This error of spreading words is common to ordinary writers and is most tiring and time-wasting to readers. 2. Do not omit words from your phrases and clauses where there is a chance for misunderstanding. Examples: The detachment commander will be with the main body until 7 a. m. and thereafter the advance guard. What is really stated is that the advance guard will be with the main body after 7 a. m.—an unintended statement. Make your grammar accord absolutely with your meaning. Add the _with_ which belongs before _the advance_, and notice how the sense is brought out. Again, They order us to go to Brownsville and do impossible things. In this sentence do they order us to do impossible things, or do they themselves do impossible things? Add the sign of the infinitive where it belongs before _do_. _And to do impossible things_ reads unmistakably. 3. Do not use a participial phrase without first inspecting it to see that it holds but one idea. Having changed our position, the enemy was confused. What this sentence really says is that the enemy, when he had changed our position, was confused. This meaning is evidently not intended from the very nature of the statement. It is clearer and more accurate to use a finite form of the verb instead of the participle; as,— Because we changed our position we confused the enemy. Or if you can condense with accuracy, The change in our position confused the enemy. AS TO SENTENCES. 1. Avoid long involved sentences. Even if they are grammatically well constructed, they are liable to rhetorical error. The following sentence because of its length violates unity: “The organization of the German army is today well known to American Army officers, and experience has shown that German problems and solutions of a complex character changed in translation to conform to American units are often more troublesome for the student to understand than the original would be, as, on account of the difference in the size of the units, it is often necessary in reading such a translation to go back to the German organization in order to explain a distribution of troops, which, though simple for a German division, would be an awkward one for a division organized after our own Field Service Regulations.” The first thought given to the reader is that “the organization of the German army is today well known to American Army officers.” The last thought of the sentence is that the “explanation of a distribution of troops would be an awkward one for a division organized after our own Field Service Regulations.” The path from the first thought to the second is long and winding. In fact the two do not belong in the same sentence as the sense stands. With a simple change we can make the whole easier to read: