What is Man Without the Beasts? (Writing)

Writing

Read the  last part of the speech of Chief Seattle once again.

Are all the sentences of the same length?  Obviously, not. The speech contains long sentences (But in your ... over the red man), short ones ( Where is the thicket?) and even fragments (Gone). Why do writers vary the length of the sentences? Again, why do they use different types of structures (sometimes statements, questions, exclamations, fragments, etc.)?

Good writers vary their sentences to make them interesting.

Sentence length can influence the mood of the piece. If you’re concerned that your writing is either too choppy or too flowery, review it with an eye toward sentence length.

• Is it varied?
• Does it fit the mood you’re trying to convey?

Do you heavily favour short, simple sentences, or does the piece contain too many paragraph-long sentences?

To make your texts more interesting, you should use sentences of varying lengths with a variety of structures.

Read the following text.

Dogs are our great companions, aren’t they?  Any idea when the friendship between man and dogs began? Maybe, thousands of years back. Who knows! What is important is that they are man’s best friends for obvious reasons. Dogs, as such, need to be walked. Walks keep their owners healthy; and the owners can talk to their dogs. They never tell secrets. Dogs don’t care what their owners observe while walking or what they watch on TV. As long as dogs are taken care of, they are happy.

What are the features of this write-up? In this the variety in sentences has been obtained in a number of ways:

• Using different sentence types (statements, questions, exclamations, etc.)
• Using elements such as tags, connectives (and, as such, etc.)

Read the following write-up.

You  must have heard about the Hussain Sagar Lake. It is in Hyderabad. It is one of the largest man- made lakes. Hyderabad  and Secunderabad are twin cities of the State. The lake connects these cities. It was originally constructed to supply drinking water. Now it is not used as a drinking water source. People say, “This is sad. There is plenty of water. Nobody can drink it.” The lake faces a few threats. The main threat is encroachment by both private and public agencies. The lake also faces the problem of pollution. One of the locals said: ‘Oh, sometimes it stinks horribly.”  This is due to the continuous discharge of domestic wastes and industrial chemicals. Hence it is our duty to save the Hussain Sagar Lake.

I. Rewrite the sentences  according to the direction given in the brackets.

1. The lake connects these cities. (Change into a question).
2. It is in Hyderabad. It is one of the largest man- made lakes. (Combine the two sentences using ‘and’.)
3. Hyderabad  and Secunderabad are twin cities of the State. The lake connects these cities. (Begin the sentence with ‘The lake … ‘and connect the two sentences.)
4. It was originally constructed to supply drinking water. Now it is not used as a drinking water source. ( Connect using ‘though’)
5. “This is  sad, … ?” (Complete the sentence with a question tag.)
6. “Oh, sometimes it stinks horribly.”(Rewrite the sentence beginning with ‘How …....)

Read the speech made by Chief Seattle once again and reflect on the following features.

• The beginning and ending of the speech
• The arguments and the building up of arguments in a sequential manner
• The emotive and argumentative language used
• The variety of sentences used
• Mental images created

II Prepare a speech that you would like to make on ‘the World Environment Day’. You can make use of the following hints:

• The threats to animal and plant life
• The pollution of air, water and earth and the consequences
• The need to preserve our environment for ourselves and for the future generations