“Correct” but Bad
rogersgeorge on January 10th, 2021
Here’s an example of writing that’s grammatical and factual, but poorly written:
The United States is currently the world’s largest contributor to the problem, after China.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/04/energy-202-us-just-left-paris-climate-accord-even-presidential-race-is-undecided/
The sentence is a ways down, right after a picture of someone in front of a big TV screen.
Why is it a bad sentence?
- The sentence makes you switch gears halfway through the sentence. The US isn’t the world’s largest, it’s the second largest. That information should come earlier in the sentence:
The United States is currently the world’s second largest contributor to the problem, after China.
Try not to make your readers switch gears. Unless you want to confuse them.
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