Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 18:01, 1 June 2009

Skilled editing is central to achieving high-quality Misplaced Pages articles. This is a set of exercises in which you are presented with a portion of faulty text. It may contain problems of grammar, logic, cohesion, tone, lexical choice, punctuation or redundant wording. In some cases, there are breaches of Misplaced Pages's Manual of style. Unlike our exercises in eliminating redundant wording, most of the exercises don't concentrate on a specific aspect of writing or editing; here, you need to be aware of all of the things that can go wrong in constructing English text.

Almost all of the exercises are designed to be done in stages in your head, without writing. The examples are taken from featured article candidates. We've removed reference numbers to avoid clutter. Feedback on how to improve these exercises is welcome on the talk page. Thanks to User:Gary King for fixing the formatting throughout.

• Return to the original article
• Go to "Exercises in paragraphs, sentences and lists"
• Go to "Know your Manual of Style"
• Go to "Redundancy exercises"

Instructions

1. First, click on to the right of "The problem text" and read the passage carefully. Try to determine where and how it can be improved. You're told how many problems there are.
2. Below this, click on to discover what the generic issues are; these are not necessarily listed in the order in which they occur in the passage. Reread the faulty text to see if you can identify the specific problems.
3. Click on below this to discover where the problems are; try to match each of the coloured parts of the text with one of the problems listed above. In some cases, an issue involves two separate areas of the text that are coded with the same colour. Again, try to determine the solution for each problem before proceeding.
4. Click on to display our suggested solution and explanations. The changes in the text are colour-coded to match the explanations underneath. Where there are MOS breaches, links are provided to the relevant section in the MOS or its subpages.

Short examples

Navenby

Navenby, which has Bronze Age, Roman and Medieval heritage, was made a market town with charters from Edward the Confessor, William Rufus and Richard II. However, the market fell into disuse in the early 19th century.

• A problem of logical cohesion between the two sentences.

Navenby, which has Bronze Age, Roman and Medieval heritage, was made a market town with charters from Edward the Confessor, William Rufus and Richard II; despite this long heritage, the market fell into disuse in the early 19th century.

• However tells your reader that you're going to contradict or change the previous angle in some way; but just how this is the case here is not sufficiently clear. We've guessed that the writer's point is ironic, and reinforced the close relationship with a semicolon rather than a period.

Sunderland A.F.C. (No. 1)

• The bumpety-bump punctuation (which wrecks it) and the splitting of wording that belongs together.

• Move the middle phrase ("in an FA Cup Final").

Montgomery's feat is often described as the most famous save of all time in an FA Cup Final.

• Simple, yes? Now try two harder examples from the same article.

Sunderland A.F.C. (No. 2)

Sunderland required only a draw in their final game against rivals Chelsea, who had another game left to play after this match, to secure promotion.

• The order of ideas in the sentence is the problem.

Sunderland required only a draw in their final game against rivals Chelsea, who had another game left to play after this match, to secure promotion.

• Can you work out how to reposition the last phrase so it's not stuck out at the end of a long sentence?

Sunderland A.F.C. (No. 3)

• The order and relative length of the ideas, and the punctuation.

• The first chain is too long; the second fragment is too short. Try recasting the join between them, including a different punctuation mark and different grammar.

Britney Spears

The Association ranks her as the eighth-best-selling female artist in American music history, having sold 32 million albums in the US.

• The relationship between the two segments in the sentence is ambiguous.

Having sold 32 million albums in the US, she is ranked by the Association as the eighth-best-selling female artist in American music history.

• Reversing the order of the segments and using the passive voice is one way of ensuring that it is she and not the Association is clearly conveyed as having sold 32 million albums in the US. We usually try to ration the use of the passive, but here, it works quite well.

Ima Hogg

Yes, parents can be cruel.

For their home, the Hoggs chose the largest lot, 14.5 acres (5.9 ha). Ima worked closely with architect John Staub to design the house so that it would show off the art the family had already purchased.

• Unnecessary little grammatical words.
• A redundant "temporal" word; the job is done by the tense.

For their home, the Hoggs chose the largest lot, 14.5 acres (5.9 ha). Ima worked closely with architect John Staub to design the a house so that it would show off the art the family had already purchased.

• The grammar is simpler and more succinct.
• "A" rather than "the" is appropriate, since the house—especially in the changed grammatical environment—is one of a class of houses that could be designed for that purpose, not the only one.
• "Already" is redundant in the light of the past tense (unless it's required for some particular emphasis, which was not the case in this context).

