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![process to swamp them. Although our findings do not support the distinction between macrostructure and microstructure, at least as it is usually defined, the implica-tions of the existence of central sentences are that writers who see what they have to say in terms of a series of interconnected macropropositions are more likely to succeed in producing highly valued writing than those who make it up as they go along. One thing seems certain: the traditional advice to avoid repetition needs to be couched with special care if it is not to interfere actively with the development of mature writing skills. The advice grew out of two quite reasonable worries. First, when an inexperienced writer does not know what else to say, they some-times resort to restating what they have already said. Nothing in this book should have shaken the reader’s conviction that this is an unsatisfactory practice; the existence of patterns of lexis in text is not to be interpreted as an incitement to padding. Second, especially among less experienced writers, limitations of vocabulary and ignorance of the means whereby one can repeat in a language may lead a learner to juxtapose the same lexical item clumsily in adjacent sentences. Again, it has been noted in earlier chapters that the tendency for adjacent sentences to bond is not great; the reason is that, in English, care is usually taken to avoid the clumsy juxtaposition just referred to. So, here too, the advice as traditionally given still stands. But it cannot rest there. Reasonable as the worries concerning repetition may be, the advice to avoid repetition may be harmful unless it is immediately sup-plemented by something more. To begin with, if a learner is to avoid clumsiness, he or she must be taught how to avoid it. One of the most important ways is by means of complex repetition. So, in the first sentence of the previous paragraph, I used the lexical item clumsily; in the following sentence it has become clumsy while in the third sentence of this paragraph it appears as clumsiness. Similarly, juxtapose becomes juxtaposition, and repeat becomes repetition. There is nothing contrived about these examples; my practice is that of most writers need-ing to repeat without making the repetition obtrusive. Stotsky (1983) comments that ‘an increase in the use of morphologically complex words [i.e. complex rep-etition], rather than repetition of a simple word or the use of a cumbersome para-phrase, may be an important index of growth.’ If we need to protect our learners against this aspect of avoiding repetition, still more must we protect them against misuse of the counsel to avoid padding. Learners should not be encouraged to say the same thing over and over again, but they should be advised to make connections between what they are currently saying and what they said before. There should, in non-narrative text, be some relationship between sentences at a distance from each other. What this means for learners is that they need to take time out of grappling with the difficulties of composing the sentence they are currently working on to consider its relationship with what they have already written. This may impose on the writer an additional burden but it also relieves him or her of at least some of the task of lexical selec-tion. Indeed, knowledge that it is legitimate to reuse in different combinations](https://images.tandf.co.uk/common/jackets/crclarge/978041525/9780415253581.jpg "process to swamp them. Although our findings do not support the distinction between macrostructure and microstructure, at least as it is usually defined, the implica-tions of the existence of central sentences are that writers who see what they have to say in terms of a series of interconnected macropropositions are more likely to succeed in producing highly valued writing than those who make it up as they go along. One thing seems certain: the traditional advice to avoid repetition needs to be couched with special care if it is not to interfere actively with the development of mature writing skills. The advice grew out of two quite reasonable worries. First, when an inexperienced writer does not know what else to say, they some-times resort to restating what they have already said. Nothing in this book should have shaken the reader’s conviction that this is an unsatisfactory practice; the existence of patterns of lexis in text is not to be interpreted as an incitement to padding. Second, especially among less experienced writers, limitations of vocabulary and ignorance of the means whereby one can repeat in a language may lead a learner to juxtapose the same lexical item clumsily in adjacent sentences. Again, it has been noted in earlier chapters that the tendency for adjacent sentences to bond is not great; the reason is that, in English, care is usually taken to avoid the clumsy juxtaposition just referred to. So, here too, the advice as traditionally given still stands. But it cannot rest there. Reasonable as the worries concerning repetition may be, the advice to avoid repetition may be harmful unless it is immediately sup-plemented by something more. To begin with, if a learner is to avoid clumsiness, he or she must be taught how to avoid it. One of the most important ways is by means of complex repetition. So, in the first sentence of the previous paragraph, I used the lexical item clumsily; in the following sentence it has become clumsy while in the third sentence of this paragraph it appears as clumsiness. Similarly, juxtapose becomes juxtaposition, and repeat becomes repetition. There is nothing contrived about these examples; my practice is that of most writers need-ing to repeat without making the repetition obtrusive. Stotsky (1983) comments that ‘an increase in the use of morphologically complex words [i.e. complex rep-etition], rather than repetition of a simple word or the use of a cumbersome para-phrase, may be an important index of growth.’ If we need to protect our learners against this aspect of avoiding repetition, still more must we protect them against misuse of the counsel to avoid padding. Learners should not be encouraged to say the same thing over and over again, but they should be advised to make connections between what they are currently saying and what they said before. There should, in non-narrative text, be some relationship between sentences at a distance from each other. What this means for learners is that they need to take time out of grappling with the difficulties of composing the sentence they are currently working on to consider its relationship with what they have already written. This may impose on the writer an additional burden but it also relieves him or her of at least some of the task of lexical selec-tion. Indeed, knowledge that it is legitimate to reuse in different combinations")
Chapter
process to swamp them. Although our findings do not support the distinction between macrostructure and microstructure, at least as it is usually defined, the implica-tions of the existence of central sentences are that writers who see what they have to say in terms of a series of interconnected macropropositions are more likely to succeed in producing highly valued writing than those who make it up as they go along. One thing seems certain: the traditional advice to avoid repetition needs to be couched with special care if it is not to interfere actively with the development of mature writing skills. The advice grew out of two quite reasonable worries. First, when an inexperienced writer does not know what else to say, they some-times resort to restating what they have already said. Nothing in this book should have shaken the reader’s conviction that this is an unsatisfactory practice; the existence of patterns of lexis in text is not to be interpreted as an incitement to padding. Second, especially among less experienced writers, limitations of vocabulary and ignorance of the means whereby one can repeat in a language may lead a learner to juxtapose the same lexical item clumsily in adjacent sentences. Again, it has been noted in earlier chapters that the tendency for adjacent sentences to bond is not great; the reason is that, in English, care is usually taken to avoid the clumsy juxtaposition just referred to. So, here too, the advice as traditionally given still stands. But it cannot rest there. Reasonable as the worries concerning repetition may be, the advice to avoid repetition may be harmful unless it is immediately sup-plemented by something more. To begin with, if a learner is to avoid clumsiness, he or she must be taught how to avoid it. One of the most important ways is by means of complex repetition. So, in the first sentence of the previous paragraph, I used the lexical item clumsily; in the following sentence it has become clumsy while in the third sentence of this paragraph it appears as clumsiness. Similarly, juxtapose becomes juxtaposition, and repeat becomes repetition. There is nothing contrived about these examples; my practice is that of most writers need-ing to repeat without making the repetition obtrusive. Stotsky (1983) comments that ‘an increase in the use of morphologically complex words [i.e. complex rep-etition], rather than repetition of a simple word or the use of a cumbersome para-phrase, may be an important index of growth.’ If we need to protect our learners against this aspect of avoiding repetition, still more must we protect them against misuse of the counsel to avoid padding. Learners should not be encouraged to say the same thing over and over again, but they should be advised to make connections between what they are currently saying and what they said before. There should, in non-narrative text, be some relationship between sentences at a distance from each other. What this means for learners is that they need to take time out of grappling with the difficulties of composing the sentence they are currently working on to consider its relationship with what they have already written. This may impose on the writer an additional burden but it also relieves him or her of at least some of the task of lexical selec-tion. Indeed, knowledge that it is legitimate to reuse in different combinations
DOI link for process to swamp them. Although our findings do not support the distinction between macrostructure and microstructure, at least as it is usually defined, the implica-tions of the existence of central sentences are that writers who see what they have to say in terms of a series of interconnected macropropositions are more likely to succeed in producing highly valued writing than those who make it up as they go along. One thing seems certain: the traditional advice to avoid repetition needs to be couched with special care if it is not to interfere actively with the development of mature writing skills. The advice grew out of two quite reasonable worries. First, when an inexperienced writer does not know what else to say, they some-times resort to restating what they have already said. Nothing in this book should have shaken the reader’s conviction that this is an unsatisfactory practice; the existence of patterns of lexis in text is not to be interpreted as an incitement to padding. Second, especially among less experienced writers, limitations of vocabulary and ignorance of the means whereby one can repeat in a language may lead a learner to juxtapose the same lexical item clumsily in adjacent sentences. Again, it has been noted in earlier chapters that the tendency for adjacent sentences to bond is not great; the reason is that, in English, care is usually taken to avoid the clumsy juxtaposition just referred to. So, here too, the advice as traditionally given still stands. But it cannot rest there. Reasonable as the worries concerning repetition may be, the advice to avoid repetition may be harmful unless it is immediately sup-plemented by something more. To begin with, if a learner is to avoid clumsiness, he or she must be taught how to avoid it. One of the most important ways is by means of complex repetition. So, in the first sentence of the previous paragraph, I used the lexical item clumsily; in the following sentence it has become clumsy while in the third sentence of this paragraph it appears as clumsiness. Similarly, juxtapose becomes juxtaposition, and repeat becomes repetition. There is nothing contrived about these examples; my practice is that of most writers need-ing to repeat without making the repetition obtrusive. Stotsky (1983) comments that ‘an increase in the use of morphologically complex words [i.e. complex rep-etition], rather than repetition of a simple word or the use of a cumbersome para-phrase, may be an important index of growth.’ If we need to protect our learners against this aspect of avoiding repetition, still more must we protect them against misuse of the counsel to avoid padding. Learners should not be encouraged to say the same thing over and over again, but they should be advised to make connections between what they are currently saying and what they said before. There should, in non-narrative text, be some relationship between sentences at a distance from each other. What this means for learners is that they need to take time out of grappling with the difficulties of composing the sentence they are currently working on to consider its relationship with what they have already written. This may impose on the writer an additional burden but it also relieves him or her of at least some of the task of lexical selec-tion. Indeed, knowledge that it is legitimate to reuse in different combinations
process to swamp them. Although our findings do not support the distinction between macrostructure and microstructure, at least as it is usually defined, the implica-tions of the existence of central sentences are that writers who see what they have to say in terms of a series of interconnected macropropositions are more likely to succeed in producing highly valued writing than those who make it up as they go along. One thing seems certain: the traditional advice to avoid repetition needs to be couched with special care if it is not to interfere actively with the development of mature writing skills. The advice grew out of two quite reasonable worries. First, when an inexperienced writer does not know what else to say, they some-times resort to restating what they have already said. Nothing in this book should have shaken the reader’s conviction that this is an unsatisfactory practice; the existence of patterns of lexis in text is not to be interpreted as an incitement to padding. Second, especially among less experienced writers, limitations of vocabulary and ignorance of the means whereby one can repeat in a language may lead a learner to juxtapose the same lexical item clumsily in adjacent sentences. Again, it has been noted in earlier chapters that the tendency for adjacent sentences to bond is not great; the reason is that, in English, care is usually taken to avoid the clumsy juxtaposition just referred to. So, here too, the advice as traditionally given still stands. But it cannot rest there. Reasonable as the worries concerning repetition may be, the advice to avoid repetition may be harmful unless it is immediately sup-plemented by something more. To begin with, if a learner is to avoid clumsiness, he or she must be taught how to avoid it. One of the most important ways is by means of complex repetition. So, in the first sentence of the previous paragraph, I used the lexical item clumsily; in the following sentence it has become clumsy while in the third sentence of this paragraph it appears as clumsiness. Similarly, juxtapose becomes juxtaposition, and repeat becomes repetition. There is nothing contrived about these examples; my practice is that of most writers need-ing to repeat without making the repetition obtrusive. Stotsky (1983) comments that ‘an increase in the use of morphologically complex words [i.e. complex rep-etition], rather than repetition of a simple word or the use of a cumbersome para-phrase, may be an important index of growth.’ If we need to protect our learners against this aspect of avoiding repetition, still more must we protect them against misuse of the counsel to avoid padding. Learners should not be encouraged to say the same thing over and over again, but they should be advised to make connections between what they are currently saying and what they said before. There should, in non-narrative text, be some relationship between sentences at a distance from each other. What this means for learners is that they need to take time out of grappling with the difficulties of composing the sentence they are currently working on to consider its relationship with what they have already written. This may impose on the writer an additional burden but it also relieves him or her of at least some of the task of lexical selec-tion. Indeed, knowledge that it is legitimate to reuse in different combinations
ABSTRACT
process to swamp them. Although our findings do not support the distinction between macrostructure and microstructure, at least as it is usually defined, the implications of the existence of central sentences are that writers who see what they have to say in terms of a series of interconnected macropropositions are more likely to succeed in producing highly valued writing than those who make it up as they go along.
