Introduction
When someone has thoughts or opinions that they think are worth sharing with the public, from the wide range of ways offered by our modern world to do it they, with a high probability, will choose writing. This method of conveying ideas has been present for centuries and is still the most popular technique. Writing gives an opportunity for expressing deep emotions as well as scientific facts to a range of readers from a general audience to a very specific group of experts and a well-organised, clear and effective piece of written work has influence and value. Writing also has a great advantage compared with, for example, speech : a written piece can be stored for, practically, an infinitely long period of time. This means that authors have the possibility to mould it as long as, and rethink it as many times as, they feel like and allow only the very final version, with which they are completely satisfied, to be released. They have the chance to revise the text. The aim of this paper is to clarify the notion and importance of revision and suggest some effective techniques.
Method
Revision has several forms and ways, almost as many as writers themselves. The common feature is the aim of the activity, which is not only the correction of the product but also the improvement of its content and, often, form. Today schools and publishers offer a wide range of courses and books dealing with this issue. This work is mainly based on my personal experience of attending a Writing and Research Skills course at Janus Pannonius University (JPU) of Pécs, Hungary during the spring semester of 1996-7 and coming across themes, topics, tasks and recommended reading materials related to revision. Among the supporting readings the one I found the most useful was Hubbard (1988 177-88).
Results and Discussion
Re-reading a finished work can help the author to identify several types of problems that otherwise would remain unrevealed. Hubbard calls this procedure "proofreading" :
"The very last changes you make in a piece of writing before it goes to its audience are generated within proofreading. The term comes from printing, where a 'proof' or test copy is made from the metal type before a print run starts. This test copy is used to make minor corrections at the last minute." 1
Once the "print" is set it is complicated and expensive to make corrections. Proofreading is the last check before the product is released.
The main point of re-reading is to spot inconsistence or incoherence in the text. Writing is usually a long process and so it is very difficult for the writers to look at their work as a whole. The main reason of this is that the creation of individual parts like introduction, conclusion or the insertion of citations are usually temporally separated from each other. But readers, since reading is much faster than writing, are going to have an impression of the piece as a whole and so spot the above mentioned errors more easily.
Reading through again might unveil, first of all, grammatical mistakes and bad sentence or paragraph structuring. If proofread their product, they practically take the part of their would-be audience, try to see it from their point of view.
"Being consistent throughout a long piece of writing is not easy, and if you are the writer you might find it almost impossible, for example, to use a technical term in the same way through ten pages or always to remember what you have assumed an audience knows about your subject. But other people can follow terms and assumptions much more easily because their memories are not clouded by their intentions." 2
Errors in consistence are not only stylistically disturbing but also distract the readers' attention from the essence or completely confuse them. They create an air of carelessness and leave a bad impression. If writers discover these, it will be possible for them to correct, and so improve the quality of their work. Another dangerous type of errors is the error of style. Wrongly chosen style (for example, using foul language or slang in a scientific essay or using foreign words in a children's cartoon) might also make the readers unwilling to continue reading.
While re-reading, authors may find that the work is not about the intended topic. They might find that they have been following wrong traces or their statements and claims are not clear enough for the readers to understand, or are not sufficiently supported. Sometimes the entire writing needs to be rethought, re-structured and perhaps even rewritten.
The major difficulty revising writers face is that they cannot get rid of their consciousness of their own intentions and thoughts. They can read again their product, but in vain, because, once they know what it should be about, they are probably going to see what they want to see without noticing errors.
"Revision literally means re-seeing, but the ways we re-see are the ways we see." 3
A sub-type of revision is to help to solve this problem, and it is tape-recording and playing back a finished work.
One specific task we, the students attending the above mentioned writing course at JPU, got was to tape-record one of our essays. It proved to be very useful from different aspects. First of all, playing the tape back helped us to hear our text from the point of view of an outsider and so get over the problem of "seeing what we want to see". The other advantage of recording and playing back was that it gave an even clearer review of errors of structure and coherence on the sentence, paragraph and text levels.
Conclusion
Apart from tape-recording and playing back there are, of course, several other, equally effective ways of revision. For instance, Hubbard mentions reading backwards (sentence by sentence) or reading imitating other persons' voices or using foreign accent.
"If you are working alone, read your revised and edited piece backwards, one sentence at a time. [...] Or read it in a strange accent, John Wayne, or Pee Wee Herman, or someone from another country." 4
Whichever method a writer selects the major goal remains the same : spot and correct errors of grammar, consistence or style.
"All these techniques [methods of revision] have the aim of making your writing seem strange to you [and so help to judge it more objectively]." 5
One should not save time by leaving out revision, however useless it sometimes may seem. If authors have time to compose they will probably have the time to rethink their ideas and look through their work again. It often takes just a few minutes' revising to find a tiny little slip that can ruin the work of, perhaps, weeks or months.
Showing posts with label revision. Show all posts
Showing posts with label revision. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
W 082 F
1. Introduction and methods
The revision of assignments is a crucial part of the writing process, and in a broader sense of language learning as well. It is the re-seeing of a piece of writing with the intention of improvement. The main purpose of revision is to make the work readable and as clear for the reader as possible.
In this paper I aim to draw students’ attention to the importance of looking through their drafts before handing in the final versions , however tiring and time-consuming it is. My method is to give an analysis of the stages of revision through the description of the revising tasks that occurred in the Writing and Research Skills course (spring semester 1997) at Janus Pannonius University (JPU). My research is grouped around four tasks: the tape recording of an essay, an in-class essay about the usefulness of revising, a peer editing task and the revision of an essay written by the whole group.
