Journal 18: In Chapter 7 of “Writing in Response” by Matthew Parfitt he expresses the ways to successfully craft a sentence. As you revise sentences, keep these things in mind: Use longer or shorter sentences as needed to express the relationship between ideas. For greater clarity and economy, combine short sentences using subordination or coordination. Express closer relationships between ideas by combining simple sentences into compound and compound-complex sentences. Never forget to join independent clauses correctly, using semicolon or a comma and a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or). Use the Rhetorical sentence type that best expresses the thought: loose, balanced, or periodic. Look for the “stories” in your sentences and ensure that actors are nouns and actions are verbs, for subject-verb agreement purposes. Also, the one thing most people forget to revise unnecessary expletive constructions. Chapter 7 is relevant to SLO 1, and this is where through the usage of rhetorical knowledge and using it to practice purposeful shifts in structure, content, diction, tone, formality, design, and/ or medium in accordance with the rhetorical situation. This creates better opportunity for more well-developed and structurally sound or complex sentences. These will overall enhance your paper in a multitude of ways, for example it will make the diction within the writing sound more intellectually correct.

Journal 19: In Chapter 8 of “Writing in Response” by Matthew Parfitt he states how to “write with style.” In order to understand the principles of plain style you must look for excess verbiage, cut empty phrases, prefer the active voice, cast sentences in positive form, and avoid unnecessary qualifiers at all costs. Be direct and choose clear vocabulary, be sure to incorporate concrete words, use good diction, and use “fancy” words, jargon, and neologisms with some caution. The usage of verbs will bring life and action to the sentences. If at all possible avoid monotonous sentence structures by placing important words at the end of the sentence for emphasis. To fully understand “copious” style you must strive to express your thoughts fully while making every word count. Also achieve an equal balance of rich and plain text; while observing conventions of academic style. To successfully do this, you must maintain a scholarly tone, aim to be clear but not simplistic, follow disciplinary conventions in preferring the active or passive voice, use qualifiers to hedge claims, and know how to convey impartiality. This Chapter is relevant to SLO 4 due to the correlation of Demonstrating competency in grammar, punctuation, spelling, practicing genre conventions for structure, paragraphing, tone and mechanics. This is evident through the various styles of writing that are shown in the chapter and how to successfully demonstrate each one.