s to dig the holes by hand, and drop two
or three kernels in each hole. Corn has become a staple crop.
Machinery is used. The preparing of a field for corn has become
a science.

UNITY OF THOUGHT

Unity means oneness. A sentence should contain one thought. It may
contain two or more statements only when these are closely related parts
of a larger thought or impression. A writer should make certain, first,
that his thought has unity; and second, that this unity will be obvious
to the reader.

=Unrelated Ideas in One Sentence=

=10. Do not combine ideas which have no obvious relation to each other.
Place the ideas in separate sentences. Or, write the ideas as one
sentence, making their relation obvious.=

Wrong: The Spartans did not care for literature, and lived in
the southern part of Greece.

Wrong: The coffee business is not difficult to learn, and the
most important work in preparing coffee for the market is the
roasting of the green berries.

The simplest method of correction is to divide the sentence.

Right: The Spartans lived in the southern part of Greece. They
did not care for literature.

Right: The coffee business is not difficult to learn. The most
important work in preparing the coffee for the market is the
roasting of the green berries.

Another method of correction is to subordinate one idea to the other, or
to change the wording until the relation between the ideas is obvious.

Right: The Spartans, who lived in the southern part of Greece,
did not care for literature.

Right: The coffee business is not difficult to learn, since the
only important work in preparing the coffee for the market is
the roasting of the green berries.

Exercise:

1. Franklin is often regarded as the typical American, and
wrote an interesting autobiography.

2. Coal miners wear little oil lamps in their caps, and they
seldom receive very good wages.

3. My neighbor, Mr. Houghton, was always a very good friend of
mine, and died last night.

4. I dropped the clock and injured the works, but the jeweler
told me it would be cheaper for me to buy a new clock.

5. The next thing the camper should do is to make a bed, and
the branches of the spruce are the best.

=Excessive Detail=

=11. Do not encumber the main idea of a sentence with superfluous
details. Pl