English
Cleft sentences and inversion let me spotlight exactly what matters without over‑using adverbs like really or very. One well‑placed emphasis structure per paragraph / slide = reader instantly knows the key point.
1 Cleft‑Sentence Templates
| Pattern | Purpose | Example |
|---|---|---|
| It‑cleft It + was/were + focus + that/who + rest | Pulls the focus word to the front | It was latency that we optimised. |
| What‑cleft What + clause + be‑verb + focus | Saves focus for the end | What we need is clean data. |
Tip: drop that only in informal speech: “It was cost we cut.”
2 Negative / Adverbial Inversion
| Trigger | Form | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Never / Not only / Rarely / Hardly / Little | Trigger + aux + subject + verb + … | Never have we shipped so fast. Not only did the model converge, but it also generalised. |
Works like question order → dramatic, formal.
3 Decision Flow
-
Need emphasis?
- Highlight one noun → It‑cleft.
- Highlight whole idea/result → What‑cleft.
- Highlight rarity/extreme → Inversion.
- Check context (slides, formal report, chat).
- Use ONE emphasis device per chunk to avoid melodrama.
4 My Live Examples
- It was recall that convinced the stakeholders.
- What the pipeline lacks is robust logging.
- Never have I seen such low latency on CPU.
- Rarely does a silver‑bullet fix move the needle.
5 Common Pitfalls
| Faulty | Fix |
|---|---|
| It was latency we optimised not throughput. | Add comma: It was latency that we optimised, not throughput. |
| Hardly we saw any gain. | Hardly did we see any gain. |
| Overuse (every slide starts “It was…”) | Limit to most important takeaway. |
