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Writing Workshop Presents:
Starting sentences with "it"
By PreciseEdit
It is what it is, isn't it?
It's a bad habit to start sentences with it. It causes your readers to
pause momentarily while they figure out what it is. It makes your
sentences clumsy. It is true that doing so is an easy way to write a sentence,
but usually it is not good writing. It even becomes a bit annoying when you do
it too often. It is bad to annoy your reader.
Starting sentences with it is a bad habit. Your readers will need to
pause momentarily while they figure out what it is, and your sentences
will be clumsy. Writing this way may be easy, but starting sentences with it
is usually not a good idea. If you do this too often, you may annoy your
readers, which is never a good idea.
3 PROBLEMS CAUSED BY STARTING SENTENCES WITH IT:
Problem 1. Buried subject
In most sentences starting with it, the real subject is buried somewhere
later in the sentence. By real subject, we don't mean the noun or pronoun
performing the verb in the predicate, which is called the grammatical subject.
We mean the person, idea, place, or thing that is the focus of the sentence,
which is called the rhetorical subject. Consider this (poor) sentence:
It is a real challenge to find a good deal on a car.
In this sentence, it is serving as the grammatical subject because this
word is in the subject place followed by the verb is. But what is this
sentence about? It is about finding a good deal. [Note: We are willing to start
this sentence with it because we have already told you what it is--this
sentence.] Finding a good deal, therefore, is the rhetorical subject. To
edit this sentence we put the rhetorical subject in the place of the grammatical
subject. The revised version is
To find a good deal on a car is a real challenge.
This can be further edited to read
Finding a good deal on a car is a real challenge.
Now the grammatical subject and the rhetorical subject are the same. The
sentence is more direct, and the reader immediately knows what we are writing
about without having to wait, even momentarily, to figure out what it is.
On the other hand, let's say you and your buddies are comparing all the daring,
challenging things you have done in your lives. Everyone's life seems so
exciting compared to your boring, unadventurous life. You want to prove that you
are exciting, too, so you want to emphasize the challenge of finding a good deal
on a car. In this case, you could rewrite the sentence as:
A real challenge is finding a good deal on a car.
(Oh, boy! That will really show them who's boss.) They may still doubt your
derring-do, but they won't doubt your ability to write well. With this sentence
construction, the rhetorical and grammatical subjects are the same, as in the
revisions above.
Fix 1: Make sure the rhetorical sentence is also the grammatical sentence--at
the start of the sentence.
Problem 2. Redundancy
Precise Edit (
http://preciseedit.com ) has a very firm rule about redundancy: Remove it.
By redundancy we mean writing 2 or more words/phrases/clauses/etc. that have the
same meaning. As seen in the discussion of the first problem, using it to
start sentences has the added problem of two subjects (grammatical and
rhetorical) that mean the same thing: It means finding a good deal on
a car. We only need one of these. Of course, we want to use the more
specific subject, not the vague it, which has no meaning by itself. When
we place the rhetorical subject in the position of the grammatical subject, we
are left with only one subject, and the redundancy has been removed.
Fix 1 (again): Make sure the rhetorical sentence is also the grammatical
sentence--at the start of the sentence.
Sometimes it is buried in the sentence and still causes this redundancy.
Consider this sentence:
We don't like it when writing is redundant.
In this case, it means when writing is redundant. To remove this
redundancy, ask: What is it? You will answer: redundant writing. We get rid of
it and add the answer to the question. Now we have
We don't like redundant writing.
Removing the redundancy has produced a far more economical and graceful
sentence, which is the goal of good editing.
Fix 2: Remove redundant words and simplify the details.
Problem 3. Context confusion
Sometimes, the word it is used when the writer (or speaker) doesn't know
what the subject is, doesn't want to reveal it, or thinks it is already clear.
Of course, from the reader's perspective, the sentence may lose all meaning. The
problem here is one of context. By context we mean the topic in which the
sentence exists (i.e., what the sentence is about). The subject of a sentence,
indeed, the entire sentence, needs to refer to the context, and using it may not
do that. If someone asks you,
Do you like this car?
and you answer,
It is really nice.
your listener will know what you are talking about. He or she already knows the
context of your statement: the quality of the car.
However, if you walk into a colleague's office and say,
It is difficult for me.
you might get a strange look in response. Your colleague doesn't know what you
are talking about and might ask, "What is?" He or she is confused, rightly so,
and you will need to explain the context of your statement. Instead, you could
have originally said,
Making coffee is difficult for me.
You may still get a strange look, but at least your colleague knows what you are
talking about. As with all editing, when you revise your sentences, you improve
understanding.
Fix 3: Make sure the subject refers to the context of the sentence.
BURYING IT
You have to be careful with your revisions. The word it might be buried
in the sentence and still cause the same problems. Consider this sentence:
You know it is bad to tease angry dogs.
This sentence doesn't start with it, but it suffers from problems 1 and
2. You might consider how this sentence comprises one primary sentence and an
embedded sentence. The primary sentence is You know, and the embedded
sentence is It is bad to tease angry dogs. The embedded sentence has the
problem, but it can be revised to read
Teasing angry dogs is bad.
The entire sentence will now read
You know [that] teasing angry dogs is bad.
(Hmm. We may now have a problem with the tone. If the person already knows this
bit of wisdom, why are we saying it? Admitting that he or she already knows this
seems a bit condescending. If we must make this statement at all, perhaps we
should simply say Teasing angry dogs is bad and pretend that this is new
information.)
SOME FUN(?) SAMPLES
It is clear to me that our main problem is the inability to fly without wings.
Our main problem is the inability to fly without wings.
[Since you said this, it must be clear to you! Saying It is clear to me is
redundant]
It was a dark and stormy night.
The night was stormy.
[It means dark and stormy night, and most nights are dark.]
It only happens once every 70 years. Tomorrow night Halley's Comet will appear.
Halley's Comet only appears once every 70 years, but it will appear
tomorrow night.
[This solves the context problem of the first sentence.]
It is a nice car you have in your driveway.
You have a nice car in your driveway.
[An even better solution might be A nice car is in your driveway, but this seems
to lose the idea of ownership.]
Some people like it when the traffic lights aren't working because they can
drive right through it.
Some people like broken traffic lights because they can drive right
through the intersection.
[We would be very amused to see someone drive through the light!]
Keep up the good writing. When you're ready for professional help, please visit
http://preciseedit.com