Style Exercise 3: Cohesion

Conducted: Tuesday, 9 September 2003

Summary: In this exercise, you will have the opportunity to rewrite two paragraphs to make them cohere better.

Purpose: To give you practice with the second step in Williams's strategy for rewriting prose clearly.

Citation: The first paragraph was taken from

Williams, Joseph M. (1990). Style: Toward Clarity and Grace. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

The second was taken from

Williams, Joseph M. (2003). Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace, Seventh Edition. New York, Longman.

Instructions:

1. Rewrite each of the following paragraphs to make them cohere better.

2. Share your rewrites with your neighbors.

3. Share any general thoughts with the group.

A. A defect which involves the possible failure of a frame support plate may exist on your vehicle. This plate (front suspension pivot bar support plate) connects a portion of the front suspension to the vehicle frame, and its failure could affect vehicle directional control, particularly during heavy break application. In addition, your vehicle may require adjustment service to the hood secondary catch system. The secondary catch may be misaligned so that the hood may not be adequately restrained to prevent hood fly-up in the event the primary latch is inadvertently left unengaged. Sudden hood fly-up beyond the secondary catch while driving could impair driver visibility. In certain circumstances, occurrence of either of the above conditions could result in vehicle crash without prior warning.

B. Vegetation covers the earth, except for those areas continuously covered with ice or utterly scorched by continual heat. Richly fertilized plains and river valleys are places where plants grow most richly; but also at the edge of perpetual snow in high mountains. The ocean and its edges as well as in and around lakes and swamps are densely vegetated. The cracks of busy city sidewalks have plants in them as well as in seemingly barren cliffs. Before humans existed, the earth was covered with vegetation, and the earth will have vegetation long after evolutionary history swallows us up.