5
Business Style: Sentences
and Paragraphs
Chapter Overview
This chapter provides strategies for improving the clarity, correctness, and impact of your sentences
and paragraphs as building blocks of convincing and compelling business writing. You’ll learn to
adjust and vary your sentences according to their length and type to emphasize ideas, convey your
purpose, and hold the reader’s interest. You’ll also learn about the concept of voice, the secret to
achieving a strong and direct style and to breaking unfavourable news tactfully, without accusations.
You’ll explore options for combining sentences in focused, cohesive paragraphs with logical flow
and organization. Finally, you’ll learn to identify common sentence-level errors and refine your business style by eliminating them.
Learning Objectives
In this chapter, you will learn to do the following:
1. Recognize the building blocks and the basic types of sentences.
2. Improve sentence variety by matching sentence style and length to purpose.
3. Phrase basic types of questions effectively.
4. Improve sentence clarity.
5. Use parallelism to write with consistency and impact.
6. Emphasize important facts and ideas; minimize less important ones.
Communicating for Results, Fourth Edition
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7. Distinguish between active and passive voice.
8. Eliminate sentence errors that impair clarity and unity: sentence fragments, run-on sentences,
misplaced and dangling modifiers, mixed constructions, and so on.
9. Develop logical, coherent, and focused paragraphs.
10. Apply strategies for proofreading different kinds of messages.
Key Concepts
Appositive: A word or group of words that renames or restates the noun that it follows or precedes.
(p. 149)
Clause: A group of related words containing a subject and a complete verb; a clause can be either
independent or dependent. (p. 146)
Closed question: A question with a limited number of possible responses. (p. 150)
Coherence: The logical and semantic links between sentences. (p. 164)
Comma splice: The error of connecting two independent clauses with a comma. (p. 159)
Complex sentence: A sentence containing one or more dependent clauses and one independent
clauses. (p. 148)
Compound-complex sentence: A sentence containing one dependent clause and two or more in-
dependent clauses. (p. 148)
Compound sentence: A sentence containing two or more independent clauses joined by one or
more coordinating conjunctions. (p. 147)
Dangling modifier: A phrase that does not clearly apply to another word in a sentence. (p. 160)
Declarative sentence: A sentence that makes a statement. (p. 150)
Dependent clause (or subordinate clause): A clause that cannot function on its own as an inde-
pendent grammatical unit. (p. 146)
Elliptical construction: A sentence structure that deliberately omits words that can be inferred from
the context. (p. 160)
Emphasis: In writing, the practice of making facts and ideas stand out from surrounding text. (p. 153)
Faulty predication: An error involving the illogical combination of subject and verb. (p. 161)
Format: A term for the parts of the document and the way they are arranged on a page. (p. 167)
Fused sentence (or run-on): Two or more independent clauses erroneously run together without
the use of required punctuation or coordinating conjunctions. (p. 159)
Hypothetical question: A question that poses a supposition. (p. 151)
Independent clause: A clause that functions on its own as an independent grammatical unit. (p. 146)
Misplaced modifier: An incorrectly placed descriptive word or phrase that attaches its meaning illog-
ically to a word it is not meant to modify. (p. 160)
Mixed construction: The error of pairing mismatched grammatical structures in the same sentence,
resulting in unclear or illogical meaning. (p. 161)
Communicating for Results, Fourth Edition
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Modifier: A word or group of words that describes or gives information about another word in a
sentence. (p. 146)
Number: A term that refers to whether a word is singular (one) or plural (more than one). (p. 152)
Open question: A question with an unlimited number of possible responses. (p. 151)
Paragraph: A group of sentences that develops one main idea. (p. 162)
Parallelism: The use of the same grammatical forms or matching sentence structures to express
equivalent ideas. (p. 152)
Participial phrase: A phrase beginning with a participle that modifies the subject of the clause for
which it is attached (p. 149).
