Any english majors out there?

"michael bleggi" (mikalbleggi)
09/14/2014 at 15:47 • Filed to: None

need help with this awkward sentence. Try to keep it as once sentence... for a huge paper due tomorrow.

For your time, photo dump from the day I got to spend on a date with a gorgeous red head!

EDIT: all i know is it had the original engine mated to an e30 5pd, and like 35k original miles. Don't know if any work was done to the engine.. The car felt pretty damn quick. The owner has a old 911, many old alpinas (including one of the same e21 chassis), a race car e3o, and cosworth 190e, so theres a fair chance he's squeezed a few more ponies out of the good old carbed 4 banger.. probably my favorite car i've ever driven.

Thanks!

DISCUSSION (24)

andthelike > michael bleggi
09/14/2014 at 15:52

i'm mot an English major,but i can give it a try. what are you trying to change about the sentence?do you just want it to be a little shorter?

GhostZ > michael bleggi
09/14/2014 at 15:53

Employees, customers, and any individuals involved in a business venture may not possess the ability to speak clearly; all parties must be pleased in the name of business success, so active listening as a general and operations manager is key.

When involved in a business venture, employees, customers, and other individuals may not possess the ability to clearly communicate; as a general and operations manager, to please all parties, active listening is key in the name of business success.

However, it's redundant and still awkward, so I would just shorten it to the following:

When involved in a business venture, employees, customers, and other individuals may not possess the ability to clearly communicate; as a general and operations manager, active listening is key.

How I arrived at this:

You were not using commas to separate the dependent clauses ("all parties must be pleased" and "when involved in a business venture"). Remove those and you get this:

Employees, customers, and any individuals may not posses the ability to speak clearly; so active listening as a general and operations manager is key

The second independent clause is clearly out-of-order. Rearrange it and you get:

Employees, customers, and any individuals may not posses the ability to speak clearly; as a general and operations manager, active listening is key.

Then you put the clauses back in, with commas, in their appropriate spots to get what I had above.

michael bleggi > andthelike
09/14/2014 at 15:54

I feel like the subjects before and after the semicolon dont agree and it might be too wordy? It's for my high school grad paper, so a little simplification might help the random panel of high school teachers that have to read it.. For example, a wood tech teacher might be grading it and deciding if I graduate or not based on my grammar. It's a flawed system but I'd like to pass while still retaining an eloquent paper

michael bleggi > GhostZ
09/14/2014 at 15:56

that's better. I'm not great with english but do you think the "employees, customers, and other individuals" is still the subject and is the same subject as "all parties?" thanks and sorry for being so colloquial

SmoresTM Has No Chill (O==[][]==O) > michael bleggi
09/14/2014 at 15:57

Maybe "As a general and operations manager, active listening is key to pleasing employees, customers, and any other individual involved who may not posses the ability to clearly voice their opinions" and then possible another sentence to explain that satisfaction is paramount in the success of any business if that is important to your point. Hope that helped a little bit. Love the 2002, by the way. Mine will hopefully be back on the road by the end of winter!

GhostZ > michael bleggi
09/14/2014 at 16:01

Re-read my comment, I edited it. All parties is definitely redundant, but in my first go at it I wanted to keep all of the words you had. Remove the redundancies and you get:

When involved in a business venture, employees, customers, and other individuals may not possess the ability to clearly communicate; as a general and operations manager, active listening is key.

Which sounds much better, in my opinion. If you're not going for a formal tone, switch out "may" with "might" and change it to second person ("When you are involved in a business venture, your employees...).

samssun > michael bleggi
09/14/2014 at 16:06

I'd drop the "all parties must be pleased" part, and switch "as" to "for" in the last clause:

Employees, customers, and other individuals involved in a business venture may not possess the ability to speak clearly, so active listening is key to business success for a general and operations manager.

adda > michael bleggi
09/14/2014 at 16:06

"Because employees and customers may not speak clearly, a successful general or operational manager must cultivate the skill of 'active listening' in order to insure that all parties are satisfied they have been understood."

The "any other person involved in a business venture" is unnecessary— obviously a relationship among employees, customers and managers is a business venture, and while there may be a few possible players left out of "employees and customers" in said venture it doesn't improve the meaning to mention them.

"All parties are pleased in the name of business success" is both vague and redundant— "pleased" in a matter of being understood is better conveyed by simply saying "understood", and "business success" in the context of the sentence is already a given.

"Active listening" is in quotations (single quotes inside double quotes, remember) because the sentence implies that we are introducing the name of a skill by describing why we would want to possess it and that we can expect some further description of how we might cultivate that skill.

andthelike > michael bleggi
09/14/2014 at 16:09

I would change it to:

employees and customers may lack the skills to speak clearly; to achieve business success, managers of all types must learn active listening.

subject stuff and the finer points of grammar ain't my bag, so I can't help there. I mostly go off of ear. I am quite good at shortening things down and editing though. I hope this helps!
however, I am pretty sure that the subjects do agree for the semicolon

Tohru > michael bleggi
09/14/2014 at 16:17

Employees, customers, and other related parties may not possess the ability to speak clearly, so active listening is key for a general and operations manager to reach business success.

