D#4 H#2 Grammar Assignment

Here are a couple of paragraphs that I was thinking about writing for my research project: (keep in mind that it is a rough draft)

Before the 1980’s anorexia was not a disease that was well known. It was practically unheard of, and had gone unnoticed in prior generations. Recently the number of people affected by this disease has sky-rocketed, but why?
Although anorexia nervosa is a relatively modern disease, female fasting is assuredly not a new behavior. Anorexia was known among physicians as early as the 1970’s however, it wasn’t until the 1980’s that the press ran news articles on this subject did the general public begin to know about the disease. A few things that may cause this disease are personality traits, control issues, and a societal influence on adolescent girls.

“Readability”- From: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/GrammarGirl/Default.aspx
This lecture stressed that formatting documents is an essential part of writing. It also talked about the presentation of an article. Make sure to use an eye friendly font and keep ample white space in-between lines. The lectured said that poor presentation can distract the reader. Also, break up text into manageable chunks, and divide the sections by categories. Put sections that are more important before less important ones. This will not only help the writer in writing, but also the reader in understanding the topic.
Wordiness and Idioms”- From: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/GrammarGirl/Default.aspx
I learned the phrase “go ahead and” is completely redundant and that prefixes in front of verbs are irrelevant. Idioms are things that don’t mean what they really say, so the only have meaning to native speakers. For example: ‘under the weather.’ The main thing is to say what you have to say, don’t fill up what you want to say with all sorts of words. This will only delude the meaning.
“Commas”- From http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/
Commas have been something that I have used and abused in the past, so I read this article to clarify the proper uses of a comma.

I learned quite a bit from reading and listening to these exercises. One of the major things I took out of this exercise is taking a critical look at wordiness. The more words one uses to flourish a sentence the less impact that it has on the reader. So be upfront about what you have to say. I’m pretty good at adding words that don’t need to be in sentences, so this has already helped me in the two paragraphs that I worked on tonight.