Parallelism – the key to graceful writing!

Posted on | June 11, 2009 | No Comments

Have you ever wondered what makes a sentence beautiful? What makes it memorable? Recall the famous quote by John F. Kennedy, which says, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” Isn’t it graceful? It leaves an impression in one’s mind. What is so special about this sentence? The meaning behind of course is beautiful. Had it been written differently, it would have meant the same, isn’t it? For example – “What you can do for the country is an important question to ask rather than to ask what your country can do for you”. Alternatively, it could have been, “Ask yourself, what you can do for the country, instead of asking what your country can do or you”. But, these sound so casual, unimpressive, and sometimes awkward too.

The principle applied for impressive writing is balance and consistency. These elements lend grace to the sentence and leave a mark in readers’ mind. 

Parallelism is a grammatical balance of sentence elements.

Eloquent speakers like Martin Luther King, Jr, Abraham Lincoln and many more, used parallel constructions in their speeches. This helped them create suspense. Besides offering beauty and grace, parallelism:

• creates smooth flow
• puts emphasis on points
• brings conciseness

Elements with same function or with similar ideas should be grammatically parallel. Parallelism has no specific area of application. Words, phrases, or a series of sentences within a paragraph can be parallel. Even a paragraph can parallel another paragraph. The thumb rule to be kept in mind is to ‘match apple with apple’.

You will find the need for parallelism in different scenarios, such as:

Read on to discover some tips that will help you avoid flawed parallelism.

• Group similar ideas and items together

  Example
  Incorrect: I felt that the cell phone was heavy, poorly designed and was too expensive.
  Correct: Sam picked up his bag, phone, and notebook.

• Balance nouns with nouns, clause with clause

  Example
  Incorrect: Democracy demands responsibility, whereas obedience is an important factor in tyranny.
  Correct: Democracy demands responsibility, whereas tyranny demands obedience.

• Give similar grammatical structure to clauses joined by conjunctions

  Example
  Incorrect: Paul asked me to review my article and that I should pay close attention to parallel structures.
  Correct: Paul asked me to review my article and to pay close attention to parallel structures.

• Place verbs, articles and prepositions carefully

  Example
  Incorrect: My dietician not only told how to lose weight but also how to avoid weight regain.
  Correct: My dietician told not only how to lose weight but also how to avoid weight regain.

• Use sentence of equal length in lists (bulleted or numbered points)

• Use similar form of words in a list

  Example
  Incorrect: I like writing, singing, and to write articles.
  Correct: I like writing, singing, and writing articles.

• Include article or preposition (if same for all) just in first or in all items of list

  Example
  Incorrect: I went to work, a bookshop and the movies.
  Correct: I went to work, to bookshop and to the movies. Alternatively, I went to work, bookshop, and the movies.

Remember, excess of everything is bad. Ensure that you don’t lose the intent of the sentence while making it parallel.

Apply parallelism – write intense with the right intent!

Note: As a test to your learning, check where I have broken the rule of parallelism in this article. Simple yet interesting, isn’t it?

Man in disguise

Posted on | December 2, 2008 | No Comments

“Man in disguise”, ” Macho woman”, “Don”, ” Member of guys gang” ….and a lot more…..these are the tags that my friends (specially male friends) associate with me. And I used to feel good when these friends confided in me. I often asked these friends of mine – why are u telling this to me? Aren’t you afraid that I might tell this to my female friends? And in response to these I was told in typical guys’ language…. “O dear u r a buddy man!!….bole to apun logo ke gang ka member, u r not someone to be afraid of”…..May be that quality (whether good or bad) of keeping things to myself made them confide in me….But ufff I hated these tags that labeled me as a male…..I used to feel am I wrongly born as a female….but I have all attributes of a female …I have long hair ….I do wear clothes that gives me total women attire…typical salwar suits ….choodidars and sometimes saree too…I do wear all those silly danglers also even though I hate them…..and to top of all I am emotional like every other gal…. I often wondered what to do? When asked, my friends would say why do you wanna change yourself? You do look like a gal but you behave as one of us…..You are awesome as you are….you are one of the best buddies….and then they would sing the famous song ” Tere jaisa yaar kahan….yaar ka yaarana”…..and I, would again be in a “proud to be friend of all” mindset….

But then comments like ” Bhanu, when u go to meet a guy (for marriage prospects) don’t talk to him like you talk with us(friends), behave like a gal” make me upset again and again.

And the dilemma is still on – Should I remain in the tom-boyish personality or should I behave like a typical gal? Coz behaving like a typical gal could lead to losing the relationships I share with my friends now…..and remaining in the tom-boy personality will keep upsetting me every now and then….