2. Discussion
Revision is not a separate stage, but an integral part of the writing procedure, since "writing is 95 percent revision” (Hubbard, 1988, p 104) (1). We simply cannot go on writing without going back to the sentences already put down. This is a natural form of revision, but with patience it can be further improved to a consciously organized and effective process, which needs always less of our time and energy, since our revising skill improves with practice (Hammond, 1985) (2).
When writing the first version of an essay, we may easily make mistakes due to inattentiveness , which may be the result of our too fast flow of thoughts. Revision concerns not only the correction of errors, but it also helps in adding new ideas and perspectives to the original ones by considering the text from a different point of view.
2.1. Tape recording task
An unusual but truly interesting and challenging task of the course was the tape recording of an essay, which entailed a special form of revising. We had three options among which we could choose. These were the expanding of an earlier assignment: the learning experience, the description of a metaphor of essay writing and the designing of a freely chosen place at the university. This task would have been a usual one, had it not been about recording it on a tape. By reading out the text we reached the effect as if it were alive. We had to pay extra attention to the way we read: to the intonation and clear pronunciation, as an essay on tape makes a greater impression on the audience than a written one, which does not express that much of the author’s personality. This is because human voice is more vivid and powerful than written thoughts.
Tape recording also helped to look at our own sentences as though they were completely strange, which is an excellent technique of revision. The slight distortion of our voice caused by the tape recorder contributed to this effect. Considering our writings from an alien perspective, we were able to have a more critical eye on our essays. Had we not tried to apply this method, we would have tended to be partial to ourselves and would have ignored our weaknesses in writing. The alienating effect can be further increased by reading out the essay in a strange accent ( Hubbard, 1985 ) (3).
While composing our essays, we had to keep three main aspects in mind. First of all, we had to have a clear purpose and message to the readers, as there is no good writing without a definite aim. We also had to have a content that was relevant to the theme. The last aspect according to which the essays were evaluated concerned how well our message reached our audience. Revision helped us to improve our writings in all these fields, which are more abstract than for example the correction of grammar mistakes. Whereas grammar mistakes are obvious, the quality of coherence, focusing and questions whether the essay contains enough fresh information or is specific enough are not at all so easy to measure ( Hammond, 1985 ) (4).
Having finished our first drafts, we had to get to the first stage of conscious revising, which was the hardest. This was the admission that our work needed improvement. The correction of grammatical mistakes and the clearing up of spelling and punctuation we felt natural, but for example to admit that some parts of our essays were redundant was much more difficult. Once we had put down our thoughts on paper, we tended to feel that they closely belonged to us , since we had worked hard on them in order to be able to give them a form. But once we managed to get ourselves over the first difficult steps, we could move on to the next stage, which was the correction of surface problems: bad accuracy, which involved punctuation, spelling and grammar errors. Although bad grammar , faulty punctuation and poor spelling are surface problems, it does not mean that they are of minor importance, since they distract the reader's attention from the essay. Bad word choice may have a similar effect. As we cannot always find the appropriate word that expresses exactly what we intend to say, sometimes we are obliged to use words we are not satisfied with. But these distort our original message. Cliches and fat expressions also reduce the quality of our essays, since they are out of fashion and worn out (Hammond, 1985 ) (5).
Besides the reseeing of surface problems there is a deeper level of revision as well. This is the rethinking our paper, which includes the reconsidering of paragraph and essay organization, the coherence and logic of our thoughts and the focusedness of our theme ( Hammond, 1985 ) (6). When deeply involved in our thoughts we could easily write sentences that were logical and perfectly clear for us, but not that clear for the reader. But when listening to our own voice reading out the for us well known sentences, we could see the essay as a whole and could spot out inconsistencies.
As for coherence, we had to examine how sentences led to others, how paragraphs held together and how the whole essay was constructed. We had to take into consideration that the title as the head of the essay is of great importance, since it gives the clue what the essay is going to be about. While writing, we had to remember that always focusing on the theme is needed for a good understanding.
Besides accuracy and the organization of the essay, revision deals with some other aspects as well, which are not strictly bound to the body of the text, but which investigate how the writer managed to make an impact on her readers ( Hammond, 1985 ) (7). By recording our essays we realized how essential it is to get access to the audience and to affect it in a positive way, since an essay which has no bridge to the readers is both senseless and lifeless. While simply putting down our thoughts, we tend to forget that we have an audience. It is perhaps tape recording that puts the greatest emphasis on the importance of taking into consideration the audience.
2.2. An in-class paper about revision
The next task we did in connection with revision was the writing of an in-class paper, whose theme was the usefullness of revising and tape-recording. It was not a whole essay because we had to write only two paragraphs. We dealt with the topic not only in theory, but we applied it in practice as well. A week after we had written those two paragraphs, we got back our papers so that we could read through them again in search for mistakes. Probably all of us came across some errors which we had not realize or added some new aspects which had not occured to us a week earlier. When we finished our drafts, we were happy to be ready, and had neither enough patience nor enough time to look for mistakes. But the effectiveness of revision is not only the question of patience, it also depends on how much time takes place between finishing the drafts and revising them. Mistakes seem much more salient if we put our writings aside for a while and go back to them later. This is probably because for example in a week’s time we do not remember our original ideas and purpose perfectly and are able to regard our works more as if they were someone else’s ( Hubbard, 1988 ) (8).
