Grammar Made Easy And The 80/20 Principle: Less Stressful And Much More Effective Than The Traditional Approach
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Elisabeth Kuhn
May 7, 2013, 10:05:02 PM5/7/13
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Article Title: Grammar Made Easy And The 80/20 Principle: Less Stressful And Much More Effective Than The Traditional Approach
Author: Elisabeth Kuhn
Word Count: 519
Article URL: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=223726&ca=Writing
Format: 64cpl
Contact The Author: http://www.isnare.com/eta.php?aid=223726
Easy Publish Tool: http://www.isnare.com/html.php?aid=223726
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Easy grammar and the 80/20 principle? Is there really a connection? Not only is it for real, but it's pretty amazing that it hasn't caught on yet. It's high time that it does because it can save many people a lot of headaches.
Just in case you don't already know the 80/20 principle from sales, here's a quick explanation: 20% of most salespeople's clients account for 80% of their sales. Which means, of course, that the other 80% percent of their clients aren't paying their way. The logical consequence: It pays to focus mostly on taking very good care of the 20% that do. Maybe those customers will buy even more. And if not, at least the salespeople will have a bit more free time...
The 80/20 principle doesn't just work for sales, though. When I learned English (which is my second language), for example, my favorite word-building book was based on the very same principle. It had three sections:
1) About 150 words made up at least 10% of all the words in any average document. They included the basics, such as articles, conjunctions, most prepositions, and numbers.
2) Another 1,000 or so words, together with the really basic 150 words, covered well over 90% of the words in any average text.
3) Several thousand more words were divided into subject areas, so I could study just what I needed. When I wanted to talk about the weather, I'd look up weather words. When my hypochondria got the better of me, I studied the medical section. I've been getting by very nicely ever since.
English has tens of thousands of additional words, of course, but that's what big dictionaries are for. And how often do you ever need those?
The same is true for grammar, where the 80/20 principle works much the same way. With just 20% of the "rules," you can cover almost all of the territory you'd ever need, at least if you pick the right 20%.
That seems hard to believe if you look at those grammar books filled with thousands of obscure little rules, all of them designed to intimidate. Many of you probably met all those rules in high school. How many do you remember? Not many, probably.
The traditional approach to grammar is really a factoid-based trivial pursuit-type approach. It's not very efficient. Compare how the 80/20 approach covers that territory:
1) There are the basic ingredients and a system to put them together into sentences.
2) There are a few rules that help you avoid the major problems, such as agreement errors, weird tense sequences, and dangling modifiers.
3) There are some nifty techniques to make your sentences more effective and your prose flow better. Those three make up the 20%.
Beyond that, for the other 80%, you have two options: You could look up what you need in some big grammar book. Or, and here's your secret weapon, you could rewrite the sentence. It's your sentence, after all, and you get to write it any way you want to. Just pick a way you know how to handle.
About The Author: For 10 quick tips on how to edit your writing effectively, visit http://www.LinguisticLeverage.com and sign up for Elisabeth's series of grammar, writing. and copywriting tips. Elisabeth Kuhn is a linguist and a writer, and she enjoys helping people unleash their inner grammar power.
Please use the HTML version of this article at:
http://www.isnare.com/html.php?aid=223726
*********************** ARTICLE END ***********************
- To distribute your articles go to http://www.isnare.com/distribution.php
- For more free-reprint articles go to http://www.isnare.com
Message delivered directly to members of the group:
publish-the...@googlegroups.com
*****************************************************************
Please consider this free-reprint article written by:
Elisabeth Kuhn
*****************************
IMPORTANT - Publication/Reprint Terms
- You have permission to publish this article electronically in free-only publications such as a website or an ezine as long as the bylines are included.
- You are not allowed to use this article for commercial purposes. The article should only be reprinted in a publicly accessible website and not in a members-only commercial site.
- You are not allowed to post/reprint this article in any sites/publications that contains or supports hate, violence, porn and warez or any indecent and illegal sites/publications.
