Revision: Guide to tightening your writing
  Adapted from POWA

This exercise is adapted from the Paradigm Online Writing Assistant (POWA)--a site you should visit often as you teach yourself to be a better writer. A link to this site is included under the “Tools” section of Mosaic.

Tightening means cutting extra words, all those that don’t contribute to your message. Inexperienced writers often use far more words than necessary. They don’t attach enough value to the individual word. As a result, the writing appears cluttered. The central ideas are hard to focus on because unimportant words get in the way. Here’s an example:

All my intentions were is to experience prison from the inside looking out and not from the outside looking in. I knew if I played my cards right and if the opportunity presented itself I wouldn’t hesitate or be afraid to experience a short period behind bars, walls, fences, or prison for that matter in order to get an insider’s view.

The idea here is interesting, but obscured by clutter. We could easily cut some excess. Maybe a little meaning is lost, but nothing crucial, and notice how much more smoothly it reads:

My intentions were to experience prison from the inside, and I wasn’t afraid to spend a short period behinds bars to get an insider’s view.

And we could tighten it even more:

I wasn’t afraid to spend a short time behind bars just for the experience.

Tightening isn’t hard, although there is a kind of knack to it, and a person gets better with practice. The following suggestions may help:

1. Look for words that don’t do their share of work:
Change: There’s a light on the scoreboard that flashes on and off.
to: The scoreboard light flashes on and off.

2. Use strong verbs:
Change: In a cautious manner the car went around the corner.
to: The car negotiated the corner.

3. Don’t pile up modifiers in front of nouns:
Change: He was a weak, timid sort of individual.
to: He was a mouse.

4. Make the agent the subject:
Change: The report was read to us by Mr. Coleman.
to: Mr. Coleman read us the report.

5. Keep it clear and simple:
Change: Bluegrass music might be said to have certain qualities which render it in a disagreeable light to a clear majority of my peers.
to: Most of my friends don’t like bluegrass music.

6. Try combining several short sentences into a longer one:
Change: I have this beautiful watch. It is silver. It was given to me by my father. He gave it to me last year.
to: Last year my father gave me this beautiful silver watch.

The aim in every case is to make your writing more smooth and vivid, more expressive of your meaning. In fact, that’s the aim of revision in general: to make every word work.

Your assignment today is to complete three tasks.

First, do this e-sheet:  tightening_e_paper.doc Open the Word document. Typing in the document, write a revised version of each sentence under the original. When you are finished, print this sheet and hand it in.

Second, go to the two of your peer’s essays that appear immediately above your own essay (if you get to the top essay, continue at the bottom of the page) and make specific suggestions for tightening at least three sentences.

Begin by setting your computer up in a split screen format. This will take a few minutes, but it will make it much easier to work: (Resize Mosaic so it fills the right half of your computer screen, then open a new copy of Mosaic in a new window and resize it so it fills the left half of your screen. In the left window, scroll to the essay you are revising. In the right window, scroll to the comment you are writing.)

When you have the split screen set up, copy each sentence that could be tightened from the essay and paste it into your comment, then below it write a tightened version. Do at least three sentences in two of your peer’s essays--that’s six sentences total. Read the other comments first to avoid revising the same sentences someone else has already revised.

Third, by the time you have finished, you should have at least a few suggestions for your own essay. Read through your essay sentence by sentence, tightening it as you go.