Being Relevant and the Art of Selection

Writing is about decision-making. When you write, your mind will be constantly asking itself questions ; what you write will be your answers to these questions. Many of these questions will be concerned with the content of your work (What to include and what to leave out ? Have I said everything that I wanted to say?), and many will be concerned with its form (Is that idea adequately expressed ? Is that word the best word ?). These kinds of decisions are based on two very important and interrelated concepts: relevance and selectivity.

1. Being Relevant

What you choose to say will be governed by the task you are trying to fulfil by writing : everything which contributes to the fulfilment of this task is relevant ; everything which detracts from it is irrelevant. So, it is vital to develop the skill of judging relevance. It is important when writing to ask yourself again and again ‘Is this relevant ?’ which means ‘Does this sentence contribute to the fulfilment of the task I am trying to achieve ?’

Exercise 1:

You are going to a strange city, and you want to visit a night-club called ‘The ENIGMA’. You ask a friend to send you directions by E-mail. He sends you the following information. Identify what you think are the irrelevant sentences and reformulate the text without them:

The ENIGMA is in the city centre, next to a church. It’s a new building with bright neon lights. The church is protestant, I think. When I went there it was raining. You can take a bus or a tram from the station. It’s too far to walk and taxis are very expensive. You can ask for the number at the station. My memory is getting worse. You need to get off outside a big school and take the street which runs alongside it, there is a park on the left. There is a big fountain in the park. The ducks like the fountain. You come to a roundabout and turn left. It’s a beautiful city, by the way. The ENIGMA is on your right after 200 metres.

Click here to see a more concise version of the same text

Exercise 2:

Here is a paragraph from a student essay on Katherine Mansfield’s story ‘The Garden Party’. The student has been asked to 1. analyse how Laura’s attitude differs from that of her family and to 2. react to the themes of death and class. Identify the irrelevant sentences by clicking on those you think are irrelevant to the tasks above.

I think that Laura is more sensitive than the rest of her family. She is interested in the workmen who come to put up the marquee. One of them is ‘pale and tired’ and Laura wonders what he is thinking. She is interested in other lives. She wants the party to be a success and talks to Kitty on the telephone. When she sees the flowers she thinks there has been a mistake. I don’t think they need so many flowers because the party will take place in the garden. Even though Laura isn’t hungry, she eats a cream cake just after breakfast. She is very disturbed when she hears about the accident, and wants to cancel the party. She notices that her attitude is different to that of her family; she can enter into the lives of others and feel what they are feeling. I think that the upper classes are often very cold. Money often divides people. It is a pleasure to be with happy people, but Laura has to go down the hill to the cottages where the poor people live. A big dog crosses her path.

Sometimes irrelevant material can be made relevant by explaining more and adding greater detail. Here is another sentence from the same essay : ‘Laura wants to stop the party but Mrs Sheridan gives her a new hat.’

The sentence seems irrelevant because it lacks detail and focus. But by adding more explanation we can easily add to its relevance : ‘Laura wants to stop the party, but Mrs Sheridan gives her a new hat and Laura is seduced by her own beautiful image ; egotistically, she forgets about the accident and conforms to the selfish standards of her family.’ Now the hat helps the essay to achieve its aims.

Exercise 3:

Take the irrelevant sentences in Exercise 2 and make them relevant by adding detail and precision. You may change the structure of the sentence or add extra follow-up sentences. By adding more explanation, the irrelevant sentence ‘Laura wants to stop the party but Mrs Sheridan gives her a new hat.’ has become relevant: ‘Laura wants to stop the party, but Mrs Sheridan gives her a new hat and Laura is seduced by her own beautiful image ; egotistically, she forgets about the accident and conforms to the selfish standards of her family.’

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3. Making Relevant with Examples

Very often the relevance of a sentence or group of sentences can be increased or made clearer by adding an example. In the same student essay, we find the sentence: ‘Laura feels embarrassed and ashamed when she visits the poor people.’ Now this statement is only half relevant to the essay question, which asks about the difference between Laura and her family and the themes of class and death. We need an example: ‘Laura feels embarrassed and ashamed when she visits the poor people, and this is shown when she apologises to the corpse for wearing her mother’s party hat.’ Suddenly the relevance of the sentence to the essay question is dramatically increased.

Exercise 4:

Here are some statements about some stories and poems in the syllabus. Find an example which illustrates each statement and integrate it grammatically into the sentence.Use the passive forms this/which is shown by; this/which is illustrated by; this/which is expressed by; the formulae for instance, in/when; for example and others. Mind the punctuation.

4. Selecting the Right Word

The quality and efficiency of your writing will obviously depend on your ability to select the right word. There are various techniques which can help with this, which we will look at in a moment; but it is important to realise that your word-power in English will develop in proportion to the depth of your experience of the language. Listen and read very carefully, and develop the skill of discovering what individual words are doing in a particular context, and how they combine with other words. An essential tool to acquire is a thesaurus or dictionary of synonyms, which you should always consult when you are preparing a text.

When choosing the right word you should take into account the following three factors:

When re-reading your work before submitting it you should ask these questions systematically about your choice of words. The following exercises are designed to help you develop this habit.

Exercise 5:

In each of the following sentences or pairs of sentences there is a word which has the wrong connotations for the context. FIRST, identify this word and THEN supply a more effective synonym.

1. T, the leader of Graham Greene’s congregation of destructors is evil incarnate.

2. It is because of their insolence that the Sheridans continue with their garden party in spite of the fatal accident.

In the next two pairs of sentences there are two unhelpful words which need to be replaced.

3. William’s ‘This is Just to say’ is a plain poem recounting an everyday experience. It is written in vulgar language which we can all recognise.

4. Auden’s ‘Song’ (also entitled 'Funeral Blues') combines an atmosphere of holocaust with infantile imagery. It is about grief and the impossibility of adjusting to loss.

BAC1 students in English Literature MUST click HERE to do this exercise interactively and will have to enter their ULg "identifiant" and "mot de passe" to access the page. Others, whose work need not be monitored, can click here.

Exercise 6:

In the following sentences there are two unhelpful words or phrases which are too VAGUE, AMBIGUOUS or INADEQUATE; identify them AND supply a more effective word/phrase.

1. Doris Lessing describes a young man, Charlie, who has a problem with his family. He is upset by their expectations and suffering from anxiety. ('England versus England')

2. Mr.Duffy, a dull man, is bored with his family, and has conventional attitudes regarding social opinion. (James Joyce, 'A Painful Case')

3. The tone of Hemingway's story 'The Killers' is not very nice and its protagonists have a poor attitude concerning human life.

BAC1 students in English Literature MUST click HERE to do this exercise interactively and will have to enter their ULg "identifiant" and "mot de passe" to access the page. Others, whose work need not be monitored, can click here.

Exercise 7:

In the following sentences or pairs of sentences a word is repeated. Find a suitable synonym for the first occurrence of the word.

1. The narrator of Ray Bradbury's 'The Beggar on the Dublin Bridge' is a very sympathetic person, he feels very sympathetic towards the beggar on the bridge.

2. At the end of ‘The Garden Party’ Laura finds the dead man’s body marvellous, she tells her brother that it is ‘simply marvellous’.

3. In ‘England versus England’ Charlie is a student under pressure. He is suffering from anxiety when he is with his family and the thought of going back to Oxford fills him with anxiety too.

BAC1 students in English Literature MUST click HERE to do this exercise interactively and will have to enter their ULg "identifiant" and "mot de passe" to access the page. Others, whose work need not be monitored, can click here.