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OASIS Writing Skills

Video Transcripts:
Common Error: Unclear Subjects

Transcripts for Writing Center videos

Common Error: Unclear Subjects

Last updated 6/9/2016

 

Audio: Guitar background music plays.

Visual: Video opens to a blank notebook with the Walden University and Writing Center logo. The words “Walden University Writing Center” and “Your writing, grammar, and APA experts” appears. The screen then fades to the video’s title slide with the playlist name “Structuring Sentences” and the Walden University and Writing Center logo. The video title “Common Error—Unclear Subjects” fades in.

The screen changes to the following slide:

Common Error #5: Unclear Subjects

Sentence includes confusing or redundant subjects

Audio: Unclear subjects. So this is where we have a sentence that includes a confusing or a redundant subject.

 

Visual: The slide changes to the following:

Unclear Subject Examples

  • Asking for help this can be difficult for many students.
    • Revision: Asking for help can be difficult for many students.
  • By conducting research it has enabled me to learn more about effective leadership strategies.
    • Revision: Conducting research has enabled me to learn more about effective leadership strategies.

 

Audio: The first example we have is “Asking for help this can be difficult for many students.” Well, in this case, we've got the subject that's repeated. We've got “asking for help” and we have “this,” and that's where it becomes a little bit confusing.

So to clarify this, we could just say “Asking for help can be difficult for many students.” We can get rid of the “this” because we don't need a redundant subject, or we don't need to repeat the subject, and then it will make sense.

In the second example, we got “By conducting research it has enabled me to learn more about effective leadership strategies.” So here again, this gets confusing because we've got “by conducting research it,” and the grammar here isn't really working.

So we can simplify it, and we can just say “Conducting research has enabled me to learn more about effective leadership strategies.”

 

Visual: The video ends with the image of a notebook, the Walden University and Writing Center logo, and the following words:

Walden University Writing Center
Questions? E-mail writingsupport@mail.waldenu.edu.