Transcript Revising the First Draft

Revising the First Draft
Autobiographical Narrative
Check Your Opening Paragraph
• Check for passages that sound “wooden.”
• Check to see if the style and tone of the
opening paragraph fit in with the rest of your
narrative.
• Did you open with dialogue or a “hook” to
grab the interest of your audience?
Try These Beginnings
• Begin with an anecdote (short amusing story)
• Begin with a memorable experience
• Begin with a question (not one of my personal
favorites).
• Begin with a thought-provoking quotation.
• Begin with an ironic observation.
• Begin with a surprising statement.
• Begin in the middle of things by sketching a
scene.
• Begin with a statistic.
Check Your Sequence of Points
• Did you consistently follow a chronological
order?
• Did you use and follow a plot diagram?
• Did you incorporate Flashback?
Check for Adequate Examples and
Details
• Check your paragraphs for completeness.
– Sometimes an anecdote or extended example is
all that is needed to beef up an otherwise empty
paragraph.
Check Paragraph Transitions
• Did you use transitional words and phrases to
“stitch” together ideas that might not
automatically flow?
– On the other hand
– The fact is
– Moreover
– Furthermore
– In contrast to
– First, second, third
Achieving Style
• “Have something to say, and say it as clearly as
you can. That is the only secret of style.” So
wrote Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), the
English poet and critic.
• Style does not have the same meaning in
writing as it does in fashion.
– In fashion, style can mean to be fancy or frilly
• Style in writing means expressing yourself in a
way that is uniquely you.
Simplify Your Grammar
• The first principle of clarity is to write
sentences that clearly say who is doing what
in the subject and what is being done in the
predicate.
• Examine the following:
– A lack of agreement on the part of the Honors
Program Committee prevented the determination
of whether an additional amount of money was
needed for student recruitment of endeavors by
the Honors Society.
Simplify Your Grammar
• The previous sentence is not only long, but
unclear in the relationship between the subject
and the predicate.
• The actor, the Honors Program Committee, skulks
behind an abstract noun – lack of agreement –
while the contemplated action – spending extra
money – crouches behind a passive verb. Check
out the rewrite:
– The Honors Committee could not agree on whether it
should spend more money to recruit students for the
Honors Society.
Express Action in Verbs, Rather than
Nouns
• Noun constructions tend to make actions seem as
if they were impersonal objects, rather than
freely-made choices.
• Verbs, on the other hand, add directness,
briskness, and accountability.
• Consider the following:
• There will be a freezing of all funds. In expressing
the action as a noun (a freezing), the writer fails
to name a responsible “doer of the action” aka
the actor.
Express Action in Verbs, Rather than
Nouns
• The previous sentence should be revised to read:
– The president will freeze all funds.
Here are some other examples along with revision:
Noun construction:
There was an instant dissemination of information on
the part of the officers to the troops.
Rewrite:
The officers instantly disseminated the information to
the troops.
Avoid the Passive Voice
• English has two voices: the active and the
passive.
• In the Active Voice, actor and action are clearly
linked through a straightforward verb:
• Jim smashed Susie’s pumpkin with a hammer.
• In Passive Voice, the actor is often disguised by
the construction of the verb:
• Susie’s pumpkin was smashed with a hammer.
• The culprit (Jim) lurks unnamed in the passive
voice.
Avoid Redundancy
• Redundancy refers to the use of unnecessarily
repetitious language such as the overuse of
word pairs:
• True and accurate
• Long and hard
• Willing and able
• Hope and trust,
• Basic and fundamental
Redundancy
• A second redundancy occurs through the use
of a word whose meaning is implicit in an
earlier word.
• Examples:
• Saying that a table is round in shape (round
implies shape)
• Saying “few in number” (few implies number)
• Saying “red in color” (red IS a color).
Triteness
• Triteness is the use of stale expressions and
prepackaged phrases.
• Examples:
• Worth her weight in gold
• As clear as day
• The burning question
• It is better to write down what you have to say
plainly without using any of these lame phrases.
Revising to Eliminate Triteness
Needs Revision
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In this day and age
nowadays
Owing to the fact that
Despite the fact that
If it should happen that
On the occasion of
In anticipation of
Subsequent to
Concerning the matter
It is necessary that
Revise to read as the following:
• Today
• Today
• Because
• Although
• If
• When
• Before
• After
• About
• must
Grandiosity
• Grandiosity is an annoying fondness for big
words over common ones.
• In prose, plainer is usually better.
• The common word is usually more effective
• Grandiosity can be avoided if you say what
you have to say in plain and simple English.
• The following slide will show examples of
terms to avoid.
Grandiosity Revision Suggestions
Grandiose Words
Common Terms
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Terminate
Facilitate
Ascertain
Endeavor
Inception
Envisage
Transpire
Incisive
Conflagrant
traverse
End
Help
Find out
Try
Beginning, start
See
Happen
Biting
Burning
cross
Vary Sentence Types
• Variety is the spice of style.
• Passages that monotonously begin with the same
word or use the same sentence type and length
are stultifying to read.
• Source: McCuen, Jo Ray and Anthony C. Winkler.
From Idea to Essay: A Rhetoric, Reader, and
Handbook. Pearson Longman. NY, 2006.