Reducing Subordinate Clauses in the Interest of Journal Style

Abstract

Academic writing, particularly juried articles, often compresses information in noun phrases that might have otherwise been delivered through subordinate clause structure. Graduate students under increasing pressure to publish in refereed journals often require support drafting their writing in this way. The purpose of this paper is to report on a small study focusing on the development of skills that reduce subordinate clauses and expand noun phrases. Findings indicate that three one-hour interactive presentation-practice sessions produce significant results on immediate and delayed posttests. Moreover, preliminary analysis of reflections from participants was unanimously in support of learning the skill. Future research in this area might explore individual learner differences reflected in learner trajectories in a scaled-up study (i.e., longer in duration and including more participants).