Target List

My Spelling	Correct Spelling	OK
disasterous	disastrous	x
paralell	parallel
psycology	psychology
reciept	receipt
predjudice	prejudice

Final Test for Unit IV

Task 1. Underline and label (S, V, or C) the main word clusters in each of the following sentences:

1. Midnight racing is much more fun.

2. A young woman picked out a bright red hat.

3. The clear water cooled her cheeks and forehead.

4. Most team members asked for the new skates.

5. Some old tunes make pretty good jingles.

Task 2. Use modification, coordination, or substitution to expand each of the following sentences

1. Donnie devoured his waffles.

2. The teachers played football.

3. Rain flooded my basement.

4. Those boys won the trophy.

5. Clouds spilled their rain.

Task 3. Join three of the following pairs of sentences by using coordination and three by using subordination.

1. My new watch was very expensive. It doesn’t work.

2. I studied long and hard. I passed the course.

3. These tires are bald. You should replace them.

4. The mail is here. Your magazine didn’t arrive.

5. My heart pumps faster. My legs are tired.

6. You eat too many sweets. You will get cavities.

Task 4. Edit the following sentences for clear pronoun reference.

1. This car has a small dent. It shouldn’t be much of a problem.

2. The car drove slowly along the back road. It was quite muddy.

3. I got home late from my date, which was okay.

4. I like his ideas about fall gardens. They just make sense.

Task 5. Supply capitalisation to the following sentences:

1. this new toyota belongs to uncle myron.

2. our drama club at shoreline college did an excellent performance of the fantasticks.

3. i’ve always done better in math than in english.

4. last night we saw woman in the dunes.

Unit V. Editing Strategies to Improve Writing Style

This Unit provides you with practical advise on editing texts for style, offers tips on fair language usage, and attends to abridging texts (including newspaper articles).

Producing a clean, error-free final draft isn’t easy. Even the most carefully edited professional publications contain occasional typos. Most readers understand this and aren’t bothered by such infrequent problems. Yet when errors occur often, they undermine the writer’s authority and disrupt communication. The style requirements are intended to facilitate clear communication. They are explicit, but alternatives to prescribed forms are permissible if they ensure clearer communication. In all cases, the use of rules should be balanced with good judgment.

To edit well, it helps to know the basics of grammar and mechanics, but equally important are good editing practices. You’ll need to be patient and attentive to detail. Use the suggestions below to improve your editing:

1. Know what you’re looking for. What types of errors do you tend to make most often? Do you have problems with Subject/Verb Agreement or with tense shifts? Look for patterns in your errors and focus on eliminating the more serious and higher frequency errors first. Then check for less obvious problems.

2. Edit printed copy. If you’re writing at the computer, check your work quickly on the screen and run a spell-check. Then print out a draft to go over meticulously, looking for anything you may have missed.

3. Edit actively. Go through your draft carefully, pencil in hand. Actually touch each word with your pencil. Look especially at word endings. Have you dropped any s or ed endings? Do subjects and verbs agree? Does each pronoun have a clear antecedent?

4. If possible, edit with a partner. Read your draft slowly aloud while your partner, pencil in hand, reads another copy of the draft. Have your partner stop you whenever there might be a problem. Discuss each questionable punctuation mark or word choice.

There also are general strategies that help to make the proofreading more effective. For instance, experienced people advise to begin by taking a break – allow yourself some time between writing and proofing. Even a five-minute break is productive because it will help get some distance from what you have written. The goal is to return with a fresh eye and mind.

S-l-o-w d-o-w-n as you read through a paper – this will help you catch mistakes that you might otherwise overlook.

Reading a paper aloud encourages you to read every little word.

Read with a “cover”: sliding a blank sheet of paper down the page as you read will give a detailed, line-by-line review of the paper.

You won’t be able to check for everything, so you should find out what the paper’s typical problem areas are and look for each type of error individually.

All this may seem tedious at first, but it pays big dividends. A clean, well-edited final draft makes a good impression. It shows that you care about your writing, and when readers sense your care, they’ll care, too.

