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  University of Illinois

  
  
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• Biography

  Busy executives and professionals receive more literature than they can possibly read; they have to choose and reject.   They often choose to read that which is easy to read and reject that which is hard to read.   Because you want your text to be read, you must learn to One important element of the text that is easy to read is flow.   Flow in the text is like flow in a river; reading is like paddling a canoe on the river.   If the river is shallow and wide, the water flows slowly and placidly.   It is easy, and safe, to paddle on such a river but the going is slow and dull.   I offer you first an example of dull prose that has a slow flow, then the same text brightened up. 
  
  In this text, I have used a common method of obtaining flow.   The lead sentence starts with a familiar concept, the flower, and ends with new information that the flower parts are modified leaves.   This fact might be unfamiliar to a neophyte botany student or to a home gardener.   The new information now becomes a familiar concept and can be used as the subject of the next sentence that will, in turn, end with another new concept.   This technique is repeated throughout the paragraph. 
  
  "The flower is made up of modified leaves.   The lowest modified leaves are the sepals.   Above the sepals are the petals.   The sepals and the petals are non-reproductive flower parts.   The reproductive floral parts are the pistol and the stamens.   The stamens contain pollen sacs.   The pollen sacs contain pollen or immature male gametophytes.  The immature male gametophytes fertilize the female gametophytes.   The female gametophytes are within the ovules.   The ovules are hidden in the pistol.   The pistol is in the center of the flower.   The ovules in the pistol from the seeds and the pistil form the fruit." 
  
  This paragraph has the flow, but it is jerky, and no fun to read.  It is like a canoe on a small quiet pond, paddled by an amateur.   The sentences are all short and have the same construction.   We can now add some more information and do some sentence combining to add some gentle rapids to our river of words.   This will make our text more interesting. 
  
  "The flower is made up of four whorls of modified leaves.   The lowest whorl of modified leaves often look somewhat leaf-like, they are the sepals.   Above the help writing an essay for college are more showy leaf modifications, the petals.   The sepals and the petals are non-reproductive flower parts.   The reproductive floral parts are the pistol and the stamens.   The stamens, located above the petals, contain pollen sacs.   The pollen sacs contain pollen, the immature male gametophytes of the species.  These immature gametophytes have to fertilize the female gametophytes which are embedded within the ovules, in the pistol.   The pistil is composed of one or more modified leaves, in the center of the flower.   The fertilized ovules in the pistil from the seeds and the ripened pistil forms the fruit." 
  
  This method of transition, from familiar to unfamiliar, is an excellent tool for organizing a document; it imposes a rational sequence on the text, creating a skeleton that can be fleshed out more and more. 
     
  Our river of words is not turbulent with obstacles and eddies.   Turbulent text, like a turbulent river, is difficult to navigate.   It is challenging to the expert sportsman as turbulent text is challenging and fulfilling to the reader of creative writing, but it has no place in the prose of business or technology. 
  
  If you would write expository prose for the busy reader, your mantra must be: 
  
  "That which is easiest to read is most likely to be read."