Empty and Padded Sentences

Empty Sentences

-Empty sentences repeat the same idea

-Make statements without supporting them

A freight train is a train that carries freight.

Freight trains carry grain, coal, and other goods.

Trains are a good way to transport goods.

Rail trains are efficient because they don’t get delayed in traffic such as trucks.

Your Turn

• My parents yelled at me today.

Padded Sentences

-Contains too many words

-Contains words that don’t add anything to the sentence.

How many unnecessary words can you find in the following paragraph?

When my family went on vacation, my family went to visit this cave in Arizona where bandits who held up a train hid the loot, which was thousands of dollars of gold coins and other gold.

Count how many words this is

On our vacation my family visited a cave in Arizona where train robbers hid thousands of dollars of gold.

How to revise a padded sentence

• Think about the ideas you want to express

• Look for unnecessary words and phrases to take out

• Look for long phrases that don’t tell your reader much. Replace each of those phrases with one or two words.

Your Turn

• Ms. Kerr screamed and shouted at the class because they could not keep quiet because the students were too excited about playing a game in Ms. Kerr’s class

Find the repetitive/extra information

Identify if the sentence is empty or padded

• The weekend was a blast with my friends.• The dining car offers a lot of different and

various kinds of food to choose from.• I would much rather fly Southwest than

any other airline.• She said that we are going to Hawaii for

vacation because we need a break from the stress of work because work is time consuming.

Practice

Revise the following sentences using the directions in parentheses

1. Train travel is better then car travel. (Add a reason or fact.)

2. Commuter trains ease urban traffic congestion on account of the fact that they can transport so many people. (Eliminate unnecessary words.)

Practice Cont.

3. Everyone should travel by train. (Add reason.)

4. Open-top rail cars don’t have tops and carry coal, iron ore, and other material. (Eliminate the repeated idea.)

5. Train travel is faster than bus travel because it is speedier. (Eliminate the repeated idea: add a reason or fact.)