Download Art of Editing workshop 4 Superb Sentences_5 September

THE ART OF EDITING 4
SUPERB SENTENCES
Editing seminar series for HDR candidates and advisors 2014
Dr Liz Tynan
Senior Lecturer and Co-ordinator Research Student Academic Support
JCU Graduate Research School
Miracle of human communication
Ancient Greeks
• The Ancient Greeks saw the
sentence as the largest unit of
grammar and the smallest complete
utterance.
• This conception recognises that the
human brain takes in information
better in some ways than in others.
• Sentences are completed thoughts.
Not just good grammar
• A well-written sentence that adheres to principles of
composition is the best way to absorb information.
• The qualifier here is well-written: this does not just
mean grammatical.
• A well-written sentence should contain a single
thought or several closely-connected thoughts
arranged in a logical pattern that highlights meaning.
Meaning is paramount
• When editing, I not only correct errors of grammar, I
also attempt to bring out the meaning of the
sentence.
• I pare back overloading and undue complexity, and
attempt to maximise the value of the information.
• I am attempting to get into the Ancient Greek spirit of
seeing the sentence as an atomic particle of
communication that gives the reader access to the
outcome of research.
Information delivery system
• Think about the declarative sentence as an
information delivery system…
• …. that provides the dominant means for
making your meaning clear.
The language dimension
• Academic writing is, in a sense, a higher form of
journalism – reporting and interpreting the facts.
• The best academic writers see themselves as
communicators, not just gatherers of information.
• Research is language-based as well as
experimental or observational.
• The basic language-based tool for communicating
information is the sentence.
Alan Sokal and academic language
• Physicist Alan Sokal struck a blow for
clarity of thought, justifiable assertions
and clear sentences when he sent a
hoax article to the journal Social Text.
• “Transgressing the Boundaries:
Toward a transformative hermeneutics
of quantum gravity” famously “[placed]
a whoopi cushion under the Supreme
Throne of Post-Modernist Progressive
Rectitude.” (Gary Kamiya)
Speaking the lingo
• Sokal assembled genuine quotes
to back an extreme form of
relativism – that all physical
reality is “at bottom a social and
linguistic construct”.
• He used the impenetrable and
abstract sentence structures that
he believed dominate
postmodern theory.
What the Sokal hoax tells us
• Sokal is one academic concerned with how
language can be used to obfuscate – and how it
can be an outrageous fig leaf to cover up a
deficit (or an absence) of meaning.
• When one takes the trouble to cut through over-
complex sentences filled with abstractions, the
meaning retreats and sometimes disappears
altogether.
For example
Quoted in Intellectual Impostures
• “When depth of time replaces depths of sensible spaces; when the commutation of
interface supplants the delimitation of surfaces; when transparence re-establishes
appearances; then we begin to wonder whether that which we insist on calling
space isn’t actually light, a subliminary, para-optical light of which sunlight is only
one phase or reflection. This light occurs in a duration measured in instantaneous
time exposure rather that the historical and chronological passage of time. The
time of this instant without duration is ‘exposure time’, be it over- or underexposure. Its photographic and cinematographic technologies already predicted
the existence and the time of a continuum stripped of all physical dimensions, in
which the quantum of energetic action and the punctum of cinematic observation
have suddenly become the last vestiges of a vanished morphological reality.
Transferred into the eternal present of a relativity whose topological and teleological
thickness and depth belong to this final measuring instrument, this speed of light
possesses one direction, which is both its size and dimension and which
propagates itself at the same speed in all radial directions that measure the
universe.” [Paul Virilio, quoted in Sokal and Bricmont, pp. 164-165]
Re the Virilio quote
• “This paragraph – which in the French original
is a single 193-word sentence - … is the most
perfect example of diarrhoea of the pen that we
have ever encountered.
• “As far as we can see, it means precisely
nothing.”
• Sokal and Bricmont
What sentences need
• In this negative example, we have a basis for
understanding what sentences need to work properly.
• While the grammar is correct, other problems are evident.
• Grammar provides the linguistic rules by which we can
convey meaning.
• The capacity for grammar to do this breaks down in the
presence of excessive length and complexity of syntax, and
extreme abstraction or use of jargon.
Complexity and abstraction named and shamed
• Denis Dutton, instigator of the Bad
Academic Writing competition, was editor of
Philosophy and Literature.
• He grew weary of the poor writing that
landed on his desk every week.
• The award ran between 1996 and 1998.
• In those years, Dutton made strong points
about the need for clarity of expression.
