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> Unlike the article, I didn't try to use either form in my comment. :)

I'll give it a shot. This proved harder than I thought it would, and might read awkwardly. (Especially the "actually called 'E-Prime'" part. I can't think of a way of rewording that that doesn't sound weird.)

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In High School, my English teacher had us write essays in a format that incorporated these rules, but I had no idea that it had a name: "E-Prime". In addition to not using forms of "to be," we followed the SEXI format. This meant we composed every body paragraph from four parts: Statement, Explanation, eXample, and Interpretation (one web site lists this as Importance). I think that in short essays each SEXI paragraph also couldn't number more than four sentences.

The combination of E-Prime and SEXI created a real challenge to write at first, but with practice I found that it led to really solid papers with greater clarity of thought. It tremendously helped in writing my college senior thesis.




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