Omission

Think about TV ads. Analyze. Ask questions.		*Consider these ideas for your own compositions.*

WHAT DOES THE AD OMIT?		*WHAT DO YOU* OMIT?**
In all writing, the basic selection/omission process necessarily omits more than it includes. Ad writers normally omit unrelated information and unneeded items. Most ads are true, but incomplete. Problems occur when ads omit relevant information which may harm the consumer. Ads need not present all contrary opinions or available alternatives, but should not conceal actual dangers. We should expect that persuaders are likely to downplay the "bad," to omit any disadvantages. Omissions about some dangerous products (unsafe or unhealthy) have already prompted a few consumer "disclosure laws" in the USA requiring warnings, labels, and regulations. Many other omissions are less serious and go unregulated, but are still detrimental. For example, some items are inefficient, uneconomical, unneeded, soon outdated or discontinued, have non-standard parts or limited use. Omission is very hard to detect because literally there's nothing there. How do you know what has been withheld, concealed, or hidden? Omissions often can be discovered by looking for potentially bad effects and their concealed causes, by systematically using Aristotle's 4-part division of causality. For example, ads can omit the "bad" about: (1) the *efficient cause - the do-er of the action* -- the people involved, the maker, the workers, the manufacturer (such as mismanagement, inexperienced workers, unsanitary cooks, unbonded repairers, unaccredited schools, or insolvency.) (2) the material cause, the materials involved -- such as materials being unsafe, unhealthy, poisonous, flammable, fragile, shoddy, substitute, artificial, or adulterated (3) the formal cause -- the form, design, plan, or procedures involved -- such as errors or flaws which make it unsafe, unhealthy, inconvenient, uncomfortable, unwieldy, or difficult to use. (4) the final cause -- the purpose or intended use --such as inherent risks (any blade, flame, or electricity); intrinsic problems (energy-wasting, time-wasting, inefficient, too costly)which may cause unforeseen side-effects** (such as social disruption or environmental damage).		In all writing, the basic selection/omission process necessarily omits more than it includes. All writers make assumptions about their audiences and normally omit unrelated information and unneeded items. Omissions relate both to your concept of the subject matter and to your analysis of the audience's knowledge. Do any terms need explaining? Are any parts omitted? Any steps in a sequence skipped? Any context omitted? Omissions can be accidental or deliberate. Accidentally, you can forget something, or neglect to include information, because of your own unawareness of its need or usefulness. Deliberately, you can omit irrelevant information or suppress relevant material. Every writer makes decisions to omit irrelevant items. For example, when you do research, usually you gather much more information than you can use. Your task is to reduce this clutter, omit the repetitious and redundant, the trivial and the unrelated, so as to focus more sharply on your important points. Relevant information varies in different kinds of expository writing. Relevant omissions are most obvious in instructional writing with its goals of clarity, specificity, and usefulness. You can easily recognize the problem of omitting directions and warnings. But, it's more difficult to identify how much context is relevant or necessary (for example, in history and biography) to create the more general sense of understanding. Writers have difficult decisions as to what to include and to omit when writing about causes and effects, or other complex interrelated issues. Checklists are useful and common reminders to avoid accidental omissions. Many situations can use generic checklists *(e.g. Who, What, When, Where, Why, How)*, and many textbooks provide more specialized lists for research papers. However, in most cases, it's best to check your finished work against your outline or an itemized listing of your "purpose" and "key points." Have you covered everything you intended?

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