• He abhorred poor forms of communication in
the academic work.
1996 winner
• Indeed dialectical critical realism may be seen under the aspect of
Foucauldian strategic reversal — of the unholy trinity of
Parmenidean/Platonic/Aristotelean provenance; of the Cartesian-LockeanHumean-Kantian paradigm, of foundationalisms (in practice, fideistic
foundationalisms) and irrationalisms (in practice, capricious exercises of the
will-to-power or some other ideologically and/or psycho-somatically buried
source) new and old alike; of the primordial failing of western philosophy,
ontological monovalence, and its close ally, the epistemic fallacy with its
ontic dual; of the analytic problematic laid down by Plato, which Hegel
served only to replicate in his actualist monovalent analytic reinstatement in
transfigurative reconciling dialectical connection, while in his hubristic claims
for absolute idealism he inaugurated the Comtean, Kierkegaardian and
Nietzschean eclipses of reason, replicating the fundaments of positivism
through its transmutation route to the superidealism of a Baudrillard.
• [130 words. Roy Bhaskar’s Plato etc: The Problems of Philosophy and Their Resolution]
Unreasonable demands
• We cannot follow this thought all the way through.
• Therefore, this sentence is a failure of communication.
• Apart from sentence length, the accumulated
abstractions would tax even the most enthusiastic reader.
• Endlessly joining together phrases and clauses is a
marker of poor sentence structure.
• Every time you add a clause or an adjunct phrase, you
are placing a demand on your reader.
• Be sure that those demands are not unreasonable.
From Strunk and White
• “If those who have studied the art
of writing are in accord on any one
point, it is this: the surest way to
arouse and hold the reader’s
attention is by being specific,
definite and concrete.”
Soothing contrast
• “Telomeres are specialized
functional complexes that
protect the ends of eukaryotic
chromosomes.”
• [12 words. From Elizabeth Blackburn, “Switching
and Signalling at the Telomere”, 2001]
Why does this sentence work?
• This 12-word declarative sentence sets the context and
contains concrete and specific detail.
• Grammatical subject: telomeres, links directly to finite
copulative verb are, followed by a sub-ordinate clause
introduced by the relative pronoun that.
• Information is conveyed in a linear manner. The reader can
see the sentence’s grammatical connections and is
therefore able to follow it.
• Observe the overall effect of this sentence: the meaning
is made visible by its simple and direct grammar.
Signposting
• The sentence creates a clear signpost for the
reader, preparing them for the information that is
to follow.
• The rest of the paragraph is made up of a
pleasing mixture of sentence lengths. No
individual sentence exceeds 30 words.
• Your combination of sentences in a paragraph
should be thought through and coherent.
Theme sentences
• Your theme sentence, like our telomeres example, should be
clear and concise. I propose that it should not exceed 25 words.
• A firm word limit can be a useful framework, so look closely at
the first sentences of paragraphs and count words.
• As George Orwell said, break this rule sooner than say
anything barbaric.
• Rigid adherence to a word limit is useless and ridiculous if it
creates a sentence that doesn’t convey meaning.
• However, in focusing on the number of words, you also focus on
ensuring that each word has earned its place.
Sentence structure rundown
• While English sentences have various basic
functions, including asking questions or issuing
orders, the declarative sentence (also known
as indicative sentence) makes a statement.
• These sentences exist to show the
interrelationship of nouns: what those nouns do
and what happens to those nouns.
Nouns
• Nouns carry substance and meaning.
• The central grammatical roles for nouns are the
subject and the object.
• Knowing this is helpful in constructing
informative sentences.
• Placing the grammatical subject at the start of a
sentence is one way of delivering written
information efficiently.
Key words as subjects
• Think about your key word/s – the words that carry
the substance of the sentence (e.g. ‘telomeres’).
• Place them at or near the start of the sentence.
• Ensure that the relationship between the
grammatical subject and its finite verb is shown
clearly…
• …and that interference between the subject and
verb is eliminated or kept to a minimum.
Recall SVO grammar
• Our session last week on grammar covered the
basics of Subject-Verb-Object (active voice) and
Object-Verb- Agent (passive voice) sentence
structuring.
• Your confidence in creating strong SVO or OVA
sentences will make you better communicators.
Sentence writing tips
• Avoid using ‘with’ to start a sentence
• X: With recent surveys it has been shown that pollution
has increased.
• √: Recent surveys have shown an increase in pollution.
•
• Avoid using ‘with’ as a conjunction
• X: Temperatures were taken daily, with water samples
taken every week.
