Directions!
This week! Due in peer review on Friday, with final version in hard copy due on Monday.
First, a lession on word choices, but let's review a few items from our worksheets on sentences (subject-verb is the heart of a good and clear sentence). Here is a good discussion on these ideas including active voice from Duke's Scientific Communication overview. Read this web exhibit, starting with Principles 2 and 3. In your reading for your science classes, you may want to look for these techniques.
Principle 1 is new to you. This focus concerns nominalizations. Read this New York Times article, which calls nominazations "zombie nouns." Writer Helen Sword says:
Take an adjective (implacable) or a verb (calibrate) or even another noun (crony) and add a suffix like ity, tion or ism. You’ve created a new noun: implacability, calibration, cronyism. Sounds impressive, right?
Nouns formed from other parts of speech are called nominalizations. Academics love them; so do lawyers, bureaucrats and business writers. I call them “zombie nouns” because they cannibalize active verbs, suck the lifeblood from adjectives and substitute abstract entities for human beings:
The proliferation of nominalizations in a discursive formation may be an indication of a tendency toward pomposity and abstraction.
H.S.'s "Draft" -- a regular feature -- is a series about the art and craft of writing.
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- front matter,
- the heart of the directions (numbered, ordered commands), and
- back matter.
Marybeth Shea
Let's talk about recipes. Bones of the Dead (Osse de Mort). What about visuals? And, this website for publishing science procedure videos: JoVE.
How do we build trust in writing directions? To be discussed.
Also, where on the web do directions live?
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