The concept of prosody or how to check to syntax of natural speech in your note

The concept of prosody, or how to check the syntax of natural speech in your note

• Some time ago I suggested reading the note aloud and checking the syntax of the sentence: is it written in literary or natural speech? Does it sound the way I actually speak or not? If not, there is a solution (maybe).
  • Reading aloud offers a perspective on the way you were thinking when you wrote the sentence. So read aloud, take note of adjectives and adverbs, but aside from the obvious, look for overwrought phrases and words — this is the territory of prosody.
    • The concept of prosody is an understanding of how a word or a phrase is used in the specific context of a sentence.
• To work out prosody, or learn the concept of it, I need to devise explicit instructions: what to notice and where to look in the sentence. Prosody is not a question of vocabulary or individual words, but of how the phrase is structured.
  • Imagine a salesperson calling on the phone to offer some goods or services. Almost anyone can instantly tell that the salesperson is reading from a script or that his speech is scripted.
  • This could actually be a task for my students to complete: craft a script to “sell” themselves as specialists in a job interview. The script must not contain adjectives or adverbs that end with -y / -ly; the speech must have the prosody of natural speech.
    • A similar task can be designed for writing a note that explains something that requires real effort to understand.
• In this exercise, it is important to evaluate whatever has been written within the frame of the following questions:
  • Do I believe it?
  • Does the writing seem natural (like the way a person actually speaks)?
    • If anything sounds unnatural when reading aloud, underline it and revise it later.
• The only thing to keep in mind: when reading, I must be objective and picky. Examine each adjective and adverb. Try explaining what it means to be “objective” or “picky” (a note to myself).
  • Jack Grapes argues in his book that he has never met an adverb that was necessary.
• Example of changing objective and picky into something more coherent:
  • Objective means: read and decide if any word could be simplified or removed without needing extra interpretation.
  • Picky means: every adjective, adverb, and fancy word must go through analysis to see whether the same thing can be said without requiring the reader to interpret what is meant.

---

BIO

🧠 theBrain mapping

ID: 202511190916 Source:: Friend:: Child:: Next:: Transformation line concept. Transformation of one’s notes happens when a note-taker understand the underlying need he has to write

Keywords:

Reference: