The following section presents excerpts from a proposal on Edocs, an online environment for collaborating, created by a research team in Qatar. One of the team members believes Edocs facilitates collaboration among professional groups working from different countries. However, their clients (Qatar Foundation researchers) did not find the proposal confident or convincing enough. In the challenges that follow, try to consider the options presented so that the developers can make the most effective case for their audience.

Directions:
Identify and improve text that can make the report more effective, in terms of its metadiscourse, nominalizations, and concision.

Challenge 5: Combining Nominalizations and Concision

Your Goals

1. Avoiding nominalizations to make the tone more certain and direct

2. Cutting out unnecessary (already-known, implied or repeated) information

Comments on Response Options

Problem Text

Edocs eliminates the need for multiple email exchanges among the team while completing tasks together; it allows for the editing of the same document by multiple people in real time, so that the whole team does not need to be present.

Option A

"With Edocs, teams no longer need to constantly email each other while completing tasks; multiple people can edit the same document in real time,"

This option is concise and untangles the nominalizations, which highlights the convenience of Edocs. This works well if your purpose is to persuade people to use Edocs.

Option B

"With Edocs, there is no longer the need for teams to constantly email each other while completing tasks; multiple people can edit the same document in real time,"

This option is also concise and also untangles some nominalizations. However, it keeps some nominalized text, which places less emphasis on the convenience of Edocs. It would be appropriate if your purpose is not to argue for this convenience.

Option C

"With Edocs, teams no longer need to work from multiple emails; multiple people can work on the same document in real time,"

This option is also concise and also untangles some nominalizations. However, it uses a less direct action (“work”) to specifically describe the team’s task (emailing). This takes the emphasis off the convenience of using Edocs and would also work well in a less argumentative context.