The next stage of revision after refining the raw material is editing, which is „ getting a text ready for readers” (Hubbard, 1988, p 186) (9). There is no strict boundary between revision and editing, since editing includes the deeper levels of revising. There is still a major difference between the two phenomena: editing is usually done by an outsider , because corrections made by editing are over the limit of the author’s ability to realize her own weaknesses. The editing outsider should be an interested but uninformed reader because this way can she give the best pieces of advice. A writer does not always assume well what the readers’ background knowledge is. What is obvious for the author may not be that obvious for the audience, so the omission of some information may be a great obstacle of comprehension. Unless the writing provides a sufficient amount of information about the theme, the reader can easily get lost while reading the vague text (Hubbard, 1988) (10).
2.3. Peer-editing
Our editing work during the course was a peer- editing task. Every student had to exchange her essay with someone else’s and work on it. These writings were about a purposely badly-written essay. Each editor had the task to correct the mistakes occurring in the text and add some useful comments. These could be both positive or negative , but by all means had to have the intention of help for improvement. Reading our peer’s critics might have hurt us first and not all corrections and comments might have been relevant, but it was still worth it to appreciate and pay attention to them, as „nothing works as well as another mind engaged in the task” ( Hubbard, 1988, p 178 ) (11). Though our editors were students , we could still profit from their opinions, which could be as precious as the teacher’s, since getting to know other ways of thinking and points of view enriches us incredibly, even if we do not agree with them.
Although writing is mostly an individual matter, the collaboration among students is helpful (Hammond, 1988 ) (12). On the one hand, getting to know others’ experience may serve us as a salutary example. On the other hand, it may reinforce us that the way we write is not that bad, or at least better than that person’s is whose mode of writing we got to know.
2.4. Group-writing activity
Our task with the essay written by the whole group was a combination of revising and editing. As all of us wrote a separate paragraph on computer, to which only the topic sentence was given, our efforts did not result in a whole essay at once, since a heap of paragraphs does not make a coherent writing. Our task with this raw material was to make a whole essay out of it. It was not an easy assignment, since on the one hand, we wrote in different styles, which may not have coincided, and on the other hand, there was no balance among the paragraphs, since some were dense and some contained detailed description. So besides correcting errors that violated accuracy, we also had to attempt to reach a healthy balance among the many separate parts, and to construct a unified style. By adding the missing introduction and conclusion to the main body of the text, we gave a frame to the essay.
When due to our hard work we could see a whole essay emerging from the bunch of paragraphs, we tended to consider it more and more as if it were our own. Sometimes we had difficulties in deciding whether to change others’ sentences or not . They may not have been wrong, but they were not in accordance with our taste. As a result, sometimes we rewrote whole paragraphs because we felt we were able to write far better ones instead, but other times we hardly changed anything, as they met our requirements or even surpassed them. By reading others’ paragraphs we could gain new ideas , which threw a different light on our topic and enriched our perspectives.
3. Conclusion
All the colourful and interesting revision tasks of the course were of great value, since they were aimed not only to prove to students that revision is useful, but also to shape their attitude towards revising by encouraging them to consider it not a drag, but an enjoyable challenge.
The revision of assignments is a crucial part of the writing process, and in a broader sense of language learning as well. It is the re-seeing of a piece of writing with the intention of improvement. The main purpose of revision is to make the work readable and as clear for the reader as possible.
In this paper I aim to draw students’ attention to the importance of looking through their drafts before handing in the final versions , however tiring and time-consuming it is. My method is to give an analysis of the stages of revision through the description of the revising tasks that occurred in the Writing and Research Skills course (spring semester 1997) at Janus Pannonius University (JPU). My research is grouped around four tasks: the tape recording of an essay, an in-class essay about the usefulness of revising, a peer editing task and the revision of an essay written by the whole group.
2. Discussion
Revision is not a separate stage, but an integral part of the writing procedure, since "writing is 95 percent revision” (Hubbard, 1988, p 104) (1). We simply cannot go on writing without going back to the sentences already put down. This is a natural form of revision, but with patience it can be further improved to a consciously organized and effective process, which needs always less of our time and energy, since our revising skill improves with practice (Hammond, 1985) (2).
When writing the first version of an essay, we may easily make mistakes due to inattentiveness , which may be the result of our too fast flow of thoughts. Revision concerns not only the correction of errors, but it also helps in adding new ideas and perspectives to the original ones by considering the text from a different point of view.
2.1. Tape recording task
An unusual but truly interesting and challenging task of the course was the tape recording of an essay, which entailed a special form of revising. We had three options among which we could choose. These were the expanding of an earlier assignment: the learning experience, the description of a metaphor of essay writing and the designing of a freely chosen place at the university. This task would have been a usual one, had it not been about recording it on a tape. By reading out the text we reached the effect as if it were alive. We had to pay extra attention to the way we read: to the intonation and clear pronunciation, as an essay on tape makes a greater impression on the audience than a written one, which does not express that much of the author’s personality. This is because human voice is more vivid and powerful than written thoughts.
Tape recording also helped to look at our own sentences as though they were completely strange, which is an excellent technique of revision. The slight distortion of our voice caused by the tape recorder contributed to this effect. Considering our writings from an alien perspective, we were able to have a more critical eye on our essays. Had we not tried to apply this method, we would have tended to be partial to ourselves and would have ignored our weaknesses in writing. The alienating effect can be further increased by reading out the essay in a strange accent ( Hubbard, 1985 ) (3).