Crown Fountain

Concern over the spouting water potentially knocking people down made the design both a legal and a physical challenge.

• Is "concern over a potential" the most direct way to express what underlies a design challenge?
• "Potentially" is a hedgehog word, we think.
• There's an ungainly grammatical construction in the middle.
• There's an "-ing ... -ing" repetition; it's OK, but removing it would be nicer.
• There might be a way of avoiding the "concern made the design" wording.
• Is it necessary to use "both" to mark the combination of the legal and the physical? Maybe, maybe not.

The risk that the spouting water would knock people down was both a legal and physical design challenge.

• The risk is more direct than concern over, and allows us to dispense with the inelegant "potentially".
• The noun plus -ing problem was easy to overcome, using "that"; the solution also eliminates the "-ing ... -ing" repetition. See Exercise 2 below for more on this.
• We chose to retain the grammatical marking of the legal and physical combination ("both").
• Using the verb be (here, was) is a plainer, more direct wording: "X was a challenge" rather than "X made Y a challenge". "Y" ("the design") is now tidily snuck in as a mere adjective to "challenge".

Odex's actions against file-sharing

Odex sent letters of demand to people associated with IP addresses after sufficient downloading activity had been recorded.

The two possible meanings are:

1. people became associated with IP addresses after sufficient downloading activity had been recorded; or
2. Odex sent letters of demand to those people after sufficient downloading activity had been recorded.

After sufficient downloading activity had been recorded, Odex sent letters of demand to people associated with IP addresses.

• Easy-peasy. But the hardest thing was to pick up that it was ambiguous in the first place. Good editors learn to scrutinise every sentence for possible multiple meanings.

Dry powder inhaler

There are four in a way, but on a higher structural level there are only three, concerning (1) "the drug"; (2) "dosing", and (3) "the devices". It's really 1, 2, 3a, 3b. So what about the boundaries between them? Remember the old rules?

• 1 and 2;
• 1, 2, and 3?

DPIs have many advantages over liquid nebulisers: the drug is more stable, dosing is rapid, and the devices are less expensive and can be manufactured in a disposable form.

• 1, 2, and 3, but expanded out, it's 1, 2, and 3a and 3b.

Here it is again, with the numbers interpolated:

DPIs have many advantages over liquid nebulisers: (1) the drug is more stable, (2) dosing is rapid, and the devices (3a) are less expensive and (3b) can be manufactured in a disposable form.

Idlewild and Soak Zone

Retired common pleas judge Thomas Mellon from Allegheny County purchased the Ligonier Valley Railroad at auction.

• Now we don't even need the commas; smooth flow.
• Always keep a look-out for repeated words that lie close together in the text—that is, unless they're necessary to pinpoint the same item for the reader (especially technical terms).

Buckton Castle (1)

The castle has been the subject of antiquarian studies since the 18th century, and it was originally thought to have been the location of an Iron Age hill fort.

• Two benefits: first, the ellipsis, in which the readers effortlessly assume the invisible presence of the now-missing word, is neater; second, there were two singular nouns that "it" might have referred to, and the reader has to work just a little to get over that fuzziness, even though it's obvious "it" doesn't refer to "the 18th century".

Buckton Castle (2)

The castle is oval, with a stone curtain wall 11 metres (35 ft) wide.

• Smoother, and no hyphens are required.

Buckton Castle (3)

Buckton Castle was probably built by William de Neville, Lord of Longdendale, in the late 12th century; which would make it contemporary with other castles in Greater Manchester, such as Dunham and Stockport.

• This is the opposite of a comma splice, in which a comma is wrongly inserted before a fully grammatical, stand-alone sentence.

..., in the late 12th century, which would make it contemporary with other castles in Greater Manchester, such as Dunham and Stockport.

• But now there's a succession of commas, so it might be better to retain the semicolon and make the text that follows it a proper sentence:

• • ..., in the late 12th century; this would make it contemporary with other castles in Greater Manchester such as Dunham and Stockport.

A common problem—noun plus -ing

This construction is, strictly speaking, ungrammatical, although the context and wording varies with respect to how well you can get away with it (even Jane Austen "gets away with it" on occasion!). It has become all too common in many registers in English—even formal ones. noun plus -ing can be seen in:

• "I object to him being there", in which him is the noun. We need to stop and think before using it, given that it can almost always be replaced with a neater construction.
• "Us going to the movies tomorrow? I doubt it." In a formal register, the possessive is required: "Our going to ...". Or just drop the first word if it's clear in the context.