Love Relationships : 4 Stories, 1 End

Posted on | October 18, 2008 | No Comments

People generally ask me Bhanu why you hate love. Why are you so rude? Why so much hatred for love relationships? Here, I have tried to justify my hatred for love….citing few of the real stories I have seen in my life…..these stories are of my closest friends…..I have seen them suffering…crying…..have a look why….

Plot 1:

Priya and Nihal (names changed to protect privacy) ….worked in same office…….fell for each other…..now after 2 years both of them love each other immensely and have decided to get married….Priya tells her parents about Nihal….her parents disagree for marriage. Reason – family background of Nihal…..despite the fact that Nihal earns pretty well to give Priya a happy life….if not luxurious. Priya is forced to join some other company……but love knows no boundaries…..they are still in contact….Nihal is joining a company in the U.S….and Priya is still not able to convince her parents for marriage……Result – Sad ending of a love story

Plot 2:

Shurti and Manish (names changed to protect privacy) ……belong to Ludhiana…..worked in same organization for few months…Manish was a senior of Shruti….Manish proposed Shruti……now both of them are in love….after 1.5 years the question of marriage arose – but unlike Priya – in this case it was Manish’s parents who gave rise to the marital issues- after all its his age to get married and he is very well settled…..Shruti is not ready to marry Manish now. Reason – Mainsh and her mother have just too many expectations from Shruti that would leave her with merely the word “independence”….. Result – same – Sad ending love story

Plot 3:

Ishita was in second year of her college and Rahul (names changed to protect privacy) was – an engineer – was working on a contract basis…..Rahul proposed Ishita …..its been 4 years now with love talks…eat outs…dates…movies…seemed like a perfect love story. But it was not, after four years of relationship, Ishita gets to know some unpleasant facts about Rahul…… but like a sweet lovesick puppy she sacrificed and is still with Rahul….to some extent unwillingly…..seems now she is confused….whether to believe Rahul or not…rather her faith on him was broken now and so was she….- Result – same – Sad ending love story

Plot 4:

Riya and Sumit (names changed to protect privacy)…..fell in love when in college ….Riya – a very very stubborn gal – convinced her parents to marry Sumit – a jobless person at that time – now working in a call centre. Riya now mother of a one year old sweet gal…is still trying to find out reasons why she loved Sumit – a useless creature, not more than a sleeping partner now. Result – same – do I need to repeat – SAD ENDING LOVE STORY again… Does anyone still require my reasons for hatred for LOVE RELATIONSHIPS?

Personal vs Professional Life

Posted on | October 5, 2008 | No Comments

In the goal-no goal race that each of us is running today, we have our set priorities. Some of us spend most of our time at work place striving hard and harder to sustain the competition. The others have their private lives at priority. It is better for those involved in either of professional or a private life. But that would be an imaginary situation to talk about. Most if not all of us often get bogged down when dealing with professional and private lives simultaneously. It becomes the trickiest situation in life.

Many of us indeed get married to our professional lives and tend to neglect our private lives, especially people associated with the IT industry. Prolong working hours leaves them with no time for their private life. A friend of mine always replies ‘not bad’ whenever I ask him. ‘How are you?’ Why? – Because he doesn’t even have time for himself, not even to cook for himself – frozen paranthas are now part of his daily diet. Of course, it is his choice and preference in life.

There are others who place great emphasis on a happy private life. They can put anything on stake just to live a happy life. And, why not? After all, we earn to live a happy and prosperous life. Did I say ‘PROSPEROUS’?

God, this is a vicious circle! We start with an urge to live a happy life and then we plunge into our professional lives. All this just with an attitude of perfection, which we assume heads us to prosperity! And then, one fine day we realize that we have completely dilapidated personal lives. We are left with diminutive social circle and a countable number of friends because we were so engrossed in our profession that we lost touch.

Some times I wonder what should we choose of professional and personal lives? Should we prefer to be rather extremely successful professionally and have a tolerable yet unexciting private life, or have an extremely happy private life and only a tolerable and uninspiring professional life?

Since so many place great emphasis on a happy private life, why do we often wind up putting more energy into our professional lives? But when we feel our private life is more important to us, we realize our priorities really don’t support this. Are we simply unwilling to admit that work is more important? Do we then use work as a substitute? Do we hope professional success will somehow magically lead to personal happiness?

