Jump-Start Your Sentences!

Good writers (or speakers) understand the value of getting off to a fast start.

They realize that to wait three or four sentences, or - worse still - paragraphs, before getting down to business to is risk losing their audience altogether.

In writing, this principle holds true on the micro level no less than the macro one. Just as no composition should be handicapped by a slow, vague or tedious introduction, the individual sentences within it must be quick off the mark.

The ubiquitous pronouns it and there are responsible for some of the worst offences in this regard. Writers often let the power in their sentences go to waste by placing these pronouns where the main subject should be. Let's look at a few examples:

There is a significant advantage in working slower: fewer mistakes.

It is clear that our performance has improved dramatically, but much remains to be done.

It is important to check the label before taking the medicine.

There are several causes for the recent tension in the workplace.

In all these cases, the power of the sentence core has been squandered by the use of a vague pronoun as the main subject. Let's restore the punch to these sentences, by rewriting them so that they make their point faster:

Working slower results in fewer mistakes.
or
Making fewer mistakes is a significant advantage to slower work.

Much remains to be done, in spite of the improvement in our performance.
or
Our performance has improved, but much remains to be done.

Check the label before taking the medicine.

The recent tension in the workplace has several causes.

Move the main idea up front, and you usually have stronger sentences and, in turn a stronger composition. Occasionally, however, the introductory vague pronoun is appropriate. If I change:

It's a humiliating solution, but it will keep us from starving .
to:
A humiliating solution will keep us from starving.
then I change the meaning in the process.

When you edit your document, look out for such phrases as it is and there is. Examine each case on its merits. Don't use your "blue pencil" indiscriminately, but train yourself to recognize when you should.

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