Abridging a Text

The beautiful part of writing is that you don’t have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon. You can always do it better, find the exact word, the apt phrase, the leaping simile.

Robert Cormier

Mark Twain also once wrote, "Please forgive me for writing such a long letter. I did not have time to write a short one." This statement is true of many written works – books, essays, and articles. Whatever’s been said can usually be said shorter. If the abridger is good, then even an abridged War and Peace is still Tolstoy.

Some books, of course, put up more of a fight than others, either because of skilful writing, or important content, or both. Take any detective story, for instance. The entire point of that kind of book is how one meaningful coincidence leads to the next. The same can be said about a daybook! (A daybook is organized in calendar style, with commentary on each day of the year. Exactly which day should be cut out? Would anyone miss March 10 just for the reason of economy?) Eventually, we need to abandon the daybook format altogether for the abridgment.

So abridging books becomes not a question of if, but what.

It’s a tricky question. Let us take Nelson Mandela’s autobiography Long Walk to Freedom. Imagine having to decide which parts of Nelson Mandela’s life were less important than others and eligible to be cut out.

Autobiographies are the most nerve-wracking, because you never know whose personal feelings you might trample. Of course, the same can be said of fiction titles. ("You have to leave that character in, it’s based on my brother!")

Once the book has been trimmed down, you have to make sure that all the details add up. No magic cigarettes that get stubbed out on page nine and are suddenly back in the hero’s mouth on page 10. No mysterious brandy glasses appearing in the hands of characters that had not been drinking a moment ago. The book has a physical world, and the abridgement has to preserve it.

Love story is something really difficult to abridge. Relationships are as hard to manage in an abridgement as they are in real life. Romances in well-crafted literature develop slowly: He calls her. She brings out his gentler nature. He restores her ability to trust. They dine, they dance, they talk, and so on and so forth. And everything is important.

Abridgers have no time for that. Kiss and move on. We’ve got a schedule to keep.

Luckily, this doesn’t happen very often. Experienced abridgers understand what needs to stay, and what can go. How to produce that sort of abridgement? You have to love the book enough to understand all its subtle nuances. Identify the plot, and find all the small beauties that make the plot worth telling.

In that way, the act of abridgement can be as enlightening as the written pieces themselves. The stories of our lives are almost certainly overwritten. But none of them are meaningless. Every life has a plot, and is sprinkled with small beauties that make the plot worth telling, as long as we can find them. It’s not a question of if, but what.

Editing a Newspaper Article

Evaluate and Revise Content, Organization, and Style

As you look over an article, you should do at least two readings. First, focus on the article ‘s content and organisation. The guidelines below will help you edit the article. Then, in your second reading, go back and look for ways to make sentences stronger.

First Reading: Content and Organisation

To improve the content and organisation of an article, go through the text using the recommendations below.

Tips:

Circle the answers to the questions who, what ,when ,where, why, and how.

Put a star next to the details that help the reader better understand the event.

Put a check next to the details that are not as important and could be cut.

Underline the details that explain the effects

Put a box around the details that show people ‘s reactions.

Highlight each quotation.

Draw an arrow to the detail each quotation supports.

Evaluation Questions

• Does the lead answer the 5W-How?questions?

• Are details in the body given in order from most important to least important?

• Does the body include details that explain the effects of the event and people ‘s reactions to it?

• Does the article include quotations that support the details of the article?

Revision Techniques

If needed, add answers to the 5W-How?questions at the beginning of the news article.

If necessary, rearrange the details so those with a star next to them directly follow the lead and those with a check are at the end of the article.

Add details that explain the effects and people ‘s reactions if these details are missing. If needed, elaborate the details by adding quotations.

Second Reading: Style

Now that you have revised the content and organisation of your news article, you can edit the individual sentences. You can improve your sentence style by using a variety of sentences –short sentences and long sentences. An article with too many short, choppy sentences or too many long, complex sentences will be difficult to read. To give your article a variety of sentence lengths, use the following guidelines.