Experiences vs Memories

Posted on | July 10, 2008 | No Comments

We always run after happiness. Today, life has become so hectic that everyone is running – some after a defined goal, others in search of that goal. There is yet another specie – running with no goal. They see everybody else running, therefore run to follow and find out why others are running It is often advised that you should celebrate small occasions in life. Why? Just to pep up your life man!!!! To get a break from the goal/no-goal race! To create sweet memories you can cherish, may be when you are retired. Coz otherwise people don’t have time to look back these days But, sometimes I wonder what is more important the actual experiences, or the memories that remain after the experience is over. Is one hour spent with your friends on a weekend is enjoyable than the sweet memories one would carry for the next weekend if not the remaining life? Is one day spent at an NGO with kids is more pleasurable than the moments of life when you feel satisfied looking back on the good moments you gave to those kids. I wonder what drives us to attain happiness, the momentary contentment or the memories to cherish. Leave apart one day, what if this time span is of a week, a month or a complete year? What if you could spend one year in perfect happiness but afterward would remember nothing of the experience would you do so? If not, why not?

It is all about style!

Posted on | June 22, 2008 | No Comments

“Style noun, verb styled, styl·ing. the mode of expressing thought in writing or speaking by selecting and arranging words, considered with respect to clearness, effectiveness, euphony, or the like, that is characteristic of a group, period, person, personality, etc. ”

Clothing and style are directly proportional and so are content and style. You must have a unique sense to leave a style statement. While fashion has taken a stride leaving a mark everywhere, style has been the cynosure behind. With style as the guiding star, there have been tremendous changes in all industries and not just the fashion industry.

Technical documentation, a trend that appeared First World War on, started with the initial need for documentation in military, electronics, aerospace and manufacturing industries. The legacy of the discipline, however, has carried through and is apparently used in all industries today. No industry and no business, for that matter, move a step without documentation. Along its path towards making a star appearance in all industries, giving them an exponential growth, it has continuously undergone constructive changes.

Style in Content

Documentation, though, has become an integral part of every process in all industries; style has proven to be the essence. Everyone has a different writing style but the thumb rule is to have three C’s – Clarity, Conciseness, and Consistency. While clarity and conciseness chum together giving a style to everything you write; consistency gives a smooth look. There are yet other rules that gear-up the documentation.

Before finalizing a document, ask yourself:

• If the words used make sense. Ensure they convey what you actually wanted to
• If the length is enough to transfer the information to destination without losing its meaning on the way. Check for the unnecessary inflation. For example, ‘in order to’ can be replaced by ‘to’
• If there are too many jargons to confuse the target audience
• If the words have been spelled correctly. Often we end up using the counterpart of words that spell alike or sound alike, but are actually different
• If you have used noun instead of the verb form of the word or vice versa, for example advice (verb) and advise (verb)
• If you have not created an adjective noun combination, where the adjective describes the noun that follows, for example – parallelable, which should be parallel cable
• If you have used politically correct or gender neutral language
• If you have used too much of passive voice. It should not be more than 10%
• If the paragraphs are closely woven. The transition from paragraph to paragraph within a topic, and from sentence to sentence within a paragraph, should be smooth
• If the acronyms are expanded at the first occurrence and no where else in the document
• If you have used redundant expressions; avoid redundancy to add clarity and conciseness

Style in Presentation

Some other definitions of style also denote:

“The rules or customs of typography, punctuation, spelling, and related matters used by a newspaper, magazine, publishing house, etc., or in a specific publication”

or

“A customary manner of presenting printed material, including usage, punctuation, spelling, typography, and arrangement”

The above connotations suggest another formula for style:

Style = Presentation

Quite often, we fail to realize that poor sale of a software product is due to poor product presentation rather than the quality of the product, an organization has released. The product might have a robust and strong functionality running at the back-end, but customers out rightly reject products that have a poor front-end designing. The presentation is of equal importance and this applies to documentation as well.

Before you release a document, ensure that the document:

• Doesn’t have extraneous punctuation
• Doesn’t have extra spaces between words (Tip: Press Ctrl + F to find a space followed by a comma (,) or a period (.) to avoid spaces before a comma and a period)
• Complies with the template in terms of formatting styles defined
• Has numbered list for defined sequence and bulleted list otherwise
• Has important points and terms highlighted
• Has a table of content, index and glossary (in case of user manuals etc.)
• Uses icons and buttons wherever required. Prefer the actual representation of icons/buttons instead of simply writing the label names

Style with Substance

Style though is directly proportional with presentation, but all style with no quality of content is of no avail. Extending the previous example further, a software product with a great GUI, but poor performance serves no purpose. A quality document thus, should have style with substance.

