Wrong. If you were to visit the library on Saturday afternoon, you would find it nearly deserted. The tables would be empty and the reading room very quiet. The students are upon the river or are enjoying themselves upon the campus. Someone, however, who has a paper to get in may be busy at the reference shelves.
Better. If you were to visit the library on Saturday afternoon, you would find it nearly deserted. The tables would be empty and the reading room very quiet. The students would be upon the river or enjoying themselves about the campus. Someone, however, who had a paper to get in might be busy at the reference shelves.
217. Put the most significant idea near the beginning or the end of the paragraph.
Example. Far as he could see through the gathering dark there was quiet, the reaction after tremendous exertion. Shapes of men surrounded him. Here lay one flat upon his back, his features sketched in sharp focus by the fading light. Three yards to one side sat two bodies leaning back to back, heads upon breasts, helmets over eyes. Beyond them huddled an indistinguishable mass. On the other side, so close he could have touched them, an arm and a leg strung along in a line—no torso within a rod of them. The world lay desolate and silent except for the yellowing moon and the far off, intermittent firing.
Example. My one worry and regret, however, was the fact that my father was the president of the school board. Part of my teachers gave me good grades because they were afraid they would lose their positions if they did otherwise, and the rest of them tried to flunk me because they thought they were not being paid highly enough. Among them all I managed to make about a B average, and the problem which now remains for the university to solve is, did I receive more or less than I deserved while in high school.
218. Give most space to the most significant idea.
Example. Since man’s progress through the ages is a passage from the undeveloped to the highly developed, one wonders what the buildings of a thousand years from now will be like. From that day in the remote past, when the first cliff dweller conceived the idea of enlarging his home by carving out another terrace in the rock above it, to this day when we have a skyscraper 750 feet high, man’s building has approached nearer and nearer to the clouds. As the little two-story terrace grew, the cliff dwellers wondered and doubted. Likewise, when a four-story building was a fact accomplished by our great-grandfathers, to live in a ten-story building would have been considered extremely hazardous. And now since we have the forty-story Singer building, will man continue to aspire to the clouds or will he remain satisfied with his achievement?
219. Practice.
Here is a paragraph that is very poorly put together. On the basis of what you have just studied, answer the following questions and rewrite the paragraph accordingly.