Page 284 - Writing Winning Business Proposals
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APPENDIX E
A Few Comments
About Writing
Effective Sentences
(and Paragraphs)
his chapter isn’t at all about how to write correct sentences—about avoiding
Tmisplaced modifiers, dangling participles, run-on sentences, superfluous
commas, or comma splices. And it’s far less than comprehensive in discussing
effective sentences, so you won’t find topics like sentence variety, subordination,
and emphasis. What you will find is a few reasonably brief comments about strat-
egies you can use and problems you can avoid when writing proposals.
If you want more information (either about writing correct sentences or effec-
tive ones), consult an English handbook, which most people find as enjoyable as
memorizing a telephone directory, though considerably more useful. Buy a good
handbook and consider it a business expense. Consider it part of your business
to know what a comma splice is and how to fix one—or how never to write one
in the first place. (Please don’t tell me that you’ve never been able to understand a
comma splice. If you’re reading this book, you’re a very smart person. Trust me:
You can understand comma splices.)
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