Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Chapter 1: TRANSLATION
Definition of Translation
Chapter 5: DISCOURSE
Discourse and Rhetoric and Editing Materials
Simplicity
Clutter
Chapter 7: WORDS
Words
Verbs Forms
Chapter 9: ENDING
The Ending
Bits and Pieces
Bibliography
Definition of Translation
Here are definitions from different authorities, manifesting their different point of
views. Each adheres to different approaches as guide to the process of translation
depending upon the needs and objectives of the text being translated.
There are two language involved in the process of translation: Source language –
SL (simulaang lenggwahe) that is the language of the original text; and Target
language – TL (tunguhang lenggwahe), that the translator uses. What really is
being translated form the first language to the second language?
Based from the definitions of the different authorities such as Nida, Savory,
Newmark, and Larson, a common focus in translation which is transferring of
“message” from a source language to the target language is the most important
consideration. Literal translation may be considered in some instances without
disregarding the meaning of the text.
Even the definition of Savory which states that ―translation s a process of giving
equivalence of thought that lies in its verbal expression,‖ indicates the emphasis
of the equivalence of thought but not equivalence of word in the text. Therefore,
this does not ignore the importance of the literal meaning of the word being the
initial basis in understanding the message.
While sometimes focusing on the literal meaning of the word will help, the
translator should be aware of the idea that not all words of a language could be
given equivalence, if not closest equivalence as the last resort.
A translator should know that every language has a way of expressing every idea
that run in the mind and heart of an individual. A translator should know that
there are levels of meaning depending upon the quality of sounds and richness
of synonymy of the word. This only means that it is impossible to look for the
exact equivalent word in both languages involved in translation.
Considering the use of word and situation involved, in giving equivalence, there
is a need for a translator to carefully analyze the situation or context and the use
of words in the text. In this, a translator discovers that other than synonymy of
words, the idea of degree or intensity of difference in meaning of words, which is
called nuances in English, is also important thing to consider.
A translation is not just a matter of giving word equivalence from word to phrase,
clause to sentence and to paragraph. According to Nida, giving equivalence
should fulfill the principle called ―closest naturalness‖ of equivalence to the
source language.
There are instances when translators apply a free translation. Oftentimes, In free
translation, the translator disregards the closest equivalence aiming to make the
Principles in Translation
In translation if there are ten translators translating a literary text, like a poem, there will
definitely be ten different versions of the translated product. Inevitably there will be
difference in the words used, forms if expressing the ideas, structure of the lines, etc.
Probably there will be words added; omitted, changed and even anther idea may be
placed. . According to Savory (Almario, V. et.al, 2003) it is impossible to give a principle
in translation that will not contradict with another principle.
In addition, he said:
. . . there are no universally accepted principles of translation because the only people
who are qualified to formulate them have never agreed among themselves, but have so
often and for so long contradicted each other that they have bequeathed to us a volume
of confused thoughts which be hard to parallel in other fields of literature. Nevertheless,
despite contradictors, the theorist present principles from the translator can choose.
It is up to the translator now to choose the necessary and appropriate principles to the
text being translated. Not only that the translation process is dependent on the
principles, but more importantly it is dependent on the qualities/characteristics of the
translator.
A. Language Interpretation
General Contrast
Interpretation Translation
Takes a message from a source Transfers the meaning of a language
language and renders that message format from text to text
into a different target language.
Consecutive interpretation (CI) - interpreter renders the message into the target
language after the source stopped provided the information. The interpreter relies on
memory and sometimes uses memory aids to render long passages. Sight translation -
refers to the process of transferring the language as he sees it and usually done for
legal or medical documents. It could also be classified as partial or full consecutives
interpretation.
Whispered - interpreter sits or stands next to the small target-language group and
simultaneously interprets information coming from the source language.
Relay - usually used when there are several target languages. A source-language
interpreter interprets the text to a language common to every interpreter, who then
renders the message to their respective target languages.
Liaison - involves passing on the message through relay, between two or more,
consecutively with the assistance of short notes as memory aid.
