http://www.ck12.org Chapter 7. Tone and Style
Example 2-Dogs,cats,andotherdomesticatedanimalscanlearnfrommistakes,aswehumansdo(topicand
characters). The discovery of this behavior in animals has led scientists to conclude it is not exclusively human.
Writers sometimes take a while to get to the topic of their sentences or paragraphs by inserting information that
could easily come afterwards, or even not appear at all. Consider Example 3.
Example 3- It is important to note that, after years of discrimination and unheard appeals for justice,politicians
finallyrecognizedminoritygroupsneededtohavetheirbasicrightswrittenaslaw.
The introductory clauseitisimportanttonotethat is unnecessary. The writer would not have included the main
information if it were not important. Also, the time adverbialafteryearsofdiscriminationandunheardappeals
forjustice could be placed after the main clause, if it is not needed beforehand as a transition or for emphasis. In
the following example, we assume it is not needed as such.
Example 4-Politiciansfinallyrecognizedminoritygroupsneeded to have their basic rights written as law after
years of discrimination and unheard appeals for justice.
In the sentence of Example 4, both topic and character come first, and the supporting or secondary information
comes after. This strategy creates a more readable and coherent sentence.
Review Questions
Rewrite the following paragraph in order to make it coherent. Some sentences require further correction.
- I believe that technology can help people more in their lives. Nowadays, automation has become very popular
in many areas, including agriculture. Vietnam is still an agricultural country, but it is not helped much by
high technology, especially the poor farmers. I hope that in the future the farmers will enjoy the benefits of
automation with a suitable price. The farmers can use a remote control to run a machine that can help them a
lot in farming.
Suggestion:First, identify the topic of the paragraph and then make it a topic sentence. Then find the characters.
After that, decide which information should come after.