While composing our essays, we had to keep three main aspects in mind. First of all, we had to have a clear purpose and message to the readers, as there is no good writing without a definite aim. We also had to have a content that was relevant to the theme. The last aspect according to which the essays were evaluated concerned how well our message reached our audience. Revision helped us to improve our writings in all these fields, which are more abstract than for example the correction of grammar mistakes. Whereas grammar mistakes are obvious, the quality of coherence, focusing and questions whether the essay contains enough fresh information or is specific enough are not at all so easy to measure ( Hammond, 1985 ) (4).
Having finished our first drafts, we had to get to the first stage of conscious revising, which was the hardest. This was the admission that our work needed improvement. The correction of grammatical mistakes and the clearing up of spelling and punctuation we felt natural, but for example to admit that some parts of our essays were redundant was much more difficult. Once we had put down our thoughts on paper, we tended to feel that they closely belonged to us , since we had worked hard on them in order to be able to give them a form. But once we managed to get ourselves over the first difficult steps, we could move on to the next stage, which was the correction of surface problems: bad accuracy, which involved punctuation, spelling and grammar errors. Although bad grammar , faulty punctuation and poor spelling are surface problems, it does not mean that they are of minor importance, since they distract the reader's attention from the essay. Bad word choice may have a similar effect. As we cannot always find the appropriate word that expresses exactly what we intend to say, sometimes we are obliged to use words we are not satisfied with. But these distort our original message. Cliches and fat expressions also reduce the quality of our essays, since they are out of fashion and worn out (Hammond, 1985 ) (5).
Besides the reseeing of surface problems there is a deeper level of revision as well. This is the rethinking our paper, which includes the reconsidering of paragraph and essay organization, the coherence and logic of our thoughts and the focusedness of our theme ( Hammond, 1985 ) (6). When deeply involved in our thoughts we could easily write sentences that were logical and perfectly clear for us, but not that clear for the reader. But when listening to our own voice reading out the for us well known sentences, we could see the essay as a whole and could spot out inconsistencies.
As for coherence, we had to examine how sentences led to others, how paragraphs held together and how the whole essay was constructed. We had to take into consideration that the title as the head of the essay is of great importance, since it gives the clue what the essay is going to be about. While writing, we had to remember that always focusing on the theme is needed for a good understanding.
Besides accuracy and the organization of the essay, revision deals with some other aspects as well, which are not strictly bound to the body of the text, but which investigate how the writer managed to make an impact on her readers ( Hammond, 1985 ) (7). By recording our essays we realized how essential it is to get access to the audience and to affect it in a positive way, since an essay which has no bridge to the readers is both senseless and lifeless. While simply putting down our thoughts, we tend to forget that we have an audience. It is perhaps tape recording that puts the greatest emphasis on the importance of taking into consideration the audience.
2.2. An in-class paper about revision
The next task we did in connection with revision was the writing of an in-class paper, whose theme was the usefullness of revising and tape-recording. It was not a whole essay because we had to write only two paragraphs. We dealt with the topic not only in theory, but we applied it in practice as well. A week after we had written those two paragraphs, we got back our papers so that we could read through them again in search for mistakes. Probably all of us came across some errors which we had not realize or added some new aspects which had not occured to us a week earlier. When we finished our drafts, we were happy to be ready, and had neither enough patience nor enough time to look for mistakes. But the effectiveness of revision is not only the question of patience, it also depends on how much time takes place between finishing the drafts and revising them. Mistakes seem much more salient if we put our writings aside for a while and go back to them later. This is probably because for example in a week’s time we do not remember our original ideas and purpose perfectly and are able to regard our works more as if they were someone else’s ( Hubbard, 1988 ) (8).
The next stage of revision after refining the raw material is editing, which is „ getting a text ready for readers” (Hubbard, 1988, p 186) (9). There is no strict boundary between revision and editing, since editing includes the deeper levels of revising. There is still a major difference between the two phenomena: editing is usually done by an outsider , because corrections made by editing are over the limit of the author’s ability to realize her own weaknesses. The editing outsider should be an interested but uninformed reader because this way can she give the best pieces of advice. A writer does not always assume well what the readers’ background knowledge is. What is obvious for the author may not be that obvious for the audience, so the omission of some information may be a great obstacle of comprehension. Unless the writing provides a sufficient amount of information about the theme, the reader can easily get lost while reading the vague text (Hubbard, 1988) (10).
2.3. Peer-editing
Our editing work during the course was a peer- editing task. Every student had to exchange her essay with someone else’s and work on it. These writings were about a purposely badly-written essay. Each editor had the task to correct the mistakes occurring in the text and add some useful comments. These could be both positive or negative , but by all means had to have the intention of help for improvement. Reading our peer’s critics might have hurt us first and not all corrections and comments might have been relevant, but it was still worth it to appreciate and pay attention to them, as „nothing works as well as another mind engaged in the task” ( Hubbard, 1988, p 178 ) (11). Though our editors were students , we could still profit from their opinions, which could be as precious as the teacher’s, since getting to know other ways of thinking and points of view enriches us incredibly, even if we do not agree with them.
Although writing is mostly an individual matter, the collaboration among students is helpful (Hammond, 1988 ) (12). On the one hand, getting to know others’ experience may serve us as a salutary example. On the other hand, it may reinforce us that the way we write is not that bad, or at least better than that person’s is whose mode of writing we got to know.