B. Technical Translation
C. Literal Translation
Transference of one language format to another following the form of the source
language and using the ‗verbum pro verb‘ principle. This is also known as
metaphases process and commonly used in technical translation and legal
annotation conversions to preserve the original format of the text undermining
the context of the original text.
As for usage, literal translation can be a very useful tool for translation
preparation as it serves as a foundation in translating unfamiliar language
format.
1. Every language is rooted from the culture of the people using it.
English is a language tool of the Americans n expressing their culture and
Filipino (and other Philippines Languages) is the language tool of Filipinos in
expressing their culture as well.
There is a big difference in a language of the same race against a language that
belongs to another race
6. In instances when more than one equivalence are acceptable, use any of
the equivalence, but provide a footnote for the rest of the meaning.
11. There is a big difference between oral Filipino and written Filipino. In many
cases, what is acceptable in spoken expression is not acceptable in the
written.
Santiago (2003) advised the translator, as much as possible, to avoid borrowing
English words and mixing it with Filipino words in certain expressions, especially
if there is an available equivalence.
Here is an example:
Solid at liquid = Solido for solid, likido for liquid and not
Solid at likido or likido or solido at likiwid
The truth is more Non-Tagalog speakers are into translation to Filipino, for they
invest more patience and perseverance, because translation process requires a
lot of editing, revision and refinement of text.
3.) Style of the author against style of the translator of the translator
Is there a need to maintain /retain the style of the author?
Is there a need to reflect the style of the translator?
SOURCE TARGET
TECHNIQUES LANGUAGE/ENGLISH LANGUAGE/FILIPINO
5. Modulation is changing
some words from SL to TL …the first lady has the sorceres‘ … ang unang Ginang ay
the TL is depending on the gift… napagkalooban ng
meaning or context. mangagaway.
6. Addition or expansion is
adding more words to ensure But that is a peripheral problem Subalit iyan ay simpleng
comprehension problema lamang
7. Lexical synonyms is … she could dissipate the forces … kaya niyang pawiin ang
translating the lexicon in of nature and save human karahasan ng kalikasan at
terms of meaning beings from natural calamities sagipin ang mga tao sa likas
and disasters.. ng kalamidad at
kapahamakan.
11. Descriptive equivalent or The artist and the Social Ang Alagad ng Sining at ang
amplifications is translating a Dreamer Taong Nanngangarap Makilala
word by giving its description sa Lipunan
usually through noun phrase
or an adjective clause to
ensure comprehension
12. Recognized translation is … and princesses who would be …at mga prinsesa na maaring
using the officially accepted artist and philosophers… mga alagad ng sining at mga
translation of a word. pilosopo
13. Compensation is used But that is a peripheral problem. Subalit iyan ay simpleng
when two segments in a The crucial one is how to suliranin lamang, ang
sentence are translated using socialize the artist without mahalaga ay kung paano
one segment while losing the corrupting his vision and makihalubilo ang alagad ng
other. violating him as a human being. sining nang walang pandaraya
sa kanyang pananaw at
kasiraan sa kanyang
pagkatao.
14. Paraphrase is recasting of … ―we are stuff as dreams are ―tayo ay sadyang sangkap ng
a sentence in order to give a made of‖. kaganapan ng mga pangarap
clear translation.
15. Couplet is the …..in creating a small …ang pagbuo ng isang maliit
16. Barrowing with spelling ….. for whether one is a worker, … sapagkat kahit ang tao ay
alteration to conform to the a statesman, a businessman, a isang mangagawa, estadista,
ABAKADA which is coded as soldier, a scholar. negosyante,subndalo,iskolar…
E-2 or the respelled English
term. It means that the same
English term is respelled to
conform to the Filipino
orthography.
CHAPTER 5: DISCOURSE
Editing is not easy, it is not fun. It‘s hard and lonely, and the words seldom just
flowed said Dr. Brock, who was once invited as speaker in school in Connecticut
about writing. He said rewriting is an essence of writing. He added that professional
writers rewrite their sentences repeatedly and then write what they have rewritten.