Happy writing!

Net –> Normal Friends – Journey Abridged

Posted on | June 5, 2008 | No Comments

Friends – everybody’s life line I guess. At least for me, they have been, they are and will continue to be. Of all the relations known to me, friendship is one that I have always cherished and relished. May be even more than the relationship with my immediate family members. Relatives – I never gave a damn ever….I still don’t and don’t foresee such gesture from my side in the near future. In the past 24 years of my life, I met innumerous people. Although, I have never been a part of big gang – credit goes to my reserve nature (read skeptical and choosy), but I always had the best of friends. I believe in quality and not quantity!

Though the number of friends (read quality friends) has increased in these 24 years, especially after I came to Delhi. The city took its due toll on me too J I have improved in communication since my school time and sometimes initiate a conversation myself now. And, this art has earned me quiet a lot of friends – some very good ones. I met these friends at strange places, but, what mattered to me was the person and persona. I met them in school, in my colony, coaching classes, buses (while traveling from my home town to Delhi), my first workplace, at the third one, at the present one, and few in the office rest rooms J (read gals’ favorite gossip room). And yes! not to forget the Web. From the time I entered the Internet-famo, I have met amazing characters – from fools to geniuses, from womanizers to woman haters, from dull to full of life and vigor, from the ones that I had to run away from to the ones I ran after. Another, pot in the garden was Orkut – the biggest networking site. I grew my network too. Made new friends, some very good ones, so much that they are important part of my life now, chatted for hours with them on phone, even met a few. I even had a crush on one and so was sharing feelings with one of my sweetest cousins. Despite the kind of person I am (read choosy and suspicious) in choosing my friends, I was asked a dumfounding question. How can you trust people over the net? How can you exchange numbers with them? And, leave this all, how can you go and meet them? Have you gone crazy? How can you take the risk of trusting those people? Risk!!!!!!!!! I had no answer to this! I was perplexed. I gave some silly yet satisfying answer and closed the matter at that time. But, this question kept on hunting me. Since that day I get more skeptical talking to my friends – net friends as per the nomenclature. On the contrary, the sounds from my soft heart keep on hounding too. Friends are friends after all! Does the place I met them really matters?

Her concern was okay too. Even media is raising questions on networking sites and network so formed, especially after cases of Adnan Patrawala and likes. There have been long threads on Orkut and various other sites discussing if such sites should be banned. But, my question is – How would that ban the human tendency to interact with people and making friends. Can you ban human mind and its thinking capability? It is a wanderer and flies even past the horizons of imagination. It is like making two people sit in the same room and asking them not to interact. And, how does it matter if I meet a friend in a train or on Orkut. I would still get to know only the things that person would let me know. In neither case, I can extract more information than I am been exposed too. I cannot spy on every creature on this motherly earth.

People are people after all, be it on Orkut or on a journey to some strange city with me. The people I met on first day of my class were equal strangers to me as the people I met on the Internet. Is it then really justified to differentiate friends as normal friends and net friends? In so many cases my communication with school and college friends (read normal friends) is now limited to messengers. Is it okay to say that they have now turned into Net friends and so I should doubt their integrity and honesty? It totally depends on a person and his/her capability to judge people. The risk of meeting Judas in your life will always be there. The place where you meet that person hardly matters in that case. I have seen people getting into successful business ventures through Internet. Have they not taken the risk, they would have missed a great opportunity. On the contrary, people ditch their close relatives in case of business. Can you keep a check on their honesty and integrity? No! not at all. So, continue interacting with strangers and make new friends! Live up the journey of net friends to friends!

Daddy’s Gal

Posted on | May 28, 2008 | No Comments

Being the eldest daughter of my parents, I enjoyed all cosseting as a kid. Although, not after my sweet siblings took birth (I used to snatch their share of chocolates and pastries very wicked of me, I know ). Every evening I used to hold hands of my Mom and Dad, and walk up to the ice-cream parlor with my little feet. The man at the ice-cream parlor recognized me well ( of course b’coz I was a daily customer of his ) He used to be all ready with my ice-cream……mmm….the taste of those Kwality Walls 100 % ice-creams is still fresh on my tongue…..and the pineapple pastries …ummm…..I can never forget them. Besides these ice-creams, pastries, Barbie dolls,…..list is quite long to mention here….I used to get the scoops of parental advice especially by my Dad. Follow this…..follow that …act like this in such situation..blah blah…Ahhhh….don’t ask me how much I hated all what he used to say at that time. We thought almost in opposite directions. I hardly remember any instance when we thought alike. He wanted me to join a government organization like him and I was adamant on working in private sector, enjoying the infrastructure and so many other things which typical government organizations might not provide. I might be wrong here, but that was my mindset.