2.4. Group-writing activity
Our task with the essay written by the whole group was a combination of revising and editing. As all of us wrote a separate paragraph on computer, to which only the topic sentence was given, our efforts did not result in a whole essay at once, since a heap of paragraphs does not make a coherent writing. Our task with this raw material was to make a whole essay out of it. It was not an easy assignment, since on the one hand, we wrote in different styles, which may not have coincided, and on the other hand, there was no balance among the paragraphs, since some were dense and some contained detailed description. So besides correcting errors that violated accuracy, we also had to attempt to reach a healthy balance among the many separate parts, and to construct a unified style. By adding the missing introduction and conclusion to the main body of the text, we gave a frame to the essay.
When due to our hard work we could see a whole essay emerging from the bunch of paragraphs, we tended to consider it more and more as if it were our own. Sometimes we had difficulties in deciding whether to change others’ sentences or not . They may not have been wrong, but they were not in accordance with our taste. As a result, sometimes we rewrote whole paragraphs because we felt we were able to write far better ones instead, but other times we hardly changed anything, as they met our requirements or even surpassed them. By reading others’ paragraphs we could gain new ideas , which threw a different light on our topic and enriched our perspectives.
3. Conclusion
All the colourful and interesting revision tasks of the course were of great value, since they were aimed not only to prove to students that revision is useful, but also to shape their attitude towards revising by encouraging them to consider it not a drag, but an enjoyable challenge.
W 057 F
INTRODUCTION
Students at Janus Pannonius University from Pécs have the opportunity to attend the Writing and Research Skills seminar where everyone can learn about and improve writing skills. For the sessions students have some writing tasks to do, for example: preparing essays on topics suggested by the teacher or chosen by the students; and accomplishing a small-scale research paper.
During the Fall 1998 semester we used for several times William Zinsser’s book On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Non-Fiction, which was a great help for us in forming our writing style.
Zinsser is a free-lance writer, the author of humorous and non-fiction writings. He was a teacher as well: he taught even at Yale University. His main teaching and conception on writing well is to write as simply as possible and to avoid clutter. Cluttering is when a writer expresses ideas, thoughts with the help of more words than needed making confusing sentences. Simplicity is quite the contrary of clutter: it shows clear thinking. Clear and simple sentences are easy to understand but it is not always easy to produce them. Zinsser says: “Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time” (Zinsser 1998, 12).
In the chapter entitled ”Simplicity” from the book On Writing Well, Zinsser presents two pages of an earlier version of the same book and I found the way he simplified his sentences very exciting.
I thought it would be interesting and useful for me as well as for other students to compare the two versions and to see how a professional writer gets his final edition.
METHOD
As its title itself shows, the chapter ”Simplicity” deals with the importance of simple and clear writing and explains that “the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components” (Zinsser 1998, 7).
As an example for how to simplify sentences, the author shows the reader on pages ten and eleven a piece of draft, an earlier version of the final, edited work. On the two pages of the draft we can see a text and a lot of corrections on it: words and sentences crossed out, some new words written between the lines replacing something dropped out.
I wanted to know how many words were dropped out from the text and how many were substituted with new words and expressions, so I counted every item from both versions. I was also curious to find out if the content of the final version changed as compared to the content of the draft.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
According to Zinsser, the draft shown on pages ten and eleven was already the fourth or fifth version and he could still find a great number of unnecessary words in it.
There were 538 words in the text shown on the two pages of the draft, and after the author revised it once more, he left out 123 elements, which means that almost one fourth of the text (22.8 % exactly) was left out finally. In spite of the large number of omitted words from the draft the final text does not change in meaning, it has the same content and meaning but it is shorter and more simple, thus it is easier to follow and to comprehend the ideas the author shares with his readers
There were only seventeen additions or substitutions. Zinsser replaced several phrases or even sentences with shorter terms, for example: constructions of a definite article and a noun were replaced by personal pronouns; sentences were substituted with verbs; adjectives were left out where the noun carried the meaning of the adjective; noun phrases were replaced by nouns and long verb phrases with short verbs with the same meaning. In three cases he left out complete sentences without any replacement.
A very common problem of both professional and amateur writers is the use of redundant adjectives, I mean the use of adjectives that are not necessary for the understanding of the noun they belong to. That is why I expected adjectives to be the most numerous among those items that were crossed out but I was wrong. They were on the third place on the list. The group of verbs was the leading one of the list containing different parts of speech. The most frequent types of omission were: the verb ”to be” and verbs in the infinitive form. See Table 1 to find out about the number of words belonging to different parts of speech.
Part of speech The number of left out items
Verbs 28
Pronouns 20
Adjectives 15
Adverbs 14
Nouns 13
Articles 8
Conjunctions 3
Others 22
Table 1: The number of omitted words belonging to certain parts of speech in decreasing
order
Zinsser considers revising to be very important. Revising our writings we can realize how many words and phrases can still be omitted, changed or replaced by shorter ones. He says: “Be grateful for everything you can throw away” (Zinsser 1998,18).
Simplicity assumes brevity and clarity of thoughts and expressions, clutter is everything that can be left out without altering the meaning of what we want to express.
CONCLUSION
Simplicity makes a writing valuable. Sentences with many unnecessary elements in them, very elaborate and confusing sentences, or simply: cluttered sentences, will make the reading difficult.
Zinsser in his work gives several writing tips for those who want to improve their writing style, for those who would like to learn how to be simple in our writings. He convinces us to revise all the time what we write and to drop out as many elements as needed. The most important thing according o him is to be as simple and clear as possible.