Person: A term that describes who or what is performing or experiencing an action in terms of the
noun or pronoun that is used: first person (I, we), second person (you), and third person (he, she, it,
they). (p. 152)
Phrase: A group of words containing a subject or verb, which cannot stand on its own as a com-
plete sentence. (p. 146)
Prepositional phrase: A phrase beginning with a preposition that sets out a relationship in time or
space. (p. 149)
Pronoun reference: The relationship between a pronoun and the antecedent to which it refers. (p. 151)
Relative clause: A dependent clause beginning with that, which, or who that acts as an adjective to
modify another part of a sentence. (p. 149)
Sentence fragment: A portion of a sentence that is punctuated like a complete sentence but does
not deliver full meaning. (p. 159)
Shouting: The largely unacceptable practice of typing a message in uppercase letters. (p. 154)
Simple sentence: a sentence containing one independent clause. (p. 147)
Subject: The word or group of words in a phrase, clause, or sentence that acts or is acted upon. (p. 146)
Transitional expressions: Words and phrases that show logical, temporal, and spatial relationships
and connect ideas to create coherence. (p. 165)
Topic sentence: A sentence that summarizes the main idea in a paragraph. (p. 163)
Verb: The word or group of words in a phrase, clause, or sentence that \
Review Questions
For sample answers, see below.
1. What are three ways to improve sentence variety and length?
2. What are the three types of questions writers can use?
3. Which of the following sentences is written in parallel form?
a) We have ordered nails, packing tape, and we got paper.
b) We ordered nails, we got packing tape, and paper.
c) We ordered nails, packing tape, and paper.
Communicating for Results, Fourth Edition
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4. What are some ways that you can emphasize points in a written message?
5. Which sentence is written in active voice?
a) Margaret chaired the meeting.
b) The meeting was chaired by Margaret.
6. What advantages does writing in active voice offer?
7. When is it appropriate to use passive voice?
8. How can the following sentence be corrected?
“He ran in the marathon. Despite the fact that he had an injured knee.”
9. What is wrong with the following sentence?
“The cat sat beside me drinking coffee.”
10. How long should paragraphs be in business writing?
Communicating for Results, Fourth Edition
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Review Questions: Answers
1. Three strategies help improve sentence variety and length: (1) vary the rhythm by alternating
short and long sentences; (2) turn a clause into a prepositional phrase; (3) convert a sentence defining or describing something into a phrase or clause. (pp. 148–149)
2. There are three kinds of questions (pp. 150–151):
a) Closed (has a limited response; often answered with a “yes” or “no” or one or two words)
b) Open (has an unlimited number of possible responses)
c) Hypothetical (poses a supposition or “what if” scenario)
3. Sentence (c) (We ordered nails, packing tape, and paper) is written in parallel form. (pp. 152–153)
4. Some ways of emphasizing points in a written message are to (pp. 153–155)
a) use eye-catching mechanical devices;
b) use punctuation;
c) use formatting; and
d) use style, such as short, emphatic sentences.
5. Sentence (a) (Margaret chaired the meeting) is written in active voice. (pp. 156–157)
6. The active voice is energetic, forceful, and direct. (p. 154)
7. The passive voice is appropriate to conceal the doer of an action when that information is unimportant, unknown, or harmful; to de-emphasize negative news; to show tact and sensitivity; to
reduce intrusive first-person pronouns; and to maintain consistency or avoid awkward shifts in
focus. (pp. 157–158)
8. The sentence He ran in the marathon. Despite the fact that he had an injured knee can be corrected by
linking the fragment to the sentence: He ran in the marathon despite the fact he had an injured knee. (p.
159)
9. The sentence The cat sat beside me drinking coffee has a modifier error, making it sound as though
the cat were drinking the coffee. (pp. 159–160)
10. Paragraphs do not have a specific length. In business writing, paragraphs are usually short to
promote readability. (p. 163)
Communicating for Results, Fourth Edition
© Oxford University Press Canada, 2017