This is less of a tip than food for thought.
Read this sentence aloud (slightly changed from a real, published example):
“And universities have similarly raised intellectual property concerns over ownership of the online courses their professors are now asked to assemble, indicating that ‘the future of their profession’ is at stake.”
The sentence is not gorgeous, which is excusable. It is needlessly difficult to understand, which is not excusable.
In class, I asked students to restore semantic order. The short but simple solution provided? “Add ‘that.'”
“And universities have similarly raised intellectual property concerns over ownership of the online courses THAT their professors are now asked to assemble, indicating that ‘the future of their profession’ is at stake.”
Much clearer and there’s no need to puzzle out the meaning.
NOTE:
This will be the last tip for a few weeks.
All tips for this year, as well as diploma thesis advice, are available at:
http://www2.arnes.si/~bjason/LW%20tips.pdf
You might also want to ponder:
http://www2.arnes.si/~bjason/LNW.pdf