Disclaimer: Not an English major, just a picky native English speaker.

Kinja'd!!!

Steve in Manhattan > andthelike
09/14/2014 at 16:20

Was an articles editor in law school - I cannot improve on this edit.

michael bleggi > GhostZ
09/14/2014 at 16:21

No second person allowed. final question, do i use your final answer that you edited into you initial post, or this last option i have? thanks so much for your help!

Active listening is a key skill to a general and operations manager; coping with employees, customers, and other individuals who lack adept communication skills is necessary to please all parties.

GhostZ > michael bleggi
09/14/2014 at 16:26

No need to mention "skill", it's redundant as well. "Coping" implies that the other party is at fault, which doesn't sound professional. "Lack" also seems to be disingenuous to the other employees. Likewise, mentioning "communication skills" is again, redundant. "Skill" only implies that it's a learned trait that not everyone has, which you've already established without having to call it out as a "skill", unless you'rehitting buzzwords.

I would not use that, and if you do, I would use it like this:

Active listening, a key skill to a general and operations manager, is necessary to please all parties when employees, customers, or other individuals are unable to communicate clearly.

I still would use my original post's edited (shortened) one first though.

andthelike > Steve in Manhattan
09/14/2014 at 16:47

Does this mean it's good?

Steve in Manhattan > andthelike
09/14/2014 at 16:54

Yes - I was an asshole as an editor, and if I don't change anything, you've won.

andthelike > Steve in Manhattan
09/14/2014 at 16:56

I feel incredibly validated. thanks

Steve in Manhattan > andthelike
09/14/2014 at 17:11

There is one book that anyone - student, professional, author - should read to improve their writing: Strunk & White. This is a thin little book that will take you 2 hours to read. It recites basic rules - the comma-splice error rule, the serial comma rule. When I wrote for a living I referred to it at least once a day.

Kinja'd!!!

andthelike > Steve in Manhattan
09/14/2014 at 17:13

I actually bought that my sophomore year in high school to help with a teacher who was obsessed with grammar. just didn't make sense to me. I could figure out most things that had to do with style, but things like subject predicate and whatnot was more or less gibberish to me.

Steve in Manhattan > andthelike
09/14/2014 at 17:22

Few will criticize you for using simple words and short sentences. If there's one piece of advice in the book that's most useful, it's Strunk's admonition to"omit needless words."

Also, if you have a paragraph that's more than three or four sentences, figure out a way to split it up. Short sentences and brief paragraphs are more attractive to the eye and give the impression that your paper is easier to read.

Another thing I would do was a "which" hunt. Search and replace - where there's a "which" and using "that" will do, change it.

Finally, learn the difference between "its" and "it's". That error makes readers crazy.

And note what I did above. Two sentences per paragraph. But this one has three.

wkiernan > michael bleggi
09/14/2014 at 18:03

I'm hearing "active listening" as a special term and the focus of this sentence, so I would place it in a high-visibility location (and if possible, italicize it), like this:

Employees, customers, and other participants in a business venture may not always speak clearly, but because pleasing all parties is key to business success, a manager must practice active listening .

bhardoin > michael bleggi
09/14/2014 at 20:19

Employees, customers, and any other individual involved in a business venture may not possess the ability to speak clearly; all parties must be pleased in the name of business success, so active listening as a general and operations manager is key.

"It is key for a general and operations manager to listen actively to please all employees, customers, and other individuals involved in a business venture."

I'm not a huge proponent of the passive start to that sentence, but its the only way I can maintain most of your own wording with this brevity.

andthelike > michael bleggi
09/17/2014 at 21:58

so how did your paper go?

there where a lot of good suggestions, what did you go with?

have a very angry viper

Kinja'd!!!

michael bleggi > andthelike
09/17/2014 at 23:34

great, it was a 15-page minimum self-reflection required to graduate high school, and to graduate with honors, one of the many requirements is to have a reallly really good paper. As an aspiring engineer, english was never my strong suit, so this was stressful, and I successfully turned to oppo!

I actually used your correction, and then GhostZ's version later on in the recapitulation of my career research. Can't believe I forgot to come back and thank you guys let alone everyone else who contributed! It was a really long week but it's finally over and i feel great.

On the note of that viper... there is really something to be said for the speedhunters photographers. amazing stuff. They can truly give cars personality and bring out their character through pictures.

andthelike > michael bleggi
09/17/2014 at 23:42

that is a long ass paper. I was interested in the sciences , but I suck at math. as in I can't tell you what 18+36 is without some solid thinking.
I am good at English, so I think I might turn out to be an international affairs/studies major. I don't know, I am just a college freshman.

Good luck on your paper