4.3 Rules of Editing and Clarification: The Spread-head Sharpener

From time to time, I was asked to provide editing and proofreading services to who are writing their university paper and application essays. I loved reading people’s entrenching stories and ideas especially when it came to science. But on many occasions, people came to see me roughly two days before the deadline- after missing the time due for submission, you were dead with a score of Zero. I had a blink of eyes to satisfy my customers; I read their first draft that had been freshly completed before my consultation session. I usually had one brutal comment to their sketchy piece: please rewrite the entire essay with a clear state of mind before proofreading your essay. At any time before submitting, you should know best about the kind of statement that suited you best. Unfortunately, things were not clear when it was in a hurry. So, we will discuss rules for clarity editing today.

1)        Eliminate Wordiness and Add Necessary Missing Words

We think as we speak, and we write as we speak. In the process of writing, we include a lot of redundancy into the statement, making sure that it has a valid claim to a certain idea or aspect. While writing our first draft, we tend to use a lot of wordy phrases instead of the concise alternative. Let us see the following example:

Despite the fact that the temperature is incredibly low today, the sea surface temperature is still hot enough to intensively form a hurricane at this point in time due to also low wind shear and atmospheric pressure in the area.

Take a moment to read the above statement. Is it clear for you to understand the formation of a hurricane? It is in fact too many words and distractions. The idea was not clear enough. So, you may bring this statement to me, and we would have:

Despite the fact that [Although] the temperature is incredibly low today, the sea surface temperature is still hot enough to intensively form [create] a hurricane at this point in time due to also [because of] ^the low wind shear (noun) and ^the atmospheric pressure (noun) in the area.

Now take a moment to compare the deleted words and the replacement in red. The causation of the hurricane has become clear: a hurricane in low temperature caused by the hot sea surface, a low wind shear and atmospheric pressure. I added an article [the] before two nouns as a reference to the respected area. Also, using an adverb here does not make a logical explanation regarding to the low degree. What do you mean by “incredibly”? How do you define “incredibly”, “extremely” etc.? As a reader, it is hard to determine. But again, adverb is not your best companion: it leverages redundancy to the whole picture.

2)        Beware of a mixed construction and structural variation

When you are writing among the lines and looking at your supportive material at the same time, you are likely to forget some explanatory points and sentences. In the paragraph structure, sentences should connect with parallel logic and grammar. Within the sentence itself, predicates of the subject and the object should be equally constructed. While in a hurry to finish the writing assignment before deadline, students tend to make confusing shifts between the point of view, tense, variation of quotations and mood. In the revision period, writers should pay attention if there exists any unintentional change of expression; otherwise, the writing’s feeling would become awkward. The following is an incorrect example:

In the United State, when a high school graduate is best to go to college by borrowing student’s loan from the government. After graduation, high level of indebtedness is which the main reason of the undergraduate degree holder living below the average poverty line in the city. Even though they have a job and repaying on time. At the time of the borrowing, a person should be responsible for paying their debt on time if you want to maintain a good credit score.

With your sharp analytical mindset, you may feel the craziness above. How would you fix it? We know a few things: 1) changed in the point of view, 2) changed in tense, 3) found illogical predicates, and 4) untangling grammar. The above example would most likely be a duplication from English as Second Language learner who had limited ability to transcend their logical thinking in English. If I were him, I would have:

In the United State, when a high school graduate goes to college by borrowing student’s loan from the government. [by borrowing student’s loan from the government, [best] high school graduates (plural) can go (mixed up grammar) to college after graduation]. After graduation [However] (due to the change in logic from positive to negative), [undergraduate degree holders have] a high level of indebtedness even though they have a job and repaying on time. [, causing them to] living [live] below the average poverty line in the city. (joining three statements into one) [Even so] at the time of the borrowing, that person should be responsible for paying their debt on time if you want to maintain a good credit score.

Pretty epic, isn’t it. I receive a lot of hate when I go through this with my students. The construction of the logic is the main driver of your essay’s flow. If you lose control of grammar, point of view, or tense, you will fall into a trap called logic fallacies- errors in reasoning that weaken your claim.

3)        Parallelism and the Dangling Modifiers

The flow construction is the key determinant towards the comprehensive feeling of the essay. There are two distinctive elements to rule the direction of the sentence. You can either make it equal in grammar while speaking on the same level or convert it into a sequential order with proper logical sense. When you equate all relevant ideas into the same pattern, you are in fact adapting from so-called parallelism: equalizing ideas in the same grammatical form. In the case of Dangling Modifiers misplacement, a sentence should be clear; however, some parts of the sentence have displaced incorrectly. Instead of differentiating between independent or dependent clauses, these dangling modifiers are associated with missing words such as key phrases and clauses. Let me use the following faulty example to explain parallelism and the dangling modifiers:

At the graduation ceremony, the presidential speech gave students an inspirational wisdom to their future career, navigate the path of ascending prosperity, and reminding them about the logical decision-making process in every step of their life. The graduation ceremony ended in the clouds of desperation and dismissal, after the tornado warning raided during the heavy rain.

