Don't Waste a Main Clause on the Obvious

Think about the sentence: The new healthcare center is a facility where patients can come without an appointment.

What’s wrong with that? Well, technically, nothing. It’s grammatical and logical. But if, like me, you’re in the habit of zeroing in on all the clauses in a sentence, you can see why this could be considered not the best writing.

The core of the main clause, when stripped down to its bones, says little more than “the center is a facility.” And that’s about as sorry a statement as you can squeeze into a main clause.

In the best writing, every word, phrase and clause counts. And if you pay attention to how pros do it, you’ll see they never waste a main clause to state something so painfully obvious. Here's how to write a more engaging main clause instead.

Tags: COPY EDITING, EDITING, GRAMMAR, MAIN CLAUSE, WRITING

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