Style Academy #5

I decided to do my style academy assignment on the semicolon because it’s something that I have never fully understood. The rules that come along with the semicolon are as follows. When you have two independent clauses you can use a semicolon to separate them but still keep them in the same sentence. The second rule is that you use to semicolon to separate to causes that are linked with a transitional element. The third is similar to the second, it’s joining two independent clauses that are linked with a transitional phrase. The fourth is a little different. You use a semicolon to separate two elements of a sentence.

            To be honest I had no idea about any of these rules before I watched the video and I realize now that I make way too many mistakes with semicolons in my writing. A good example of a wrong sentence being corrected it:

-               The dog went down to the market, the man went to find his dog.

-               The dog went down to the market; the man went to find his dog.

            I’m still not comfortable using semicolons but I now understand when they are supposed to be used and I can practice in the future.

Style Academy #4

I chose to focus my style academy lesson on the difference between active and passive sentences. I continue to struggle with this concept in my writing because I personally like the sound of passive sentences more than active sentences. My personal writing style is using passive sentences in a more articulate way in order to get a point across. Yes, I know it may be more wordy and annoying, but to me it sounds better. 

But this is an assignment, and we are getting graded on it, so I might as well attempt to change some of my passive sentences to active sentences. 

Original Sentence: "Other students will be able to be found by our users using the search tab." 

New Sentence: "Users will be able to search for other students using the ‘search’ tab."

Overall I have learned that active sentences give a paper a more direct, simple tone. In the future I hope to write in a more active tone so that my readers will be able to understand better and get more out of my papers.