Unit 4 Clarity filter

Activity 1 Introduction to the clarity filter

Read.

Errors in clarity affect the reader's understanding of the meaning. The meaning may be lost completely or the reader may not be able to understand exactly what you mean. Errors of clarity are due to vague or ambiguous language usage. When checking your draft using the clarity filter, there are five error types to look out for. Each of the error types are listed below.

1. Use of vague expressions
2. Lexical ambiguity
3. Referential ambiguity
4. Syntactic ambiguity
5. Garden-path sentences

Activity 2 Use of vague expressions

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• Corpus example 1: This is something which is XXX from XXX.

The pronoun something is vague as it can refer to so many different items. Clarity in written English is determined by the specificity of the terminology selected. On a scale from clear to obscure, indefinite pronouns, such as something, someone or somewhere, limit their reference to a type of item, namely thing, person or place; but are rather obscure. The clarity of something can be increased by substituting a more specific class of item, such as feature, aspect, artifact, component, or so forth. Items can be visualized on a cline from vague to clear, as in this example, which shows the cline of obscurity-clarity from thing to toy poodle.

thing > animal > mammal > dog > poodle > toy poodle

More corpus examples of inappropriate use

1. We understood the following things about a system...
2. Student point out something about the presentation...
3. When we want to buy something and estimate its price...
4. Looking at Table 4, four things can be seen.
5. I hope that someone would improve my teaching materials

Suggested revisions

In each case words like something, someone or somewhere are replaced with more specific expressions or the sentence is revised to avoid the need to state the vague expression.

1. We understood the following aspects about a system...
2. Students point out problems in the presentation...
3. When we want to buy a product and estimate its price...
4. Looking at Table 4, four features can be seen.
5. I hope that my teaching materials would be improved

Activity 3 Lexical ambiguity

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• Corpus example: It is really high for XXX.

In this example really is not vague but it has two possible specific meanings. Either it shows the meaning “to a high degree” and can be replaced by the adverb very or is used to state the truth or fact of the situation and so could be replaced by the adverb actually. However, it is not possible to understand from this decontextualized example (or in fact the example within the original draft research article) what the intended meaning was. This ambiguity can be resolved by replacing really with either actually or very to reflect the intended meaning. In addition, really is rather informal, and so fails to meet the genre expectations for the degree of formality.

More corpus examples of inappropriate use

1. Meteor is really a small piece of rock or...
2. if we want to get a better upper bound...
3. Functions make a file name in accordance with...
4. The phase error is also good at about 90...
5. To compare take the average of 10 times of the...

Suggested revisions

In each case ambiguous words are replaced with words that are clearer.

1. Meteor is actually a small piece of rock or...
2. if we want to achieve a higher upper bound...
3. Functions create a file name in accordance with...
4. The phase error is also low at about 90...
5. To compare calculate the average of 10 times of the...

Activity 4 Referential ambiguity

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• Corpus example: Referring to Smith [10], Jones notes that he...

The ambiguity is introduced by the third person pronoun he which refers anaphorically to an earlier-mentioned person. However, in this context, there are two candidate antecedents, which creates confusion. Referential ambiguity also commonly occurs when pronouns, especially it and this, are used anaphorically. This type of ambiguity can be resolved by avoiding the need for a pronoun. Thus, the example sentence could be written without the use of a pronoun, thereby alleviating the need to ascertain the antecedent of the pronoun.

1. Jones notes that Smith [10]...
2. Smith [10] notes that Jones...

Activity 5 Syntactic ambiguity

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• Corpus example: XXX found two AAA and one BBB, which CCC.

The relative clause which CCC may modify only one item namely BBB or could modify three items namely two AAA and one BBB. This ambiguity is caused by using a modifier after noun phrases linked by the conjunction and. Resolution is straightforward. One way to limit the modifier to one noun phrase is to bring the noun phrase to the start of a series and place the modifier immediately after that phrase. The other way is when the modifier applies to each item in a series, and so adding a distributive determiner, such as all removes any ambiguity. The corpus example could be rewritten as one of the following depending on the intended meaning.

1. XXX found one BBB, which CCC, and two AAA.
2. XXX found two AAA and one BBB, all of which CCC.

Activity 6 Garden-path sentences

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• My example: The journal plans to publish your paper were just a rumour.

On reading this sentence, most readers will assume that plans is a verb, but on reaching the finite verb were, re-read the sentence and re-categorize plans as a noun. Garden path sentences are not only ambiguous, but the initially assumed meaning is not the intended meaning. Comedians use this ambiguity for humour, but reviewers and supervisors find little humour in being confused. Garden path sentences are difficult for writers to notice because the writer of the sentence is primed to focus on the intended meaning. Second readers or proofreaders can, however, easily notice garden path sentences because they need to backtrack to figure out the intended meaning. The difficulty with garden path sentences is not their revision and disambiguation, but their initial identification.