Describing People and Objects
Adjectives
Adjectives are placed directly before nouns to describe certain qualities.
Our accounting policy includes keeping simple and understandable records.
That is a complex organizational structure.
Adjectives are also often used with the verb 'to be' to describe the character of people or things. In this case, place the adjective at the end of the sentence.
Outside aid is extremely important.
If you want to inform your members of something urgent an action alert is effective.
Adjective Order
It is possible to use a string of adjectives to describe a person, place or thing. When using more than one adjective, use the following pattern to place the adjectives in order before the noun.
Opinion, dimension, age, shape, color, origin, material + noun
NOTE: Use no more than three adjectives to describe a noun.
1. Opinion
Example:
Everyone was seated at a round table for the ad hoc committee meeting with Arthur.
Activist events are exciting occasions.
2. Dimension
Example:
3. Age
Example:
His is the youngest member of our personnel department.
Our ancient social customs have proven adaptive capacity.
4. Shape
Example:
The rectangular clipboard holds our petition.
We printed our advocacy plan on round sheets of paper and that set our plan apart from the rest.
5. Color
Example:
The red dots on the map indicate affected populations.
A red flag can be understood in a political context.
6. Origin
Example:
The Iraqi people and Iranian people are discovering areas of mutual interest.
The American effort had an unforeseen political outcome.
7. Material
Example:
Treat our balance sheet as if it's been etched in a stone tablet.
The baseline data confirms the program to install tin roofs was successful.
Here are some examples of nouns modified with three adjectives in the correct order based on the list above.
This bell-shaped curve shows a relatively large standard deviation among liberal older Americans.
That strange triangular ancient ruin is a perfect place for our presentation about UFOs.
The unpopular incumbent US executive was caught altering the stimulus baseline projection by 7 million jobs.
Write a behavioral objective for the interesting round old man.