When he was asked. What do you do on days when it isn‘t going well? He said he
just stopped writing and put the work aside for the day when it would go better.
It shows that the professional writer must establish a daily schedule and stick to it. It
then implies that editing is a craft and not an art, and the man who runs away from
his craft because he lacks aspiration is fooling himself. To Dr. Brock, feeling
depressed or unhappy won‘t affect one‘s effective editing. He believes that if one‘s
job is to write every day, one will learn to do it like any other job.
Dr. Brock does not even find useful for writer to circulate in the literary world. He said
professional writers are solitary drudges who seldom see other writers. He added
that, he as much as possible does not use symbolism in his writing. He said ―I have
an unbroken record of missing the deeper meaning in any story, play, or movie and
as for dance and mime; I have never had even a remote emotion of what is being
conveyed.‖ On the other hand, I love symbols! Dr. Brock exclaimed and then he
described with gusto the joys of weaving them through his work.
The interview with Dr. Brock has revealed that writing could be hard and writing
could be easy as well. For of course there isn‘t any ―right way to do such intensely
personal work. There are all kinds of methods and any method that helps people to
say is the right method for them.
EDSENG11: Translation and Editing of Text
Ms. Oharrah Mae Bernardez
Officer-in-Charge, College of Education Page 23
Some people write by day, others by night. Some people need silence, others turn
on the radio. Some write by hand, some by typewriter or word processor, some by
talking into a tape recorder. Some people write their first draft in one long burst and
then revise; others can‘t write the second paragraph until they have fiddled endlessly
with the first. But all of them are vulnerable and all of them are tense. They are
driven by compulsion to put some parts of themselves on paper, and yet they don‘t
just write what comes naturally. They sit down to commit an act of literature and the
self who emerges on paper is far stiffer than the one who sat down. The problems is
to find the real man or woman behind all the tension (Zinser, W 1990)
Good writing has an aliveness that keeps the reader reading from one paragraph to
the next, and it‘s not a question of gimmick to ―personalize‖ the author. It‘s question
of using the English language in a way that will achieve the greatest strength and the
least clutter. Can such principles be taught? Maybe not. But most of them can be
learned.
1. Simplicity
2. Clutter
3. Style
4. The audience
5. Words
6. Usage
7. Forms
8. Unity
9. The Lead
10. The Ending
11. Bits and Pieces
The jargons from different fields that have to be understood by a specific group of
people using the language like: What member an insurance or medical plan can
decipher the brochure that describes what coasts and benefits are. The pilot who
announces that he is presently anticipating considerable precipitation wouldn‘t dream
saying that it may rain. The sentence is too simple – there must be something wrong
with it.
But the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components.
Every word that serves no function; every long word that could be a short word; every
adverb that carries the same meaning that‘s already in the verb; every passive
construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what- there are thousand
and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence.
Clear out heads with clutter. Clear thinking becomes clear writing; one can exist
without the other. It‘s impossible for a muddy thinker to write good English.
Don‘t lead the reader to be an exclusive reader. The reader is someone with an
attention span about of about sixty seconds- a person assailed by forces
competing for the minutes that might otherwise be spent on a magazine or a
book. A person snoozing in a chair holding a magazine or a book is a person
who a being was given too much unnecessary trouble by the writer.
Writers must constantly ask: What am I trying to say? Surprisingly often they do
not know. They must look at what they have written and ask: Have I said it? Is it
clear to someone encountering the subject for the first time? If it‘s not, that is
because some fuzz has worked its way into the machinery. The clear writer is
someone clearheaded enough to see this stuff for what it is; Fuzz.
Thinking clearly is a conscious act that writers must force upon themselves, just
as if they were embarking on any other project that requires logic; adding up a
laundry list or doing an algebra probe. Good writing doesn‘t come naturally,
though most people obviously think it does.
Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come
out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this as a consolation in
moments of despair. If you find writing is hard, it‘s because it is hard. It‘s one of
the hardest things that people do.
CLUTTER. Fighting clutter is like fighting weeds—the writer is always slightly behind.
New varieties sprout overnight, and by noon they are part of American speech. John
Dean holds the record. In just one day of testimony on TV during the Watergate
hearings he raised the clutter quotient by 400 percent. The next day everyone in
America was saying "at this point in time" instead of "now."
Consider all the prepositions that are routinely draped onto verbs that don't need any
help. Head up. Free up. Face up to. We no longer head committees. We head them up.
We don't face problems anymore. We face up to them when we can free up a few
minutes. A small detail, you may say—not worth bothering about. It is worth bothering
about. The game is won or lost on hundreds of small details. Writing improves in direct
ratio to the number of things we can keep out of it that shouldn't be there. "Up" in "free
up" shouldn't be there. Can we picture anything being freed up? The writer of clean
English must examine every word that he puts on paper. He will find a surprising
number that don't serve any purpose.
Clutter is the laborious phrase which has pushed out the short word that means the
same thing. These locutions are a drag on energy and momentum. Even before John
Dean gave us "at this point in time," people had stopped saying "now." They were
saying "at the present time," or "currently," or "presently" (which means "soon"). Yet the
idea can always be expressed by "now" to mean the immediate moment ("Now I can
see him"), or by "today" to mean the historical present ("Today prices are high"), or
simply by the verb "to be" ("It is raining"). There is no need to say, "At the present time
we are experiencing precipitation."
Clutter is the ponderous euphemism that turns a slum into a depressed socioeconomic
area, a salesman into a marketing representative and garbage collectors into waste
disposal personnel. In New Canaan, Connecticut, the incinerator is now the "volume
reduction unit." I think of Bill Mauldin's cartoon showing two hoboes riding a freight train.
One of them says, "I started as a simple bum, but now I'm hard-core unemployed."
Clutter is the official language used by the American corporation—in its news release
and its annual report—to hide its mistakes. When a big company recently announced
that it was "decentralizing its organizational structure into major profit-centered
businesses" and that "corporate staff services will be realigned under two senior vice-
presidents" it meant that it had had a lousy year.
Clutter is the language of the interoffice memo ("The trend to mosaic communication is
reducing the meaningfulness of concern about whether or not demographic segments
differ in their tolerance of periodicity") and the language of computers ("Congruent
command paradigms explicitly represent the semantic oppositions in the definitions of
the commands to which they refer").
Beware, then, of the long word that is no better than the short word: "numerous" (many),
"facilitate" (ease), "individual" (man or woman), "remainder" (rest), "initial" (first),
"implement" (do), "sufficient" (enough), "attempt" (try), "referred to as" (called), and
hundreds more. Beware, too, of all the slippery new fad words for which the language
already has equivalents: overview and quantify, paradigm and parameter, infrastructure
and interface, private sector and public sector, optimize and maximize, prioritize and
potentialize. They are all weeds that will smother what you write. Nor are all the weeds
so obvious. Just as insidious are the little growths of perfectly ordinary words with which
we explain how we propose to go about our explaining, or which inflate a simple
preposition or conjunction into a whole windy phrase.
"I might add," "It should be pointed out," "It is interesting to note that"—how many
sentences begin with these dreary clauses announcing what the writer is going to do
next? If you might add, add it. If it should be pointed out, point it out. If it is interesting to
note, make it interesting. Being told that something is interesting is the surest way of
tempting the reader to find it dull; are we not all stupefied by what follows when
someone says, "This will interest you"? As for the inflated prepositions and
conjunctions, they are the innumerable phrases like "with the possible
exception of" (except), "due to the fact that" (because), "he totally lacked the ability to"
(he couldn't), "until such time as" (until), "for the purpose of" (for).