 While you were reading the above paragraph, what moment of thoughts do you have? For the first impression, the picture presented seemed rational as if the event happened during the presidential speech. But in terms of clarity, there were numerous mechanical errors that were yet to be fixed. We have:

At the graduation ceremony, the presidential speech gave students inspirational wisdom to their future career (noun), navigating path for ascending prosperity (noun), and a reminder of how the logical decision-making process impacted their daily life (noun). [Parallelism] | After the tornado warning raided during the heavy rain (moving to the front), the graduation ceremony ended in the clouds of desperation and dismissal. [Dangling modifiers]

The structure had become clear as it was parallel in the same form. Unless it is describing multiple actions at the same time with verbs, it is best to keep the object or the objectives in noun form. Regarding the dangling modifier, the tornado warning caused the graduation ceremony to end earlier as your desperation had nothing to do with the ending decision., it should be moved to first section of the sentence for that logical reason. Parallelism and the dangling modifiers are common mistakes that we might forget from time to time. Pay attention to the structure of your writing and fix them if needed.

4) The Magic of Coordination and Subordination

Simple sentences often present a dull and lacking taste expression. To paint a better picture, we often use coordination and subordination to connect more ideas for better understanding and follow the flow. Coordination is a specific technique by connecting multiple ideas equally with a joint word/ conjunction such as ‘and, but, for, or, nor, yet, so’. Example: John believes in God; however, he has not been to a church once. You can see two equally weighted ideas flourished in the sentence. Like Coordination, Subordination put on additional brushes to the paint as the ideas depend upon one another but with fewer weight; it usually begins with relative pronoun or a subordinating conjunction. Example: This five-star hotel, which will soon be renovated later this year, has been the city’s luxury icon for five decades. The magic of Coordination and Subordination enhance your expression with more flowers and perfumes, attracting more affiliation to your monochrome writing. You must need to know about the rules and play with them.

5) Throw away Clichés, Jargons and Slangs by using Appropriated Language

In writing, we often simulate our mental feeling into plain English. Cognitive translation speech is unequal between thinking and writing. We may overuse words by resulting them as unnecessary. In further classification of word eliminations, a good writer should avoid using Cliché- a French rooting word to describe a chronically overused phrase like “for the time being” or “driving me crazy”, which tends to disinterest readers’ soul seeking affiliation. Jargons and Slangs are words that are only understandable in the small communities. Jargons built within a professional community such as “elephant in the room” for mimicking the rising tension of a generally known taboo that no one wanted to discuss about. Slangs, on the other hand, are informally used in creative culture such as in the hippies and the rolling-sixties. Not all the readers can understand your Cliché, Jargons or Slangs, you should throw them into the recycle basket for your own benefit.  

6)        Avoid Passive Voice; Stay Positive and Active

About Active verse Passive, I shared my own thoughts previously that it depends upon scenario. For the rule of thumb, once you stay on the positive side of writing, you should not hide your feeling between words because your audience needs to know what you are doing in the article. Unless it has been mentioned elsewhere in the paragraph or by referring to a repeated section, you must always use active voice. Let’s compare the following:

a)        A new payment method has been introduced in public transport by the government.

b)        The government has introduced a new payment method in public transport.

For your reference, sentence a) is a passive statement whereas b) is an active statement. If you were writing marketing material to capture public attention, you would need a command type of statement like in b), showing that a new payment method had been launched. But if you were writing for the news report, you would opt for a) because you do not know from whom would carry out the action- using the newly launched payment method in public transport. There exists a shift in the viewing perspective here in the statement that writers should pay attention to.

In conclusion, we examine some key governing rules and guiding principles of clarity editing. I do not intend to cover all of them but only briefly to some extent. I hope you can learn for examples and descriptions for your future practice. Editing for clarity bridges the communication between you as a writer and your reader effectively by cutting down wordiness and roundabouts. The talented skill, however, does not come in free; multiple revisions are needed from word choices to the overall organization of your paragraph. Once you have identified your weakest, please try to go over the rules again. After consistent improvement and practice, you could take your clarity writing skill further into school, workplace, or even your daily life. You might then feel the difference you have made.

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