Check your D and N
Your marked draft. Check each comma against its letter. Count the disagreements and write the number at the top.
Then check the direction: how many were commas you had added? It is usually most of them.
Six things from your four minutes. Match each to what happens on the page.
A finished piece
The Exemption · 248 words
The new council parking scheme, which came into force in April, covers four streets in the north of the city and cost four million pounds. I am not against it.
The part I object to is the exemption. Residents who held a permit before 2019 are exempt from the new charge; everybody who moved in after that date is not. The effect is that the people who pay most are the ones who arrived most recently, which in these four streets means the people who earn least.
To be fair to the scheme, the section covering the school run has worked, which is the only part of it anybody defends without being asked. Drop-off time on Rua Alta has fallen from about twenty minutes to about six, and the residents I have spoken to who have children say so unprompted.
The argument I keep hearing for the exemption is that long-standing residents were promised something in 2016 and that breaking the promise would be worse than the unfairness it creates. That is not a stupid position, and the people who make it are not being cynical.
What nobody in the debate has mentioned is that the promise was made to eleven households. Eleven. The exemption now covers three hundred and forty. That is a different policy.
I would change my mind about all of this if somebody produced the original 2016 undertaking and it said what the council says it says. Nobody has, and I have asked twice.
Four questions about the construction of the piece.
1. The first sentence has a non-defining clause and the second paragraph has four defining ones. Why the difference?
2. I am not against it. Four words, alone. What is it doing?
3. Paragraph five is Eleven. as a one-word sentence. Why?
4. The last paragraph names what would change the writer’s mind. What does that do?
Six paragraphs, six jobs
The shape
| Paragraph | Job | Grammar it leans on | Words |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Identify the thing, with a number, and say what you are not arguing | Non-defining clause + noun phrase | 25–35 |
| 2 | The precise objection | Defining clauses, several | 50–60 |
| 3 | What it gets right | Concession + a number | 45–55 |
| 4 | The opposing case, in its own terms | Reported framing | 40–50 |
| 5 | What nobody has mentioned | A short sentence and a fragment | 30–40 |
| 6 | What would change your mind | First conditional | 30–40 |
Six sentences from a different piece, out of order. Put them into the shape.
- What nobody has said is that the counting was done in August.
- The people this affects are the ones who work weekdays, which is most of the people the library was built for.
- I would drop this entirely if somebody recounted in November and the numbers held.
- The new library opening hours, which came in last September, cut Saturday afternoons entirely.
- The argument for the change is that Saturday afternoons were the quietest four hours of the week, and the counting was done properly.
- To be fair to the council, the weekday evening extension has been used more than anybody predicted.
Two rules the model obeys.
Every clause that narrows has no commas, and every clause that adds has two. There is not one exception in 248 words, and a reader who finds one stops trusting the punctuation everywhere.
Nothing is described in two sentences that could be described in one noun phrase. The residents I have spoken to who have children is three facts and one subject.
Before you write it
The paragraph that does the narrowing. Zero to three words per gap.
The part I object to is the exemption. Residents held a permit before 2019 are exempt; everybody moved in after that date is not. The effect is that the people pay most are the ones arrived most recently in these four streets means the people earn least.
Six sentences from first drafts. Fix each now.
1. The people, who pay most, are the ones who arrived recently.
2. The scheme, that came in last April, covers four streets.
3. It cost four million, what nobody mentions.
4. There is a scheme. It is new. The council made it. It covers four streets.
5. Everyone knows this exemption is unfair.
6. The councillor who his ward it covers voted for it twice.
Write it
Task card · Writing · Individual · 16 minutes
Your opinion, as a piece somebody who disagrees will read. This goes into your portfolio.
Six paragraphs, about 250 words.
- Paragraph 1: identify the thing with a non-defining clause and a number, and say what you are not arguing.
- Paragraph 2: the precise objection, with at least three defining clauses.
- Paragraph 3: what it gets right, with a number.
- Paragraph 4: the opposing case, in terms its holders would accept.
- Paragraph 5: what nobody has mentioned. Paragraph 6: what would change your mind.
- Every comma agrees with its clause. Word count at the bottom.
Write straight through, then run the removal test. Twelve minutes writing, four minutes taking every relative clause out in your head and checking the punctuation against what is left.
Task card · Audit · Pairs · 7 minutes
Swap. You hold the position this piece is arguing against.
Hand back a marked page and one spoken sentence: whether paragraph four is a version of your position you would sign.
- Mark every relative clause D or N from the meaning, before looking at the commas.
- Circle any comma that disagrees.
- For every circled one, write what the sentence currently claims.
- Underline any place where two sentences could have been one noun phrase.
What the drafts did
Five sentences from drafts. Fix each, then check your own page.
1. The residents, who are affected, were never consulted. — only some are affected
2. The report, that took a year, says nothing.
3. My council, who I have written to twice, has not replied.
4. The decision was taken by people. They do not live here. They have never parked here.
5. Obviously the whole thing is a disgrace.
What goes home
Two questions about your own draft.
1. Your auditor circled three commas that disagreed with the meaning. Which direction were they?
2. Your auditor would not sign paragraph four. What is the consequence?
Before next lesson. Rewrite it once from the marked page and bring the clean version on paper.
Next lesson you hand it in and argue it out loud with somebody who holds the other position, and the commas have to be audible.