Lockdown - Day 51

There is a running joke in our English department. During the exam season intermediate-level students can typically be broken down into two categories: those who use moreover and those who prefer furthermore. This is specially noticeable in students that only register for the certification exam. I suppose they are eager to show off the connectors they took pains to learn at school. Whatever the reason, they never fail to plug those linkers into any conversation:

Hello, my name is Javi. Furthermore my last name is Pellicer.

Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against moreover and furthermore, but they are rather formal and sort of set the bar pretty high. What I'm trying to say is that you should not be too quick to dispense with simple words like also, besides, too, as well, another, etc. The key to clear writing does not lie in the use of fancy words. That's why today I would like to touch on a very specific skill: the art of building an efficient sentence, one that includes the information we want to get across. So I'm not talking about crafting a stylish phrase or attempting to wax lyrical. That's not our battle (yet).

Let's suppose we want to convey these simple ideas:

• Fact: the airport is going to be closed down
• General reason: security is compromised 
• Specific reason: red-haired people are a threat

Bearing those three elements in mind we could come up with up something like this:

The local authorities have decided to close down the airport due to security considerations as they see a potential threat in red-haired foreigners

What are the key words in that sentence? Clearly they are due to and as. They both allow the speaker to articulate the reason why something is the case. Due to and as are synonyms for because or because of. Once we have understood the cause and effect relationship we may proceed to choose among an array of possible alternatives such as owing to, on account of, etc. Interestingly enough, we don't always need these terms to express such a conceptual connection. Look at how causality is expressed in this sentence:

The scarcity of data on these crimes makes it

difficult to ascertain the true scope of the problem

Of course, the writer could have gone down a different road:

Due to the scarcity of data on these crimes

it is difficult to ascertain the true scope of the problem

Should you be a fan of as or given you could have decided to write something like this:

Given the scarcity of data on these crimes,

it is difficult to access the true scope of the problem

In short, you don't need to resort to fancy linkers if you want to sound advanced. A solid structure (and some accurate vocabulary) will convince any examiner that you know your stuff.


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N.B. I'll give you a heads-up. Tomorrow I'm going to post a video in which I discuss precisely how to organize information.