Everyone who wants to be read must think first of all of the reader, “this elusive creature” (Zinsser 1998, 9), whose attention must be captured. If the reader gets lost among the confusing ideas of a writing, he will stop reading.
Cluttered sentences make the reading difficult. Simple sentences are easy to understand and we must always try to simplify for the sake of good writing and for the sake of better understanding.
We must try to substitute long subordinate clauses with some verbs that contain the same meaning, to use adverbs and adjectives where they are required, to be attentive at nouns that already carry the meaning that can be expressed also with an adjective.
Students at Janus Pannonius University from Pécs have the opportunity to attend the Writing and Research Skills seminar where everyone can learn about and improve writing skills. For the sessions students have some writing tasks to do, for example: preparing essays on topics suggested by the teacher or chosen by the students; and accomplishing a small-scale research paper.
During the Fall 1998 semester we used for several times William Zinsser’s book On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Non-Fiction, which was a great help for us in forming our writing style.
Zinsser is a free-lance writer, the author of humorous and non-fiction writings. He was a teacher as well: he taught even at Yale University. His main teaching and conception on writing well is to write as simply as possible and to avoid clutter. Cluttering is when a writer expresses ideas, thoughts with the help of more words than needed making confusing sentences. Simplicity is quite the contrary of clutter: it shows clear thinking. Clear and simple sentences are easy to understand but it is not always easy to produce them. Zinsser says: “Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time” (Zinsser 1998, 12).
In the chapter entitled ”Simplicity” from the book On Writing Well, Zinsser presents two pages of an earlier version of the same book and I found the way he simplified his sentences very exciting.
I thought it would be interesting and useful for me as well as for other students to compare the two versions and to see how a professional writer gets his final edition.
METHOD
As its title itself shows, the chapter ”Simplicity” deals with the importance of simple and clear writing and explains that “the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components” (Zinsser 1998, 7).
As an example for how to simplify sentences, the author shows the reader on pages ten and eleven a piece of draft, an earlier version of the final, edited work. On the two pages of the draft we can see a text and a lot of corrections on it: words and sentences crossed out, some new words written between the lines replacing something dropped out.
I wanted to know how many words were dropped out from the text and how many were substituted with new words and expressions, so I counted every item from both versions. I was also curious to find out if the content of the final version changed as compared to the content of the draft.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
According to Zinsser, the draft shown on pages ten and eleven was already the fourth or fifth version and he could still find a great number of unnecessary words in it.
There were 538 words in the text shown on the two pages of the draft, and after the author revised it once more, he left out 123 elements, which means that almost one fourth of the text (22.8 % exactly) was left out finally. In spite of the large number of omitted words from the draft the final text does not change in meaning, it has the same content and meaning but it is shorter and more simple, thus it is easier to follow and to comprehend the ideas the author shares with his readers
There were only seventeen additions or substitutions. Zinsser replaced several phrases or even sentences with shorter terms, for example: constructions of a definite article and a noun were replaced by personal pronouns; sentences were substituted with verbs; adjectives were left out where the noun carried the meaning of the adjective; noun phrases were replaced by nouns and long verb phrases with short verbs with the same meaning. In three cases he left out complete sentences without any replacement.
A very common problem of both professional and amateur writers is the use of redundant adjectives, I mean the use of adjectives that are not necessary for the understanding of the noun they belong to. That is why I expected adjectives to be the most numerous among those items that were crossed out but I was wrong. They were on the third place on the list. The group of verbs was the leading one of the list containing different parts of speech. The most frequent types of omission were: the verb ”to be” and verbs in the infinitive form. See Table 1 to find out about the number of words belonging to different parts of speech.
Part of speech The number of left out items
Verbs 28
Pronouns 20
Adjectives 15
Adverbs 14
Nouns 13
Articles 8
Conjunctions 3
Others 22
Table 1: The number of omitted words belonging to certain parts of speech in decreasing
order
Zinsser considers revising to be very important. Revising our writings we can realize how many words and phrases can still be omitted, changed or replaced by shorter ones. He says: “Be grateful for everything you can throw away” (Zinsser 1998,18).
Simplicity assumes brevity and clarity of thoughts and expressions, clutter is everything that can be left out without altering the meaning of what we want to express.
CONCLUSION
Simplicity makes a writing valuable. Sentences with many unnecessary elements in them, very elaborate and confusing sentences, or simply: cluttered sentences, will make the reading difficult.
Zinsser in his work gives several writing tips for those who want to improve their writing style, for those who would like to learn how to be simple in our writings. He convinces us to revise all the time what we write and to drop out as many elements as needed. The most important thing according o him is to be as simple and clear as possible.
Everyone who wants to be read must think first of all of the reader, “this elusive creature” (Zinsser 1998, 9), whose attention must be captured. If the reader gets lost among the confusing ideas of a writing, he will stop reading.
Cluttered sentences make the reading difficult. Simple sentences are easy to understand and we must always try to simplify for the sake of good writing and for the sake of better understanding.
We must try to substitute long subordinate clauses with some verbs that contain the same meaning, to use adverbs and adjectives where they are required, to be attentive at nouns that already carry the meaning that can be expressed also with an adjective.
W 010 F
Making an essay does not contain only the process of writing itself but reading it through again and again searching for mistakes, making it more and more perfect. This is revising.
