Clarity, Part 1

1.)     Shifts

     I was already relatively knowledgable in maintaining person and number, along with maintaining the right verb tense. I found it interesting to learn that fictional events are supposed to be discussed in the present tense. It was cool to see the use of shifts from indirect to direct questions or quotations. I never really took the time to consider that there was a fundamentally accurate way to complete those shifts.

2.)     Emphasis

     I found it interesting to consider how coordinating conjunctions help to emphasize certain verbs or nouns within a sentence. I never really thought to us those for emphasis, rather than sentence fluency. I already knew to combine sentence in order to make them flow a little better; however, looking at the examples of the goods and the bad in the book made me realize how those sentence extenders can be the difference between a weak and a strong paragraph. Lastly, I was intrigued by how RFW talked about not subordinating major ideas. It makes a huge difference in the way a sentence sounds when you emphasize the key parts. 

3.)     Variety

    I have always been an advocate of trying to use variety for my sentence beginnings, but I usually just used your general transitions. It was neat to visualize the different translations that can be used to incorporate the information that is already in the sentence. Another thing that really caught my attention was the idea of inverting sentences.  The sentences sounded so much more elegant and flow-full when they were inverted. It made them seem much more intelligent. 

4.)     Needed Words

     I found some of the ideas in the completing compound structures to be weird. I feel as though some of the added words were unnecessary. The point would still have been made without them. That just goes to show that the English language is intricate and difficult, to say the least. I feel as though I already knew a good amount on using a, an, and the in specific locations of sentences in order to provide grammatical completeness. It was cool to see the differences in action, but I think that section is mostly based on just common sense.

 REFLECTION
      One thing that I noticed often when going through these papers was the referencing of papers (shifts). I liked to see people talking in the present tense about their rhetorical pieces. For example, Brittany wrote, "John Miller shows mixed..." This is a good example of how she correctly uses "shows" in the present tense when talking about another piece.
I noticed, when looking through Jess's paper, that were some areas of her writing where she used words that I felt were not necessary. On one occasion, she begins her paragraph by saying, "So few people knew anything..." This struck me for two reasons: I do not feel as though she needed the word "So." I think that is an unneeded word that takes away from the emphasis on the sentence. Also, I feel as though she was trying to add variety to the beginning of her paragraph. A transition could have been valuable here, but "So" is not that the transition that makes this paper the strongest that it could be.