All this developed a feeling that I am different from my friends who are typically Daddy’s girl. Fortunately or unfortunately my Dad gave me enough independence to take my own decisions. The days kept passing by and I kept messing up and building up things…of course on the basis of my own decisions. Finally, the big day came when I completed my studies and was out in the corporate world to chase my dreams. Again, with my own decisions…my own perceptions of people…the work….the environment and everything else…

I entered the corporate world with the “everyone is a friend” attitude of mine. But, Oh my Gosh! Here, nobody is. After all, it is not the same world! Unlike school and college where we used to compete for marks we have to compete for high position and better appraisals. With the different motive of competition I saw the different approach of winning that competition in people – Hit or Miss.

Alas!! That hit right in head! I was totally baffled. I didn’t know what to do, whom to trust, where to go, what to do and what not do.

This was the time, when for the first time I recalled Dad’s first lesson. I recalled he told me, “Child! Whenever confused, close your eyes and introspect”, then the second, “Do good and you’ll get it right back”, then the third “Never care what others think of you, just do what is right”….then the fourth and the fifth and so on. Soon I realized what I used to ignore since childhood are the keys to survive in today’s world. I realized even I am a Daddy’s gal and I am proud to be one. Thanks Dad! You are the best!

Your decisions : Who takes them for you?

Posted on | May 27, 2008 | No Comments

Are you independent? Most of you will say yes. Are you an individualist? Again, I would get a similar answer from most of you. This is because we derive individualism from the superset called ‘Independence‘. An independent person in literary terms is the one who is not influenced or controlled by others in matters of opinion, conduct, etc.; thinking or acting for oneself. An individual advocates the theory of liberty, rights or independent action. And, that is my question – are we individuals?

We might be independent in literary terms and that is known to every Indian now. I don’t even need to explain why we are independent just on papers, even long after the British Raj has gone. We have all the rights and independence (read pressurized independence) to do what we want – Independence to live anywhere in the country (recall the Bal Thackery and the ‘Mumbai Kiski’ issue), to independence to express (recall the Taslima Nasreen issue), to vote for representative and so on. But, that is subject to the independence you have as a citizen of the country. What about the independence in your personal life? Are you independent in that domain? And, again are you an individualist? Do you take your decisions on your own, independently? I know I’ll see thousand hands up if I ask this question to the crowd. But, just re-think once how many of us actually take these decisions on our own, as individuals and not as independents. What I mean here is that how many of us are not under varied pressures while we are taking decisions for ourselves. Don’t you think of the society before telling your parents about your bf/gf who is from a different religion or a different cast for that matter. The very first question that springs up in mind is  “What would people say?” Do you allow yourself to simply tell your parents that you want to marry this person without caring what society has to say on that? Although, some people would say that they have those guts to let their parents know about their choice. But then, my question is how many of you can go for a live-in relationship living in the same city as your parents? Given a choice most of the youth would prefer such a set-up. The only hurdle for them is Society.

Marriage or these relationship issues come quite late in life. There are yet other important things that frame our lives such as our career or what we want pursue in our life. How many of us have been given enough liberty to opt for the subjects we want to study. Not even the education system that teaches the principles of liberty, independence and individualism gives us enough freedom of choice. Why isn’t a person allowed to study history with accounts. An individual might have an inclination for both. When it comes to choosing our career field again we are bound to take a decision as per our parents’ choice, the society rather. No parents want their child to be anything less than an engineer or a doctor or an MBA. At no chance they would allow their child, son especially, to be a painter or a musician. Reason being these not accepted career options by the SOCIETY and might not churn enough money to live a prestigious life. The reasons are innumerous. But, who the hell is society to decide what a person should do in life? A person needs to be insane, to set on a voyage to discover another America; else he/she would need to suffocate under the expectations of the society.

Would the same society and their members support you in thick times of life? What if despite being a brilliant student I am not able to perform in my job, just because it doesn’t click in my mind. If a man in his mid thirties realizes that he is in a wrong field, and would be satiated if he becomes a painter, does he have liberty to do that? No! Why? Because, as per the society, at the age of 30, you should have a good bank balance, a big house and a car, which might not be possible in case of such a switch-over. The result would be dissatisfaction, which leads to depression.

When would we be allowed rather LEARN to take decisions independently? When would we become individuals in real sense?

SEO : The formula to e-business

Posted on | May 22, 2008 | No Comments

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