I have read a lot of opinions about this work written by students and all of them agreed in its necessity. It may not be as amusing as drafting itself but the writer has to 'make sure that the final form is perfect, otherwise it is not worth so much effort'- wrote one of the students quite reasonably. Besides agreeing in this many different essays got born about the advantages, results and ways of revising. I will not analyse the reasons why students have so different ideas about this process which has a simple aim: to make a perfect essay (and the truth is that I read many similar writings but a few of them really contained new aspects). My task (chosen by myself) is to give information about the steps of making an essay.
Reading through the essay first obvious mistakes are found: wrong spelling and grammar. Non of the students can hope that they will write a grammatically correct text when they do not use their mother tongue. The reason is that (if they are lucky) 'the flux of their ideas come so quickly and so dense' that there is no time to think about whether the sentences, which have been just written down, are grammatically correct or not. I do not know if somebody who learns a foreign language will ever be able to use it without any thinking about structures, I am pessimistic in connection with this, I think this is only one's mother tongue which can be used like this (if somebody is lucky she or he has too of them). Paying attention to grammar is a plus task. (One of my friends thought that writing an essay in foreign language contains two parts: drafting it in Hungarian and translating it.)
During checking it is advisable to use a grammar and a dictionary, though it is useful to have them already during the writing process because however engaged the author is by his or her thoughts he or she can have problems which cannot be solved by using her or his head. Wrong spelling can rise not only from ignorance but, mainly during typing, it can happen by chance (using Hungarian language too.) For example in the last sentence I typed 'nly' instead of 'only'.
If somebody do not spare his or her time by not checking their written texts the result of his or her work will be not only a grammatically correct essay but by meeting difficulties, searching for and finding the good solution the author will learn from the previous mistakes and avoid them later on.
The other step of revising is similar to the work of a beautician: one may find awkward sentences which, though being grammatically correct, should be redrafted. The author can also notice repetition of words which he or she cannot pay attention to during thinking about sentences like separate units. In their essays students tend to use words which are acceptable in informal speech but in a written piece of work they do not meet the requirements. Because most of them are aware of these words being not proper in an essay, reading through it they will change them. They can also avoid their essay containing extra phrases like 'certainly' or 'very' which do not change the meaning.
During revision one can pick some better expressions. Hungarians (and the people of any countries) are inclined to make new expressions for the people of the country the language of which they are using. It is a kind ambition to give something maybe as a benefit for the opportunity of borrowing that tongue but it is not worth the effort because these new ideas probably will never be accepted.
It is not rare that the author did not manage to express what he or she wanted to and again this can be discovered only if the writer do not think that when he or she takes down the pen or types the last period the work ends. Time can help if somebody knows an expression and intends to use it but it does not come to her or his mind at that particular time, he or she has a good chance of its doing so when he or she thinks about it for the second time.
Writing is the process of giving a form to abstract thoughts. The result of this, besides the grammatical mistakes, never-ending sentences being born can be which are difficult to read not only for the reader but even for the writer so these are advisable to reform.
The essay has to follow a main thought and each paragraph has to give an extra information about it. If my task was be to represent the process of creating a written piece of work by a geometrical solid I would choose the pyramid standing on its peak which would mean the beginning and the way its superficies, bordering bigger and bigger capacity as we advance upwards, would show how the thoughts got expounded. Revising gives a chance of discovering whether 'the thread of the essay is not torn' and the transition between the paragraphs is not logical. As the main aim of writing an essay is to make the reader understand the author's thoughts, he or she has to pay attention to its being written in a logical and understandable order.
It is an unpleasant experience when one finishes writing, feels relieved and reading through the fruit of the effort the student realizes that he or she has not fulfilled the requirements and expounded not the topic given but another one, but it is still better to work a bit more with it than not being aware of it, handing it in its original form, expecting a good grade and getting it back with the instructions how to write a better one.
It is also advisable to 'make sure that every important detail of the theme is included in the text for understanding it perfectly', doing this new thoughts may emerge. The essay can only be said proper if there are not questions still open to be answered, if it has a real conclusion.
When the writer feels that he or she cannot do anything more and the work has become perfect but he or she would like to be entirely sure about it, it is useful to ask one of the friends to examine it, promising an amusing experience or doing the washing-up instead of him or her. I mention this latter one because I have to confess I refused this request of two of my roommates just last week but they did not promise anything. I did not refuse the wishes because of the topics (1. phullerens by a history student, 2. physical-chemistry, which was my nightmare last year) but because of not having time.
For the case that the author cannot find any curious person I offer another method: tape-recording. The reason why I have not mentioned this yet is my agreeing with the opinion of one of the students whose pieces of work are the basis of this one, according to which this process needs too much time and 'though it can be useful, it is not important after a thorough revise'.
'Tape-recording provides us with the effect that our writing has on the reader' so we really deputize another person when we are listening to ourselves (it is helped by our voice being different from how we hear it - and as for me it is not a pleasant experience). Doing this we can examine the text from an objective point of view.
It is not all the same how the text is read out. The important parts need stressing and this way the listener can check whether the message of her or his thoughts can reach the readers.
Another benefit of application of this method is 'bringing new relationship between author and text, author and audience, audience and text. A student, who must have too much spare-time, wrote that the aim of tape-recording is enjoying of one's revised, perfect work.
I have tried to expound all of the reasons why it is necessary to revise essays and since I do not have any more ideas about this theme I can start carrying out the revising itself. And during this some new thoughts may emerge.
