and not precise. The extra information is not necessarily the
level of detail that my reader needed. I could have easily cut out the middle section of that sentence
and it would have been more precise.
Jargon: Another area of being precise I noticed in my writing was jargon. While my paper was
education related and should have some jargon, I noticed I switched between using abbreviations of

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jargon and the full phrases. For example, I interchanged SRL and Self-Regulated Learning, which I
used many times throughout my essay:
To promote SRL in the classroom, teachers have to be considerate of the differences in
each students self-regulated learning strategies
This use of jargon makes the sentence confusing. I could have used the abbreviated SRL or the full
phrase, but using both in the same sentence was unnecessary and a poor use of jargon.
Being Direct
Use Strong Nouns and Verbs: To be direct means choosing strong nouns and verbs and making
smart decisions about using active and passive voice. I noticed I started a few sentences with a few
be verbs, which create weak and indirect sentences. For example, I started a sentence with there
are and used there are again in the same sentence:
There are hundreds of different definitions of creativity, but there are three components
that typically are used to understand what exactly creativity is.
This sentence is not direct, but it could have been without the use of there are. It could have been,
Hundreds of different definitions of creativity exist, and it would have got more to the point and
it would have been more specific.
Using Stress Emphasis
Avoid Sprawl: Stress emphasis is where we place emphasis in a sentence. Usually, it is at the end of
a sentence and is considered most important by readers. I noticed I used some sprawl, where I had
who and which beginning my sentences, which is not specific. For example, one of my sentences
read:
Who knows why exactly creativity happens and what exactly triggers it.
Using sprawl like this added nothing to my paper. This sentence could easily have been removed
from my paper and it would not have made a difference.
Trim the End: Another error I noticed was that I tend to ramble on at the end of sentences, which
hurts the stress emphasis at the ends of what Im writing. For example, I had a sentence that could
have been broken into two sentences for emphasis, but instead rambled at the end:
Goals are always an important aspect of self-regulated learning as they help the learner
understand what they need to work towards.
The highlighted part of the sentence could either have been removed altogether or made into a
separate sentence. The emphasis on a sentence ending with self-regulated learning is more powerful
than the untrimmed ending.
Conclusion
While I have never struggled writing, and received an A on the essay I analyzed, I was surprised to

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find out that there are lots of ways that I can improve my writing. I tend to have long sentences,
some dead phrases, and I ramble with extra information. I do not make these errors often, yet they
are there. I am not very good at writing in a concise way. To improve, I need to stop writing for
word count or page number (which I have grown accustomed to doing) and more for the point I am
trying to make.