• √: Temperatures were taken daily and water samples
were taken every week.
Tips continued
• Don’t use with when you mean and or because
• X: With his teeth falling out, he went to the dentist.
• √: Because his teeth were falling out, he went to the dentist.
•
• Avoid overuse of use
• X: Capture of marine whosits is achieved by using nets and wire hoops.
• √: Marine whosits are caught in nets and wire hoops.
•
• X: Wood and plastic are also used by some experimenters as a means
to control excess radiation.
• √: Excess radiation has been contained by wood and plastic.
• [Note here the change in the grammatical subject, making ‘excess
radiation’ more prominent than ‘wood and plastic’.]
Tips continued
• Avoid too many prepositional phrases:
• X: It is a matter of the gravest possible
importance to the health of anyone with a
history of a problem with disease of the heart
that he or she should avoid the sort of foods
with a high percentage of saturated fats.
• √: Anyone with a history of heart disease
should avoid saturated fats.
“Having” a go
• Academics seem to like placing lots of “havings” into text,
like this:
• Two-minute treatment of flour having an initial moisture
content of 20% will give a product having all the desirable
properties of flour made from steam-treated grain.
•
• A better and clearer way to write this might be:
• Two-minute treatment of flour that has an initial moisture
content of 20% will give a product with all the desirable
properties of flour made from steam-treated grain.
Editing a sentence
Original:
• Much ink had been spilled on the literature and
many research works have been conducted on
the intractable conflict of Incognita, however there
are rarely empirical works, which substantially
analyse and addresses the burning issues of the
Incognita conflict as a whole but at the same time,
verifies and examines the authenticity and reality
of the issues by focusing terrorism and conflict as
two different challenges. [66 words]
Diagnosis and correction
• 66 words is too long, so we must shorten it.
• Should we divide it into two or more sentences, or remove words but
retain the single thought of the original sentence?
• This sentence contains many clauses, and is an example of a
compound/complex sentence.
• Grammatical errors include incorrect use of the preposition ‘on’ in the
first line and ‘of’ in the second – they should both be ‘in’.
• The clause ‘and many research works have been conducted…’ is
awkwardly expressed.
• Problem with S-V agreement in the clause ‘which substantially
analyse and addresses the burning issues…”
• The overall effect: the sentence is confused and hard to follow.
Potential edit
• The intractable conflict in Incognita has been
subject to considerable research, though most
literature on the subject has not provided a
complete analysis. Terrorism and conflict in
Incognita are two separate issues demanding
empirical research to verify and examine the
underlying causes of each.
• First sentence: 23 words
• Second sentence: 21 words
Liz’s tips for editing sentences
• Check the grammar of the sentence. Can you see an
SVO (or passive equivalent) structure, whether your
sentence is simple, compound or complex? If necessary,
restructure the grammar of the sentence for correctness.
• Count the number of words. Do not exceed 25 words for
a theme sentence. The other sentences may range from
five to 50 words, with either extreme being rare.
• Check how many clauses the sentence contains. If
there are four or more, reconsider the sentence structure.
Can you divide the sentence into two or more sentences?
Liz’s editing tips continued
• What is this sentence actually about? Can you
place the main key word at the start, as the
grammatical subject?
• Check for a finite verb (one that can be inflected for
past, present or future). Does it have a close
relationship to the grammatical subject?
• Does the sentence have a lot of prepositional
phrases? If so, can you restructure the sentence?
Liz’s editing tips continued
• Is the point of the sentence understandable by the target
reader on first reading? Ensure that the sentence conveys
the main point clearly and accurately.
• Have you avoided common pitfalls, including comma splices
and lack of parallel structure? (Refer to the grammar seminar)
• Is the vocabulary justifiable based upon the readership?
Does it contain technical vocabulary rather than jargon?
• Are all the grammatical relationships in the sentence
completely clear? That is, does the subject relate clearly to its
verb, and do the various clauses create strong bonds?
Getting into the spirit
• Remember the spirit of the declarative
sentence…
• ….which has come down to us from
Ancient Greece and which should inform
your attempts to achieve clear
communication.
• Your sentence should contain a
completed thought, one that is not
unduly complicated, jargon laden or
difficult to understand.
A final thought
• I like to edit my sentences as
I write them. I rearrange a
sentence many times before
moving on to the next one.
For me, that editing process
feels like a form of play, like
a puzzle that needs solving,
and it's one of the most
satisfying parts of writing.
• American author Karen Thompson Walker