Phil Druker/Department of English/ University of Idaho

   Travel Writing              

Here’s the sentence style exercise to do with Assignment 3.  This will help you evaluate the readability of your piece.

Phil Druker/ Tech Writing                                   NAME____________________________

Style/Readability Check and Revision Exercise for the Proposal

***Turn this in on Tuesday when you turn in assignment 3***

To do this assignment, copy and paste this page into Word and then:

1.Pick a paragraph from your article (not paragraph 1 or the last paragraph).  Cut and paste it onto this page.

2.Count the number of words in each sentence:

S1

S2

S3

S4

S5

S6

S7

S8

S9

S10_______________

Total words:                             Average Length= total words/# of sentences =  _________

3.Circle the BE verbs in the paragraph. BE verbs = am, is, are, was, were, been, being, be

4.Count the number of BE verbs. Divide the Number of BE Verbs/the number of sentences x100% = %age of BE verbs per sentence.
(This percentage should be less that 33% and certainly less than 50%.)  Show the calculation here:

5. Put a square around the passive verbs. Passive = BE verb + verb+ past form (See Passive Sentences on the course web).
        Examples: was broken, is seen, was asked, will be delivered, has been dropped

6. Count the number of passive sentences. # of passive sentences/# of sentences X 100% =  percentage of PASSIVE verbs per sentence. 
(This number should be less that 33%.) Show the calculation here:

7. Which sentences are simple (S),  compound (C), and complex (CX).  % of each?

7. Revise two sentences to reduce (or eliminate) Be, passive, or wordiness.