Is there any way to recognize clutter at a glance? Here's a device I used at Yale that
students found helpful. I would put brackets around any component in a piece of writing
that wasn't doing useful work. Often just one word that got bracketed: the unnecessary
preposition appended to a verb ("order up"), or the adverb that carries the same
meaning as the verb ("smile happily"), or the adjective that states a known fact ("tall
skyscraper"). Often my brackets surrounded the little qualifiers that weaken any
sentence they inhabit ("a bit," "sort of"), or phrases like "in a sense," which don't mean
EDSENG11: Translation and Editing of Text
Ms. Oharrah Mae Bernardez
Officer-in-Charge, College of Education Page 28
anything. Sometimes my brackets surrounded an entire sentence—the one that
essentially repeats what the previous sentence said, or that says something readers
don't need to know or can figure out for themselves. Most first drafts can be cut by 50
percent without losing any information or losing's the author's voice.
My reason for bracketing the student's superfluous words, instead of crossing them out,
was to avoid violating their sacred prose. I wanted to leave it intact for the student to
analyze. I was saying, "I may be wrong, but I think this can be deleted and the meaning
won't be affected at all. But you decide: read the sentence without the bracketed
material and see if it works." In the early weeks of the term I gave back papers that were
infested with brackets. Entire paragraphs were bracketed. But soon the students
learned to put mental brackets around their own clutter, and by the end of the term their
papers were almost clean. Today many of those students are professional writers and
they tell me, "I still see your brackets— they're following me through life."
You can develop the same eye. Look for the clutter in your writing and prune it
ruthlessly. Be grateful for everything you can throw away. Re-examine each sentence
that you put on paper. Is every word doing new work? Can any thought be expressed
with more economy? Is anything pompous or pretentious or faddish? Are you hanging
on to something useless just because you think it's beautiful?
Simplify, simplify.
STYLE. is the manner in which a writer chooses among different strategies to address
an issue and an audience. A style reveals the writer's personality or voice, but it also
shows how she or he sees the audience of the writing. The writing style reveals the
choices the writer makes in syntactical structures, diction, and figures of thought. Similar
questions of style exist in the choices of expressive possibilities in speech.
To a fiction writer, is basically the way you write, as opposed to what you write about
(though the two things are definitely linked). It results from things like word choice, tone,
and syntax. It's the voice readers "hear" when they read your work.
Naturally, your writing style will change depending on your subject matter and the point
of view. However, when we talk about developing your writing style, we mean the voice
that is uniquely yours.
That voice will change as your writing develops, of course, but like personality, the
foundation is already there.
To an editor, on the other hand, style refers to the mechanics of writing, i.e., grammar
and punctuation. These rules change depending on what field you're in. For instance,
Expository Writing
Expository writing, or informative writing, involves relaying facts to your audience. In this
style, the author provides facts and figures or explains how a process is completed. The
information is typically presented in a logical order or sequence. Also, the author should
refrain from adding his or her opinion into the piece, making sure that the information is
shared in an objective fashion.
Expository Example
This example is a step-by-step instruction of how to swaddle a baby. You‘ll notice that
the author doesn‘t insert any personal opinions while listing the process for swaddling a
baby:
―When swaddling a baby, one must first fold the blanket into a triangle. Lay the baby in
the center of the long side of the triangle with his or her shoulders along the edge of the
blanket. Place the baby‘s left arm next to the body, and fold the left side of the blanket
across the baby. Tuck this side under the baby.‖
Then, take the bottom of the blanket and pull it up to the baby‘s chest. Fold this part of
the blanket into the top part of the swaddled blanket. After that, with the right arm free,
Descriptive Writing
Because it calls on the reader to describe something, the second style of writing is
referred to as a descriptive style. The thing being described could be an event, person,
place, action, etc. Unlike expository writing, descriptive writing is highly objective. The
author infuses their personal feelings into their writing. This is done by using analogies,
metaphors, adjectives, and other figurative language. With the help of these literary
devices, the author works to evoke a particular image in the reader‘s mind.
