Compressed and Unpacked
The same contents, twice. One version fits in your hand and one you can actually see.
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Denser or easier. You cannot have both in one sentence, and a good paragraph has both in different sentences.
Move a sentence between a verb style and a noun style on purpose, choosing how dense it should be.
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One idea written twice. One version is denser and one is easier — and those two things are opposed.
The government introduced a charge, and traffic in the city centre fell by a fifth.
The introduction of a charge produced a fifth reduction in city-centre traffic.
Same facts. Same length, near enough. Both correct.
Which is denser, and which is easier to read?
The second is denser. The first is easier. Those two answers are not a coincidence — they are the same fact stated twice, and the whole sprint follows from it.
The six frames, what each one compresses, and the two-per-paragraph limit that keeps a page readable.
These are not vocabulary. They are slots that turn a clause into something you can use as a subject or an object.
| Frame | What it compresses | What it buys you |
|---|---|---|
| the introduction of | X was introduced | the event becomes a subject you can attach a result to |
| the removal of | X was removed | the same, for a withdrawal |
| the extent to which | how far X is true | an indirect question becomes a subject |
| the degree of | how X something is | a quality becomes measurable |
| the way in which | how X happens | a manner becomes a thing you can discuss |
| the case for | the arguments that X should happen | a whole position becomes one noun phrase |
The last four are the valuable ones, because English otherwise has no way to make an indirect question the subject of a sentence. How far automation displaces workers depends on the sector is awkward; the extent to which fixes it.
The same contents, twice. One version fits in your hand and one you can actually see.
Denser or easier. You cannot have both in one sentence, and a good paragraph has both in different sentences.
Six sentences, each with a job to do. Twice, the job is done better by the plain verbal version.
Every option in every question is grammatical. You are choosing on fit, not on correctness.
Ask what the sentence has to do: open a paragraph, carry a specific claim, become a subject, or simply be got through quickly. Two of the six are correctly answered with the verbal version.
This is the opening sentence of a body paragraph that will then give three specific examples from three sectors. Which version?
Three chains. Decide what the sentence has to do before you decide how dense it should be.
Chain 1
You are writing the opening sentence of a paragraph that will then compare three countries. You want the abstraction to be the subject.
The content: how far a government can reduce inequality through taxation alone.
Step 1 — What job does this sentence have to do?
Step 2 — Therefore the expert writes: The which taxation alone can reduce inequality varies widely between systems.
Chain 2
The sentence before this one already reads: The introduction of the levy produced an immediate reduction in consumption. You now need the next sentence, which gives one concrete example.
The content: manufacturers reformulated four of their best-selling drinks within a year.
Step 1 — The previous sentence was nominal. What does that decide about this one?
Step 2 — Therefore the expert writes: Within a year, manufacturers four of their best-selling drinks.
Chain 3
Your argument turns on the fact that one identifiable body made a decision, and that the timing was theirs.
The content: the regulator ended the exemption in March; the closures started in July.
Step 1 — What would a nominal version cost you here?
Step 2 — Therefore the expert writes: The ended the exemption in March, four months before the first closure.