Lessons in Cohesion: Part I



Lessons on Organization Part I:Deductive v. Inductive StructureInstructionFind the structure at the paragraph and document level. As of the middle of March, the Nasdaq Index had outperformed the S&P 500 index by an unprecedented 104% on a year-on-year basis. Since the creation of the Nasdaq index in February 1971, we have never witnessed anything close to this type of performance gap. Statistically speaking, it has been a seven-standard deviation event, which would normally be viewed as a one in a trillion occurrence. ?This amazing revaluation of technology stocks reflects some astonishing—indeed revolutionary—fundamental developments. These include an explosion of ecommerce developments, with announcements virtually every day of new business-to-business ecommerce exchanges and an outlook for over $7 trillion of ecommerce transactions by 2004. That should drive triple-digit rates of growth in many related Internet infrastructure industries. ?Related developments include transformation of the world’s communication and computing networks into an integrated broadband network. The transformation has accelerated dramatically over the past year, thanks to important advances in optical networking technology and wireless communication technology. In short, many of the world’s major corporations—and virtually every premier technology firm—are engaged in what promises to be the biggest infrastructure development project in history. ?The only problem with all of this is captured in the old saw: success breeds excess. As we observed in our February World Report (called Keep Your Seatbelts Fastened), the rise of day trading and momentum investing has resulted in average holding periods for some dotcom stocks of less than one week—or in one case less than 72 hours. Margin debt grew by 60% last year and continues to rise rapidly in the first few months of the year. And the U.S. economy has grown so rapidly in recent quarters that the Fed is determined to keep tightening monetary policy until it succeeds in dampening growth substantially. All of these developments leave investors confused and nervous. And that is contributing to major market volatility, with the Nasdaq index now off nearly 12% from its high. Such volatility should not be surprising in view of the remarkable gains posted by Nasdaq over the past year, and we would not be surprised to see high levels of volatility continue at least until the Fed has completed its tightening cycle. Our expectation is that the Fed will raise rates by 0.25% at the May and June meetings and then gain hold for the remainder of the year. Our best advice to investors on how to cope with current volatility is, unfortunately, rather boring: Just focus on the basic principles of diversification, balance, and long-term orientation. Lessons on Organization Part II:The Known-New ContractAdapted from Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace by Joseph M. Williams (7th ed.)InstructionTake a look at the following sentence: (a) Under Armour will introduce its own moisture wicking material. Which of the sentences below should follow the one above?Under Armour has been working on charged cotton, a cotton thread that has been coated in a water-resistant polymer. This material is known as charged cotton, a cotton thread that has been coated in a water-resistant polymer.Sentence (c) begins where sentence (a) left off: with “this material.” While reading, often we feel that sentences are more cohesive if they begin with what is known to the reader (e.g., “material” from the previous sentence) and end with what is new (e.g., “known as charged cotton”). This “known-new” contract gives us a sense of flow in our writing. This sense of flow comes naturally when we tell stories. Notice in this short story how the words or phrases in bold repeat information from the preceding sentence: Yesterday, Ronny took me to a Dave Matthews concert in Phoenix. When we got to Sun Devil Stadium, he realized that he had left the tickets back in Tucson, so he drove back to get them. While he was gone, I sat on the curb next to some scalpers. One of them started hitting on me, so I flirted with him for a while to see if I could get free tickets. You get the idea. It is important to note, finally, that not all sentences can be made cohesive by the known-new contract. Writers can use transitional phrases, pronouns, and effective repetition to add cohesion as well. ExercisesRevise the following sentences according to the known-new contract. In 2004, Jamie Foxx won an Academy Award for his performance as Ray Charles. Sidney Poitier and Denzel Washington are the only other African American men who have received Academy Awards for Best Actor besides Foxx. In 1875, the U. S. Army forced the Chiricahua Indians onto the San Carlos Reservation in eastern Arizona. The Apache warrior Geronimo led a group of followers off the reservation and into Mexico in protest and because the land was so arid. ................
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