Editing Task Deleting wordy material

Part I: Editing for obviously wordy material Do you know someone who often rambles on and on? You have probably wanted to tell that person to just get to the point of the story! That feeling exemplifies our task today: Editing for obviously wordy material. This task involves being concise. As a class, let’s create a working definition of the word concise.

Read the following sentence: At this point in time, our time schedules do not allow or permit further or additional work tasks. Take 1 minute and write down what this sentence is about. Then take 2 minutes to revise it so that it more concise. Circle the part of the sentence that you will omit to make the sentence more concise.

Sample ACT Style Question: Deleting obviously wordy Sandra Cisneros, perhaps the best known Latina author in the United States, writes poems and stories A. NO CHANGE B. author and writer C. author and novelist D. wordsmith and author Take 1 minute to discuss with a partner the correct answer. Be prepared to discuss your answer choice as well as reasons why the other answer choices are incorrect.

Editing steps to delete obviously wordy material Write the information in red in the table labeled ‘C’ on your ‘Glue it and Do it ‘ sheet. 1) Replace several vague words with more concise ones. Wordy: The politician talked about several of the merits of after- school programs in his speech (14 words) Concise: The politician touted after-school programs in his speech. (8 words) 2) Interrogate every word in a sentence. Check every word to make sure that it is providing something important and unique to a sentence.

Paired Work Complete the following chart and practice exercises underneath your ‘Glue it and Do it handout, 1) Draw a two column chart on notebook paper. Label one side of the chart ‘Wordy version’ and the other side ‘Concise version’. Fill in the chart as follows:

Wordy materialConcise version 1) In the event 2) In my own personal opinion 3) Due to the fact that 4) At that point in time 5) Has the ability to 6) With reference to the fact that 7) In some cases

Practice exercises 1) Copy the 5 sentences on your own notebook paper. Leave 3-4 lines of space between each sentence. 2) Underline the obviously wordy material in each sentence. 3) Rewrite each sentence to delete the wordy material.

Practice Exercises 1) I received your inquiry that you wrote about tennis rackets yesterday, and read it thoroughly. 2) It goes without saying that we are acquainted with your policy on filing tax returns, and we have every intention of complying with the regulations that you have mentioned.

Practice exercises continued. 3) Imagine a mental picture of someone engaged in the intellectual activity of trying to learn what the rules are for how to play the game of chess. 4) Any particular type of dessert is fine with me. 5) Balancing the budget by Friday is an impossibility without some kind of extra help.