Empty and Padded Sentences
Empty Sentences
-Empty sentences repeat the same idea
-Make statements without supporting them
A freight train is a train that carries
freight.
Freight trains carry grain, coal,
and other goods.
Trains are a good way to transport goods.
Rail trains are efficient because they
don’t get delayed in traffic such as
trucks.
Your Turn
• My parents yelled at me today.
Padded Sentences
-Contains too many words
-Contains words that don’t add anything to
the sentence.
How many unnecessary words can
you find in the following paragraph?
When my family went on vacation, my family
went to visit this cave in Arizona where
bandits who held up a train hid the loot,
which was thousands of dollars of gold
coins and other gold.
Count how many words this is
On our vacation my family visited a cave in
Arizona where train robbers hid thousands
of dollars of gold.
How to revise a padded sentence
• Think about the ideas you want to express
• Look for unnecessary words and phrases
to take out
• Look for long phrases that don’t tell your
reader much. Replace each of those
phrases with one or two words.
Your Turn
• Ms. Kerr screamed and shouted at the
class because they could not keep quiet
because the students were too excited
about playing a game in Ms. Kerr’s class
Find the repetitive/extra information
Identify if the sentence is empty or
padded
• The weekend was a blast with my friends.
• The dining car offers a lot of different and
various kinds of food to choose from.
• I would much rather fly Southwest than
any other airline.
• She said that we are going to Hawaii for
vacation because we need a break from
the stress of work because work is time
consuming.
Practice
Revise the following sentences using the
directions in parentheses
1. Train travel is better then car travel. (Add
a reason or fact.)
2. Commuter trains ease urban traffic
congestion on account of the fact that
they can transport so many people.
(Eliminate unnecessary words.)
Practice Cont.
3. Everyone should travel by train. (Add
reason.)
4. Open-top rail cars don’t have tops and
carry coal, iron ore, and other material.
(Eliminate the repeated idea.)
5. Train travel is faster than bus travel
because it is speedier. (Eliminate the
repeated idea: add a reason or fact.)