I have read a lot of opinions about this work written by students and all of them agreed in its necessity. It may not be as amusing as drafting itself but the writer has to 'make sure that the final form is perfect, otherwise it is not worth so much effort'- wrote one of the students quite reasonably. Besides agreeing in this many different essays got born about the advantages, results and ways of revising. I will not analyse the reasons why students have so different ideas about this process which has a simple aim: to make a perfect essay (and the truth is that I read many similar writings but a few of them really contained new aspects). My task (chosen by myself) is to give information about the steps of making an essay.
Reading through the essay first obvious mistakes are found: wrong spelling and grammar. Non of the students can hope that they will write a grammatically correct text when they do not use their mother tongue. The reason is that (if they are lucky) 'the flux of their ideas come so quickly and so dense' that there is no time to think about whether the sentences, which have been just written down, are grammatically correct or not. I do not know if somebody who learns a foreign language will ever be able to use it without any thinking about structures, I am pessimistic in connection with this, I think this is only one's mother tongue which can be used like this (if somebody is lucky she or he has too of them). Paying attention to grammar is a plus task. (One of my friends thought that writing an essay in foreign language contains two parts: drafting it in Hungarian and translating it.)
During checking it is advisable to use a grammar and a dictionary, though it is useful to have them already during the writing process because however engaged the author is by his or her thoughts he or she can have problems which cannot be solved by using her or his head. Wrong spelling can rise not only from ignorance but, mainly during typing, it can happen by chance (using Hungarian language too.) For example in the last sentence I typed 'nly' instead of 'only'.
If somebody do not spare his or her time by not checking their written texts the result of his or her work will be not only a grammatically correct essay but by meeting difficulties, searching for and finding the good solution the author will learn from the previous mistakes and avoid them later on.
The other step of revising is similar to the work of a beautician: one may find awkward sentences which, though being grammatically correct, should be redrafted. The author can also notice repetition of words which he or she cannot pay attention to during thinking about sentences like separate units. In their essays students tend to use words which are acceptable in informal speech but in a written piece of work they do not meet the requirements. Because most of them are aware of these words being not proper in an essay, reading through it they will change them. They can also avoid their essay containing extra phrases like 'certainly' or 'very' which do not change the meaning.
During revision one can pick some better expressions. Hungarians (and the people of any countries) are inclined to make new expressions for the people of the country the language of which they are using. It is a kind ambition to give something maybe as a benefit for the opportunity of borrowing that tongue but it is not worth the effort because these new ideas probably will never be accepted.
It is not rare that the author did not manage to express what he or she wanted to and again this can be discovered only if the writer do not think that when he or she takes down the pen or types the last period the work ends. Time can help if somebody knows an expression and intends to use it but it does not come to her or his mind at that particular time, he or she has a good chance of its doing so when he or she thinks about it for the second time.
Writing is the process of giving a form to abstract thoughts. The result of this, besides the grammatical mistakes, never-ending sentences being born can be which are difficult to read not only for the reader but even for the writer so these are advisable to reform.
The essay has to follow a main thought and each paragraph has to give an extra information about it. If my task was be to represent the process of creating a written piece of work by a geometrical solid I would choose the pyramid standing on its peak which would mean the beginning and the way its superficies, bordering bigger and bigger capacity as we advance upwards, would show how the thoughts got expounded. Revising gives a chance of discovering whether 'the thread of the essay is not torn' and the transition between the paragraphs is not logical. As the main aim of writing an essay is to make the reader understand the author's thoughts, he or she has to pay attention to its being written in a logical and understandable order.
It is an unpleasant experience when one finishes writing, feels relieved and reading through the fruit of the effort the student realizes that he or she has not fulfilled the requirements and expounded not the topic given but another one, but it is still better to work a bit more with it than not being aware of it, handing it in its original form, expecting a good grade and getting it back with the instructions how to write a better one.
It is also advisable to 'make sure that every important detail of the theme is included in the text for understanding it perfectly', doing this new thoughts may emerge. The essay can only be said proper if there are not questions still open to be answered, if it has a real conclusion.
When the writer feels that he or she cannot do anything more and the work has become perfect but he or she would like to be entirely sure about it, it is useful to ask one of the friends to examine it, promising an amusing experience or doing the washing-up instead of him or her. I mention this latter one because I have to confess I refused this request of two of my roommates just last week but they did not promise anything. I did not refuse the wishes because of the topics (1. phullerens by a history student, 2. physical-chemistry, which was my nightmare last year) but because of not having time.
For the case that the author cannot find any curious person I offer another method: tape-recording. The reason why I have not mentioned this yet is my agreeing with the opinion of one of the students whose pieces of work are the basis of this one, according to which this process needs too much time and 'though it can be useful, it is not important after a thorough revise'.
'Tape-recording provides us with the effect that our writing has on the reader' so we really deputize another person when we are listening to ourselves (it is helped by our voice being different from how we hear it - and as for me it is not a pleasant experience). Doing this we can examine the text from an objective point of view.
It is not all the same how the text is read out. The important parts need stressing and this way the listener can check whether the message of her or his thoughts can reach the readers.
Another benefit of application of this method is 'bringing new relationship between author and text, author and audience, audience and text. A student, who must have too much spare-time, wrote that the aim of tape-recording is enjoying of one's revised, perfect work.
I have tried to expound all of the reasons why it is necessary to revise essays and since I do not have any more ideas about this theme I can start carrying out the revising itself. And during this some new thoughts may emerge.
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