Download Sentence-Level Editing

Expo 1213
P2R
LoLordo
Sentence-Level Editing
I am going to introduce a simple language of editing abbreviations that will apply at the sentence
level; you’ll see this language start to appear in the margins of prelims and your second essay
draft. This language falls into two major categories:
Grammar: A grammatically incorrect sentence:
Fragment
Splice
Subject-verb agreement
[Frag]
[Spl]
[S-V]
Clarity: A sentence that is not grammatically incorrect, but that causes its readers unnecessary
difficulties, for one or more of various reasons:
Point of view
Reference (pronoun)
Syntax
Vagueness
[POV]
[Ref]
[Syn]
[Vag]
(Badly integrated citations [Cit] may manifest themselves as errors of grammar or of clarity.)
Expression: A sentence that is sufficiently correct and clear, but that suffers from one or more of
the following problems: it repeats words unnecessarily; it sounds egregiously clunky—in one
way or another, it misses the chance to be a really strong sentence....
Wordiness, aka Verbosity
Repetition
Awkwardness
[Ver]
[Rep]
[Awk]
(Problems at the level of the word/phrase are not a part of this system; I will typically indicate
lexical problems with the word “diction” [Dic], supplementing that with modifiers such as Vague /
Academic / Formal / Informal / Poetic / Thesaurus…)
The difference between an ungrammatical sentence and a sentence that is unreadable for
syntactic reasons is complicated! If a comment refers to grammar, you will likely be able to fix
the problem by re-punctuating, or making relatively minor changes: most grammar errors made
by native speakers are errors of proofreading. With respect to clarity, the required changes may
be more difficult: the thought process “behind” your sentence may need to be reconstructed.
Here I will only mention the category of “usage”, which refers to the various rules propounded by
various linguistic authorities that we all absorb in the early years of our schooling. Rules of
usage—how people think others ought to use the language—are easily conflated with rules of
grammar—which attempt to systematize the internal system that allows speakers to produce
utterances in a particular language. The “grammar” that most of us learned in school is an
awkward combination of the two aforementioned sets of rules. As a native speaker of English,
your relation to grammar is sometimes paradoxical: you don’t know how you know what you
know.)
Sentence-Level Editing 2: Call the Doctor!
The “Paramedic Method” for prose revision was introduced by Richard Lanham in his textbook
Revising Prose. The following process is a simplified version of Lanham’s method; it will help
you revise with an eye to clarity and concision.
(Note: it is not inevitable that those two stylistic virtues go together—but they often do. Writers
tend to squirt out clouds of language when they are worried, uncertain, or under
pressure...Simplification forces you to figure out what you are saying.)
Exhibit A: “The cause of Byron’s success at achieving artistic fame is understanding the
influence of cultural background on the process of gaining reputation.”
Read the sentence out loud, with emphasis, and with (appropriate) feeling. What does the
sentence mean? Does it convey that meaning as a human being might intend it?
The following list is meant to give you a basic procedural framework for revising prose (your
own or others’) at the sentence level. The list itself does not help you “see” your prose with the
properly cold eye: for that, some material reformulation of your essay is necessary. Drop the
text into an editing interface, as in the “exercise” on this handout; alternatively, change fonts and
print out; at a minimum, change font/spacing/etc, so as to make the text look new. You want to
help yourself see what’s actually on the page, rather than the palimpsest of all possible versions
that exists in your head and is particularly distracting when you are tired, writing late at night…)
1. Mark all prepositions (words concerning relations in space &/or time): on, to, in, at, of, since,
through, after, off, for, before, over, from...)
a. If you see phrases that string prepositions, consider revision
2. Mark all forms of the verb “to be.”
a. If a form of “is” is the main verb, consider revision
3. Ask “where’s the main action?”
a. If actions are expressed as nouns (“nominalized” verbs), consider revision
4. Consider making the actor the subject (“who”) of the sentence
a. Consider capturing the key action of the sentence with an active verb
5. Can you cut “throat-clearing” at the beginning of a sentence?
6. Can you cut other redundant words (most often, adjectives / adverbs)?
“Consider,” I say repeatedly—because decisions that may seem less than optimal, in the
context of a single sentence, may be justified by the larger context of the paragraph.
Guidelines are not rules.