Descriptive writing also focuses on appealing to the readers‘ senses. To do this, the
author should focus on the five senses: touch, taste, hearing, sight, and smell. For
example, while describing a place, the author could discuss what the place looks like,
sounds like, and smells like. Then, the author can discuss some of the things he or she
touches and tastes while at the place in a way that makes the reader feel like they are
actually at that place, too.
Some examples of descriptive writing include poetry, excerpts of fiction writing, journals,
and travel guides.
Descriptive Example
In this example, you‘ll notice how the narrator discusses what he or she hears smells,
sees, and feels. You‘ll also notice example of figurative language, such as ―the
darkness enveloped me‖ or ―the sound of water lightly skipping over the rocks.‖
Walking down the moon-lit path, I could hear the crunch of twigs and branches under
my feet as the smell of rain lingered in the air. The darkness enveloped me, making it
difficult to see more than a few feet in front or behind me. But, I listened for the sound of
the stream. The sound of water lightly skipping over the rocks added to the serenity of
the night. I pulled my oversized sweater closer around me as I squinted in the dark.
Knowing the stream was close; I took a deep breath and parted the bushes to the
stream. I hoped that it would be here where I would finally find some peace of mind,
some answers to the questions that I had longed to find.
EDSENG11: Translation and Editing of Text
Ms. Oharrah Mae Bernardez
Officer-in-Charge, College of Education Page 31
Persuasive Writing
A persuasive, or argumentative, style is used to convince the reader of a particular
position or point of view. The author discusses his or her opinion, which often leads to
writing that is biased. Of course, a strong argument should have plenty of facts, data,
and reasoning used to convince the reader, too. The author should focus on ethos
(credibility), logos (logic of the argument), and pathos (emotional appeal to the reader)in
order to craft an effective argument.
Oftentimes, a persuasive essay ends with a call to action to the reader, trying to
convince them to side with the author and take appropriate action. For example, the
author could discuss the benefits of becoming an organ donor. Then, the conclusion
could include a call to action, encouraging readers to visit their state‘s organ donor
registry to sign up. (Persuasive writing is also a great place to use parallelism!)
Examples of persuasive or argumentative writing include speeches, editorials, reviews,
complaint letters, advertisements, or cover letters.
Persuasive Example
The introduction to this persuasive speech discusses the importance of refraining from
fad diets for more effective methods. The author provides statistics and a direct quote to
support his or her ideas of what those more effective methods should be:
At the start of every New Year, many people make the goal to lose weight and get in
shape. They quickly turn to the latest and greatest diet crazes to help them.
Unfortunately, many fail to achieve the results they want. According to Health Research
Funding, 69% of people fail to reach their target weight on a fad diet because they don‘t
combine the diet with exercise. But, ―the average American adults tries to implement a
fad diet 4 times per year‖ (HealthResearchFunding.org). With the number of people
looking to lose weight, I believe that people should trade fad diets for daily exercise,
reduce portions, and increase water intake.
Narrative Writing
Narrative Example
The following example contains an excerpt from a story. Notice the dialogue,
characters, and enfolding plot:
As I cooked bacon and eggs over the stove, fog gathered along the window. It was a
cold winter morning—one of those mornings when you decide to stay inside. I called to
Roger, ―Breakfast is ready! Come get it while it‘s hot!‖ With that, I heard some
rummaging upstairs. Only the promise of a hearty meal could get him out of bed on a
day like this.
I walked past the window to retrieve a couple of plates. Just then a flash of light caught
my eye from the distance. Something seemed to be heading right for our cabin. Since
we didn‘t get visitors often, my mind started to race. Who could it be? What would bring
them out here on a morning like this?
I didn‘t notice when Roger appeared in the kitchen and moved into place beside me. He
seemed to be questioning the unexpected guest, too.
―Is that a sleigh?‖ he asked.
―It looks like it,‖ I responded. ―Are you expecting anybody today?‖
―No. I have no idea…‖ Before he could finish his thought, the sleigh driver stopped,
jumped out of the vehicle, and headed straight for our cabin.
AUDIENCE. Who you are writing for. If you know who you are writing for, you can make
good decisions about what information to include, as well as your tone and language in
conveying it.