There are several ways of avoiding noun + -ing, such as by making the noun a possessive: "I object to his being there", or more formally, "I object to his presence (there)"). Or you could use a more substantial rewording: "I object to the fact that he's there". However, people find this ungainly, and it's hard to disagree. Often, noun plus -ing is introduced by "with", as a clumsy connector with the previous text: ("We can't do much, with him being there".) Getting rid of "with" can be part of your rewording.

These exercises present sentences containing unsatisfactory instances of noun plus -ing. First, locate the problem; then, think of a solution that is grammatical. Hit the three "shows" at the right and you'll be taken step by step through ways of fixing it; try to think of the answers first.

Handy hints:

• Try changing the -ing verb ("translating") into an indicative verb ("translates") or a noun ("translation"). Often, an -ing verb can be a noun too, unchanged ("parking").
• Common triggers for a solution include:

• that ...
• 's
• ... the of ...
• or, if all else fails, "... the fact that ...".

Suzuki

The book starts as a chronological autobiography, with Suzuki recounting his childhood.

Hint

• "With" is usually a bad connector; you can tackle that problem and fix the noun + -ing problem at the same time.

The book starts as a chronological autobiography in which Suzuki recounts his childhood.

Note

• "In which" allows us to both dispense with clumsy "with", connecting the subsequent clause with the previous clause properly, and to change the noun + -ing into a grammatical structure.

Characters of Carnivàle

Season 2 concludes with Ben setting out to confront Brother Justin in California.

Hint

• "With" is fine here, since it's not used as a connector; the noun + -ing problem can be tackled in more than one way.

Season 2 concludes with Ben's setting out to confront Brother Justin in California.

Note

• The grammar is now correct through the use of the possessive (it's Ben's action of setting out). Although it works here, this "possessive" is often clumsy. An alternative is "At the conclusion of Season 2, Ben sets out to confront Brother Justin in California", if the subtle shift in meaning is acceptable.

Canadian dollar

Some business in Canada is transacted in US dollars, despite US currency not being legal tender.

Hint

• Pretty clumsy, isn't it. Try including "is" somewhere after the comma.

Some business in Canada is transacted in US dollars, despite the fact that US currency is not legal tender.

Note

• We've had to resort to "the fact that", which is deprecated by many editors as tired and wordy.
• But wait, we have a better idea:

Some business in Canada is transacted in US dollars, even though US currency is not legal tender.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

They remembered that Gabriel Garcia Marquez once said many great films had been made from bad novels but few great films from good novels.

Note

• In the solution, we've removed the second "that" to avoid "that ... that".

2004 Summer Olympics medal count

Doping scandals have resulted in the stripping of medals from a number of athletes.

Note

• Alternatively: "Doping scandals have resulted in a number of athletes' being stripped of their medals"—this is unusual nowadays, but nevertheless efficient and grammatical.

Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway

The inspiration for the promoters was the initial success of the City & South London Railway, which had seen large passenger numbers using its trains in its first year of operation.

Hint

• Some lateral thinking might lead to the best solution: the "its ... its ..." problem can be solved at the same time.

The inspiration for the promoters was the initial success of the City & South London Railway, which had seen large passenger numbers using its trains in its first year of operation.

Notes

• The removal of three redundant words kills two birds with one keystroke. In another context, it might have worked to replace the problematic "using" with "on".
• You could reword it with only a slight change of meaning: "... which had seen many passengers in the first year of operation." After all, in this context what else would "passengers" be riding?

SummerSlam (2007)

The organisers had originally planned a confrontation between the cast of the Jackass TV series and Umaga, and the conclusion of the feud in a match at SummerSlam.

Note

• Here, we've simply nominalised the problem; there may be other solutions.

Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses)

Taylor made a point of avoiding the use of profanity, in response to people claiming that he relied on it.

• Rewording is the best option, since "people's claiming" is ... yucky. The solution is dead easy—what is redundant?

Taylor made a point of avoiding the use of profanity, in response to claims that he relied on it.

• Who else would make claims but people?

History of Bradford City A.F.C.

Less than two months after the Club's success, Jewell left to join Sheffield, with his assistant Chris Hutchings replacing him.

• Think of using a different form of the word "replacing" and shifting it to a little after the comma.

Less than two months after the Club's success, Jewell left to join Sheffield, to be replaced by his assistant, Chris Hutchings.

• It's more elegant, avoids the grammatical glitch, but changes the meaning ever so slightly. How? The emphasis is now subtly shifted towards Chris Hutchings. If that's not OK, think of some other way of rewording.

