Reverse clauses

Question

Hi.
I have written a formal business report (school assignment) and I've received two comments I don't understand:

"There has emerged a huge demand for accommodations in Africa." This sentence was marked with the comment "reverse clauses and amend accordingly." Should I rather write: "A huge demand for accommodations in Africa has emerged"?

"It was therefore organized a negotiation meeting on January 10, 2019 with Company X." This sentence was also marked with "reverse clauses". Should I rather write: "
A negotiation meeting was therefore organized on January 10, 2019 with Company X."? If so; why is that a better option? Should sentences like this always start off with the subject?

Thank you very much for answering our question.

AlpheccaStars · Accepted Answer

towel piano 623"A huge demand for accommodations in Africa has emerged"?

Yes. That is better.

In formal essays, I avoid "huge." It is a word used by kids and seems juvenile. Just "a demand." Use "large" if you must.

towel piano 623"It was therefore organized

That is terrible business English. If the meeting happened on January 10, then write something like this:

Negotiations with Company X were held on January 10, 2019.

If the planning for negotiations was done then:

A schedule of meetings for negotiations with Company X was agreed on January 10, 2019.

I don't know if you mean one of these or something entirely different.

BillJ · Answer

towel piano 623"There has emerged a huge demand for accommodations in Africa." This sentence was marked with the comment "reverse clauses and amend accordingly." Should I rather write: "A huge demand for accommodations in Africa has emerged"?

Yes: that's fine. In the right context, your original example is fine too.

towel piano 623"It was therefore organized a negotiation meeting on January 10, 2019 with Company X." This sentence was also marked with "reverse clauses". Should I rather write: "A negotiation meeting was therefore organized on January 10, 2019 with Company X."? If so; why is that a better option? Should sentences like this always start off with the subject?

Yes: your suggested alternant is much better than the original, which was ungrammatical.

towel piano 623Should sentences like this always start off with the subject?

Yes: generally, we put the subject at the beginning before the main verb, but sometimes it's possible to prepose an element, especially when that element serves as a link to the preceding discourse, though it must be closely related to information previously introduced. For example:

I sold him the best of the DVDs for £25. The others I said he could have.

In the basic order, "the others" would occur after "have", but here it has been (optionally) preposed to the beginning before the subject "I" where it ties in with "DVDs" in the previous sentence.

Reverse clauses

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