- You are not allowed to use this article in UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email) or SPAM. This article MUST be distributed in an opt-in email list only.
- If you distribute this article in an ezine or newsletter, we ask that you send a copy of the newsletter or ezine that contains the article to http://www.isnare.com/eta.php?aid=223726
- If you post this article in a website/forum/blog, ALL links MUST be set to hyperlinks and we ask that you send a copy of the URL where the article is posted to http://www.isnare.com/eta.php?aid=223726
- We request that you ask permission from the author if you want to publish this article in print.
The role of iSnare.com is only to distribute this article as part of its Article Distribution feature ( http://www.isnare.com/distribution.php ). iSnare.com does NOT own this article, please respect the author's copyright and this publication/reprint terms. If you do not agree to any of these terms, please do not reprint or publish this article.
*****************************
Article Title: Grammar Made Easy And The 80/20 Principle: Less Stressful And Much More Effective Than The Traditional Approach
Author: Elisabeth Kuhn
Word Count: 519
Article URL: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=223726&ca=Writing
Format: 64cpl
Contact The Author: http://www.isnare.com/eta.php?aid=223726
Easy Publish Tool: http://www.isnare.com/html.php?aid=223726
*********************** ARTICLE START ***********************
Easy grammar and the 80/20 principle? Is there really a connection? Not only is it for real, but it's pretty amazing that it hasn't caught on yet. It's high time that it does because it can save many people a lot of headaches.
Just in case you don't already know the 80/20 principle from sales, here's a quick explanation: 20% of most salespeople's clients account for 80% of their sales. Which means, of course, that the other 80% percent of their clients aren't paying their way. The logical consequence: It pays to focus mostly on taking very good care of the 20% that do. Maybe those customers will buy even more. And if not, at least the salespeople will have a bit more free time...
The 80/20 principle doesn't just work for sales, though. When I learned English (which is my second language), for example, my favorite word-building book was based on the very same principle. It had three sections:
1) About 150 words made up at least 10% of all the words in any average document. They included the basics, such as articles, conjunctions, most prepositions, and numbers.
2) Another 1,000 or so words, together with the really basic 150 words, covered well over 90% of the words in any average text.
3) Several thousand more words were divided into subject areas, so I could study just what I needed. When I wanted to talk about the weather, I'd look up weather words. When my hypochondria got the better of me, I studied the medical section. I've been getting by very nicely ever since.
English has tens of thousands of additional words, of course, but that's what big dictionaries are for. And how often do you ever need those?
The same is true for grammar, where the 80/20 principle works much the same way. With just 20% of the "rules," you can cover almost all of the territory you'd ever need, at least if you pick the right 20%.
That seems hard to believe if you look at those grammar books filled with thousands of obscure little rules, all of them designed to intimidate. Many of you probably met all those rules in high school. How many do you remember? Not many, probably.
The traditional approach to grammar is really a factoid-based trivial pursuit-type approach. It's not very efficient. Compare how the 80/20 approach covers that territory:
1) There are the basic ingredients and a system to put them together into sentences.
2) There are a few rules that help you avoid the major problems, such as agreement errors, weird tense sequences, and dangling modifiers.
3) There are some nifty techniques to make your sentences more effective and your prose flow better. Those three make up the 20%.
Beyond that, for the other 80%, you have two options: You could look up what you need in some big grammar book. Or, and here's your secret weapon, you could rewrite the sentence. It's your sentence, after all, and you get to write it any way you want to. Just pick a way you know how to handle.
About The Author: For 10 quick tips on how to edit your writing effectively, visit http://www.LinguisticLeverage.com and sign up for Elisabeth's series of grammar, writing. and copywriting tips. Elisabeth Kuhn is a linguist and a writer, and she enjoys helping people unleash their inner grammar power.
Please use the HTML version of this article at:
http://www.isnare.com/html.php?aid=223726
*********************** ARTICLE END ***********************
- To distribute your articles go to http://www.isnare.com/distribution.php
- For more free-reprint articles go to http://www.isnare.com
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