Incomplete Sentences

One of the most common writing errors is the use of incomplete sentences.  I work with my college students on this very frequently, and here’s what I tell them (and you don’t even have to pay tuition to get this!):

A grammatically complete sentence needs to contain a subject (the actor, a noun), a verb (action word), and an object (the thing acted upon, also a noun).  Simple example:

John (subject) walked (verb) the dog (object).

Of course, most sentences are more complicated than the example above, but they all need to contain a subject, a verb, and an object.  Slightly more complicated example:

John (subject), who was home from college during the month of January, and who had determined to go to three concerts while he was home, walked (verb) the dog (object) from his house to the playground and back, meeting Susan while he was there.

Now of course there are several nouns in this sentence, and there are several verbs as well.  But what writers refer to as the core sentence (the basic sentence once we’ve removed the extraneous information) is still ‘John walked the dog‘.  Look for the core sentence in even the most complex sentence you write, and make certain that it contains a subject, a verb, and an object–then you’ve got a complete sentence grammatically.

There is one other quality that a complete sentence needs besides a correct grammatical structure, though, and this one has to do with the meaning of the sentence.  It needs to be a complete and sensible thought.    This one is a little trickier, because it refers to the sentence having to make sense–that is, having to be clear and meaningful as it stands, by itself.  Example:

John walked the airplane.

This sentence contains a subject, a verb, and an object, but it’s a nonsensical thought; people don’t walk airplanes, do they?

Similarly, the following sentence, although grammatically correct, doesn’t contain a complete, coherent thought.  Example:

John, although he liked to skydive and was a trained spelunker, walked the dog to the moon.

One more time–this time with a clearly incomplete thought:

And he walked the dog.

Do you see where we’re going with this?  Grammatical correctness and a complete thought are both qualities that a complete sentence must possess to be really complete.  Check out www.linkedineditor.com or email me with questions or comments.

More to come; film at 11:00.

Correctness

People set up sites on LinkedIn, as I see it, for one or both of two reasons: to enhance their professional credentials or to find a job.  Either way, they need to be very careful about what they write as well as how they write it.  Writing is permanent–it’s ‘out there’ for everyone to see, and even small errors can be glaring if the wrong person (like a hiring manager) sees them.

So I set up my business–LinkedInEditor.com–to offer people world-class editing and restructuring of their Profiles and other data on their LinkedIn pages.  This service is indispensable because people have to assume that anyone looking at their pages will spot every mistake in grammar, syntax, punctuation, etc.

And people are looking at their pages; percentages vary, and are probably only guesses anyway, but figures seem to indicate that at least 50-60% of hiring managers or their delegates are viewing the LinkedIn pages of people they are considering for professional positions.  Can’t afford to have mistakes on pages, then–an error on what should be a ‘perfect’ page says to that hiring manager that:

1. You don’t know how to use English correctly

2. You don’t pay attention to details

3. You don’t care enough to proofread your pages

In short, you’re perceived as either ignorant or indifferent–and neither is a quality that most companies are searching for.

Now this is not an advertisement for LinkedInEditor (although it’s a good service and one of the ways I put bread on the table) as much as it is a plea to people who put together LinkedIn sites: you cannot afford to make any errors in your writing.  That’s right, not one error.  You certainly won’t enhance your professional credentials if you have errors on your pages, and it’s equally certain that, especially with so many unemployed people applying for every job, you won’t get hired if you make mistakes.

So at least do your best to make your pages clean.  Proofread carefully.  Get that friend with the ‘useless’ English degree to review your work.  Go to a Writing Center (all community colleges have Writing Centers, and many will allow non-students to use these services) and have a tutor look over your pages.  Hire an editing service.  Do everything you can to make your pages correct, because you don’t have a choice in the matter–you have to be right.

Remember, the hiring choice between you and another candidate may come down to just a sliver of a difference, and that sliver just might be that you write correctly and effectively while the other candidate doesn’t.  Think about it.

More on this and other related subjects later.  Stay tuned.