Operation Cobra

The original plan for the Normandy campaign envisioned strong offensive efforts in both sectors, with Lieutenant-General Sir Miles Dempsey's British Second Army securing Caen and the area south of it, and General Omar Bradley's United States First Army "wheeling round" to the Loire.

• "In which" is probably the best solution. How is it done?

"The original plan for the Normandy campaign envisioned strong offensive efforts in both sectors, in which Lieutenant-General Sir Miles Dempsey's British Second Army would secure Caen and the area south of it, and General Omar Bradley's United States First Army would "wheel round" to the Loire.

• The bonus is that the conditional-future mood/tense is explicit in the two "woulds".

Longer examples

William de St-Calais

St-Calais continued to hold out in Durham, claiming he had never rebelled. When the king approached with an army, St-Calais agreed to come out, but only after receiving a safe conduct that would allow him to attend a trial while his men continued to hold the castle. From his actions, it appears likely that St-Calais did rebel, whatever his statements to the contrary, although northern chronicles maintained his innocence.

St-Calais continued to hold out in Durham, claiming he had never rebelled. When the king approached with an army, St-Calais agreed to come out, but only after receiving a safe conduct that would allow him to attend a trial while his men continued to hold the castle. From his actions, it appears likely that St-Calais did rebel, whatever his claims to the contrary, although northern chronicles maintained his innocence.

• Where should the contrast be? Between his claims and what the northern chronicles reported, or is there a more basic contrast?

St-Calais continued to hold out in Durham, claiming he had never rebelled. When the king approached with an army, St-Calais agreed to come out, but only after receiving a safe conduct that would allow him to attend a trial while his men continued to hold the castle. St-Calais's actions suggest that he did rebel, whatever his claims to the contrary and statements of his innocence in northern chronicles.

• "Whatever" now provides the critical logical contrast between what his actions suggested and the verbal claims.

Somerset

This comes from the lead, which provides a sequence of summary statements about the subsequent text in the article.

Agriculture continues to be a major part of the economy of Somerset. Apple orchards were once plentiful, and to this day the county is linked to the production of strong cider. The unemployment rate in the county is lower than the surrounding counties. The largest employment sectors are retail, manufacturing, leisure/tourism and health/social care.

• A wrong word.
• A problem of logic and of vagueness.
• A MOS breach.
• A false comparison.

Agriculture continues to be a major part of the economy of Somerset. Apple orchards were once plentiful have been plentiful for more than centuries, and to this day the county is linked to known for the production of strong cider. The unemployment rate in the county is lower than that of the surrounding counties. The largest employment sectors are retail, manufacturing, leisure/tourism leisure and tourism, and health/social care health and social care.

Notes

• The problem of logic and of vagueness: "Once" suggests that the orchards were plentiful at some time in the past and are no longer so; but the subsequent clause implies that plentiful orchards have ever since been and still are plentiful, since the county is known for its apple cider. An indication is required of when "in the past" this was, even if as vague as "for at least five centuries". We have guessed a solution; the author would need to be asked to check this.
• The wrong words: "Linked to" is ambiguous; "known for" is presumably what the author intended.
• The false comparison: The unemployment rate in Somerset is being compared with the unemployment rate in the surrounding counties, not with the counties themselves; "that of" can be inserted to stand for "the unemployment rate of" those other counties; then the comparison is valid.
• The MOS breach: Slashes are usually avoided.

Jane Zhang

Jane Zhang (born 11 October 1984) also known as Zhang Liangying is a Chinese pop singer who came to prominence when she placed third in the 2005 season of the Super Girl contest a national all female singing competition held in the People's Republic of China. Throughout the competition, she sang in English, Spanish and Cantonese in addition to Mandarin Chinese.

• A word that is probably redundant.
• Missing commas (three could be added).
• A word that is inconsistently applied in one place but not another.
• A potentially misleading lexical item (word).
• A verb that is used wrongly in active voice.
• A missing hyphen.
• A character that may need to be changed in case (upper to lower, or lower to upper).

Jane Zhang (born 11 October 1984), also known as Zhang Liangying, is a Chinese pop singer who came to prominence when she was placed third in the 2005 season of the Super Girl contest Contest, a national all-female singing competition held in the People's Republic of China. Throughout During the competition, she sang in English, Spanish and Cantonese in addition to Mandarin Chinese.

Notes

• Three commas are required: the first two are boundaries for a nested phrase ("also known as Zhang Liangying"); the third is an "equative" comma, meaning "that is".
• "Placed" can't refer to what she does, but to what is done to her; the passive voice must be used ("was placed").
• A hyphen is required for "all-female", which is a double adjective. This is the case even in AmEng. See MOS on hyphens.
• An upper-case "C" is required, for "Contest", since it's part of the title of the competition; this can be confirmed at the linked article and the link re-piped.
• "Held" is hardly necessary, since all competitions are held, and we're told its country of location.
• "Throughout" may imply that she sang from start to finish in a mixture of all four languages; while this is an unlikely meaning, it is clearer to use "during", which doesn't convey the start-to-finish meaning.
• "Chinese" is used to qualify "Mandarin", but not "Cantonese"; however, both are Chinese languages. It's probably acceptable to remove "Chinese" altogether, since China is central to the topic and both languages were linked. Re-pipe the link.
• There's one more issue: the list of languages at the end finishes with "in addition to"; why the marked form of "and" is used is unclear. Is Mandarin somehow different from the rest of the list? Perhaps it's her native language, but it's all a mystery to the poor reader.

SR Merchant Navy Class

We now come to two exercises in which a single text is broken into two successive portions (3c and 3d).

Incorporating a number of new developments in British steam locomotive technology, the Packets were amongst the first British designs to utilise welding in the construction process, which meant that components could be more easily constructed during the wartime austerity and post war economy.

• Two unnecessary repetitions.
• A missing hyphen.
• An ugly word that has a common, shorter equivalent.
• An old-fashioned word.
• Opportunities for neater expression in two places (location underlined below).
• An opportunity to split an over-long sentence (location underlined below).

Incorporating a number of new developments in British steam locomotive technology, the Packets were among the first designs to use welding in the construction process; this enabled the easier fabrication of components during the austerity of the wartime and post-war economy.

Notes

• "Amongst" is better as the plainer and shorter "among".
• The second occurrence of "British" can be simply removed, because we already know that the technology is British.
• "Utilise" is a very ugly word for "use".
• The second occurrence of "construction/constructed" can be avoided by substituting it with fabrication".
• "Post-war" is a double adjective before "economy", and should therefore be hyphenated.
• The comma after "process" is turned into a semicolon to enable the readers to pause and gather their thoughts momentarily; the next clause is turned into a grammatical sentence starting with "this", not "which". In any case, "which meant that" is clumsy; better to say it plainly.
• During austerity isn't quite right, and the meaning is clearly that both the war and the post-war period involved economic austerity. We've presented one way of rewording, which would need to be confirmed by the FAC nominator.
• A user has suggested that "a number of" and "new" may be redundant. Removing "a number of" could emphasis the global significance of the developments: "a number of" seems to constrain the claim a little; I agree that in some circumstances, "a number of" is just clutter. "New developments" is probably not redundant, since it contrasts with existing or previous developments (which may not yet have been incorporated).

SR Merchant Navy Class

The locomotives also featured Bulleid's innovative, though controversial chain-driven valve gear and the inclusion of thermic syphons. The class members were named after the Merchant Navy shipping lines involved in the Battle of the Atlantic, and latterly those which used Southampton Docks, an astute publicity masterstroke by the Southern Railway, who operated Southampton Docks during the period.

• Three cases of redundant wording. Read the text as running on directly from Exercise 3c.
• A clash between person and non-person entities.
• A false contrast (a problem of logical flow).
• The use of two expressions of very similar meaning, where a common expression would make the text more cohesive.
• An opportunity to split an over-long sentence and at the same time to avoid ambiguity.

The locomotives also featured thermic syphons and Bulleid's innovative, though controversial chain-driven valve gear. The class members were named after the Merchant Navy shipping lines involved in the Battle of the Atlantic, and latterly those which used Southampton Docks; this was an astute a publicity masterstroke by the Southern Railway, who which operated Southampton Docks during the period.

Notes

• Redundant wording. First, even when you read this as running on directly from the previous exercise text, you don't need to be told that this is another attribute of the locomotives: it's much stronger without also. Second, we don't need both featured and the inclusion of. Pure fluff, since if something is featured, it is included.
• Innovation and controversy often go together; they certainly don't want to be marked as an unusual combination by though.
• Long-sentence indigestion: give your readers a break and split it; the semicolon boundary and the this was back-connector will help them to connect the publicity masterstroke with the action of naming the ships, right back at the start of the sentence.
• What masterstroke isn't astute?
• The Docks and the Southern Railway might have been operated by people, but they were both corporate entities and deserve which, not who.

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