Legion Posted May 14, 2012 Share Posted May 14, 2012 I suspect if you've heard of E-Prime, then you know it as an effort to highlight the speaker's experience rather than judgement and to reduce confusion between fact and opinion by disallowing forms of the verb 'to be'. I was thinking of trying to use this more frequently along with some other linguistic forms that I try to use in order to bring less judgement and greater clarity to my writing. The following list comprises the forms to which I will try to adhere when engaging in my more serious writing... conditional statements... These generally follow the form 'if... then..." but we may cast them in other forms. explicit opinion... Examples include: 'I think', 'I believe', 'In my opinion', 'I estimate', etc. normative bridge... In those instances where normatives such as 'should' or 'ought' become unavoidable then I may generally attempt to use what I call a normative bridge wherein I explicitly state whose health or well-being will be improved upon execution of the proposed normative, and why. E-prime... English which disallows the verb 'to be'. I tried to write this OP following these guidelines and found it challenging, especially with the addition of E-prime. What do you think of these considerations? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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