Memorandum

To: Professor Thompson

From: Margelia Stewart

Date: 05/19/2019

Subject: Project 1

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I have finished the analysis you requested of my past writing. My findings about brevity,
precision, directness, and noticeability of error are presented in the sections below.

I. Be Concise: To be concise means every word in a sentence is needed to meet audience

needs and the writer’s purpose.

A. Redundant words: Unnecessarily repeating the same word or phrase without adding
anything to the text. I use several words and phrases too much. These are:

1. “It is as if…”

2. “…as though…”

3. “…in a long time.”

4. “It seems that…”

B. Dead phrases

1. There are a couple dead phrases in my writing. They are:

a) “It is clear from the dialogue…”

b) “It is understandable that…”

C. Unnecessary modifiers

1. There are a lot of modifiers in my writing. The most common are:

a) “Certainly”

b) “Perhaps”

c) “Primarily”

d) “Previously”

e) “In the past”

2. I tend to use a disproportionate number of adverbs in my writing. Take the following,

for example: “Something inside a person begins to build, some deep-seated
discontent with our lives or ourselves, or both. Then something happens, maybe
something seemingly insignificant, which brings new clarity to our thoughts. We
have an epiphany, and are deeply and permanently changed by it. As a result, the life
we previously tolerated becomes intolerable, and it must change, just as we have
changed.”
3. This passage has only 4 sentences, but 6 adverbs.

4. There is also a phrase that could be categorized as “near-death”. It would be when I

say “as a result…” This is unnecessary and adds nothing to the text.

D. Summary: 

I tend to restate or rephrase things more times that necessary and include more
adverbs that any reasonable person would.



Project 1 Margelia Stewart Page 2

II. Be Precise: To be precise means to be exact and accurate. How precise you need to be is
based on the audience.

A. Audience Expertise and Technical Terminology: 


The audience for this particular paper was my English 102 professor at community
college. The Gunning Fog index for the paper is 11.91, making it appropriate for a high
school junior to senior. Considering that the paper was a comparison of 3 pieces of
literature, this score does not surprise me. It was not a particularly technical topic to
explore.

B. Consistent Terminology:

Terminology is consistent, if repetitive. The theme is “rebirth” and I use that exact word
11 times throughout the paper. I use the word “reborn” an additional 7 times. It reads
somewhat tediously.

C. Levels of Specifics and Detail:


Specifics and detail were appropriate for the audience and topic, with supportive
quotes and footnotes. It would be difficult, however, for someone unfamiliar with the
texts being referenced, to follow. Reading it now I see that it definitely assumes the
reader has read them, which is perhaps not the best approach.

D. Summary:

I could do better. It was a good enough attempt, and adequate for what it was (an
English 102 paper for community college), but not for anything else. I wouldn’t exactly
use it in a writing portfolio.

III. Be Direct: To be direct is to be straightforward; to get to the point. To do this, you need to
use mostly active verbs, mostly active voice, topic position, and stress position.

A. Active vs. passive verbs

1. After highlighting every verb in my paper and attempting to count passive vs. active
verbs, the number of passive verbs seemed low, and I thought I was not interpreting
them correctly. I finally gave up, and turned to the Passive Voice Detector online
(found at https://datayze.com/passive-voice-detector.php ). It found only 5.5% of
my paper was written in the passive voice, which pretty much verified my own
count, so I think the paper was written primarily in an active voice.

2. Several of the “passive verbs” that the web tool found were actually in quotes from
the reading that I was analyzing, not my own writing. I didn’t correct for this.

B. Stress position

1. I did not find that I wrote sentences that misuse stress position. This surprised me,
as I expected to find that to be one of the more common errors for me to make. For
example, this bit here: “To be reborn, Baldwin tells us, first you have to die. Baldwin
describes the awfulness that consumed Sonny, and it sounds as though not only did
Sonny die, but he went through hell, as well. It appears as though this is the only
way for some people to get to a place where rebirth is possible.”

2. The stress position emphasizes things that I wanted to be emphasized.





Project 1 Margelia Stewart Page 3

C. Topic Position: 

My topic sentences are clear and give the reader a good idea of where the paper is
going, however they are somewhat abrupt. Three examples follow.

1. “A common element seen in rebirth themes is a metaphoric death prior to the

newfound life.”

2. “In “Story of an Hour,” Mrs. Mallard has an epiphany predicated on false information,
and when it turns out that she is not going to have the new life she was envisioning,
it kills her.”

3. “Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” introduces to us three convicts

that arrive in a car that is described as being “hearse-like”(191), bringing us another
character that is metaphorically dead.”


D. Summary:

This seems to be the area that I am strongest in. I was surprised by this because I feel
like I tend to prattle on, so I thought being concise and being direct were my weakest
areas, but the way the analysis broke down my writing makes it look like I was wrong. (I
still think in terms of style that I DO prattle on, but I couldn’t find a way to demonstrate
that using these metrics.)

IV. Noticeable Error: Errors that make your writing unclear and/or cause confusion. It will also
imply that you are careless.

A. Run-on Sentences

1. “So he plays the blues, and he uses the piano to tell about all the destruction and
devastation in the neighborhoods he grew up in, the troubles his parents knew, and
everything that has brought him pain.”

2. This is a run-on sentence. It used commas incorrectly, and can be trimmed of

excess words. It could simply be “He uses the piano to illuminate the darkness that
has plagued his community.”

3. There are a few other run-on sentences that should be fixed as well, but I won’t
include all of them here

B. Other errors

1. I did not splice or skip commas.

2. Faulty Parallel Structure: When a writer is not using the same grammatical form of
words in a pair or series that are related.

a) This was not an error I made in this particular paper, and it is one that bothers
me a lot when reading. It is not one I tend to make but I would have to check
older papers to verify this.

b) This paper didn’t use parallels very much at all, so there weren’t many
opportunities to make this mistake. It is possible I make it in other papers but I
don’t have any to check.

C. Incorrect Usage and Typos

1. I am the grammar police. I am pretty persnickety about things like their/there/

they’re, your/you’re, its/it’s, and subject/verb disagreements. (To be honest, I am
actually also very “judgey” about these things.) This does not mean I do not make
these mistakes, of course, but it isn’t a problem I feel the need to focus on.

2. I did not find typos in this particular paper but I know for a fact I do make them
sometimes. It is something I need to be more careful about.

Project 1 Margelia Stewart Page 4

D. Introductory elements and commas

1. I did not find that I used very many introductory elements in my writing. These are
the only examples I could identify:

a) “Metaphorically speaking, Sonny in “Sonny’s Blues” is certainly dead for some

time before his rebirth.”

b) “At the beginning of the story, she is a frail woman who may as well be dead,
and at the height of her rebirth she is nothing less than a goddess.”

c) “Before, she didn’t even realize how unhappy she was with her life.”

d) “It seems that, despite having said his parents were good people, he is startled
by affection and love in a way that makes us question if he has never known it.”

Each seems to use a comma in the appropriate place. In more casual writing I know I
do, however, use commas inappropriately sometimes. It just happened to not be a problem in
this particular piece.

E. Conclusion:

Grammar is not a big problem for me, generally speaking. I’m sure there are ways I
could improve in all aspects of writing, including grammar, but I believe being concise is
a bigger problem for me right now than grammar. Being concise and direct are issues I
have difficulty with. 



Also, as a side note, I believe that being good at writing, and being constantly praised
for such, made me less inclined in high school to focus on the technical aspects of it. I
was told so often that I was a good writer that I didn’t bother to improve on the parts I
knew I wasn’t good at. Instead I just avoided the type of writing that is more difficult for
me.