To illustrate the impact of audience, imagine you‘re writing a letter to your grandmother
to tell her about your first month of college. What details and stories might you include?
What might you leave out? Now imagine that you‘re writing on the same topic but your
audience is your best friend. Unless you have an extremely cool grandma to whom
you‘re very close, it‘s likely that your two letters would look quite different in terms of
content, structure, and even tone.
Use the following questions to help you identify your audience and what you can
do to address their wants and needs:
The best place to start figuring out how much you should say about each part of your
paper is in a careful reading of the assignment. We give you some tips for reading
assignments and figuring them out in our handout on how to read an assignment. The
assignment may specify an audience for your paper; sometimes the instructor will ask
you to imagine that you are writing to your congressperson, for a professional journal, to
a group of specialists in a particular field, or for a group of your peers. If the assignment
doesn‘t specify an audience, you may find it most useful to imagine your classmates
reading the paper, rather than your instructor.
Now, knowing your imaginary audience, what other clues can you get from the
assignment? If the assignment asks you to summarize something that you have read,
then your reader wants you to include more examples from the text than if the
assignment asks you to interpret the passage. Most assignments in college focus on
argument rather than the repetition of learned information, so your reader probably
doesn‘t want a lengthy, detailed, point-by-point summary of your reading (book reports
in some classes and argument reconstructions in philosophy classes are big exceptions
to this rule). If your assignment asks you to interpret or analyze the text (or an event or
idea), then you want to make sure that your explanation of the material is focused and
not so detailed that you end up spending more time on examples than on your analysis.
If you are not sure about the difference between explaining something and analyzing it,
see our handouts on reading the assignment and argument.
Once you have a draft, try your level of explanation out on a friend, a classmate, or a
Writing Center tutor. Get the person to read your rough draft, and then ask her to talk to
you about what she did and didn‘t understand. (Now is not the time to talk about
proofreading stuff, so make sure she ignores those issues for the time being).
You will likely get one of the following responses or a combination of them:
If your listener/reader has tons of questions about what you are saying, then you
probably need to explain more. Let‘s say you are writing a paper on piranhas,
and your reader says, ―What‘s a piranha? Why do I need to know about them?
How would I identify one?‖ Those are vital questions that you clearly need to
answer in your paper. You need more detail and elaboration.
EDSENG11: Translation and Editing of Text
Ms. Oharrah Mae Bernardez
Officer-in-Charge, College of Education Page 35
If your reader seems confused, you probably need to explain more clearly. So if
he says, ―Are there piranhas in the lakes around here?‖ you may not need to
give more examples, but rather focus on making sure your examples and points
are clear.
If your reader looks bored and can repeat back to you more details than she
needs to know to get your point, you probably explained too much. Excessive
detail can also be confusing, because it can bog the reader down and keep her
from focusing on your main points. You want your reader to say, ―So it seems
like your paper is saying that piranhas are misunderstood creatures that are
essential to South American ecosystems,‖ not, ―Uh…piranhas are important?‖
or, ―Well, I know you said piranhas don‘t usually attack people, and they‘re
usually around 10 inches long, and some people keep them in aquariums as
pets, and dolphins are one of their predators, and…a bunch of other stuff, I
guess?‖
Sometimes it‘s not the amount of explanation that matters, but the word choice and tone
you adopt. Your word choice and tone need to match your audience‘s expectations. For
example, imagine you are researching piranhas; you find an article in National
Geographic and another one in an academic journal for scientists. How would you
expect the two articles to sound? National Geographic is written for a popular audience;
you might expect it to have sentences like ―The piranha generally lives in shallow rivers
and streams in South America.‖ The scientific journal, on the other hand, might use
much more technical language, because it‘s written for an audience of specialists. A
sentence like ―Serrasalmus piraya lives in fresh and brackish intercostal and proto-
arboreal sub-tropical regions between the 45th and 38th parallels‖ might not be out of
place in the journal.
Generally, you want your reader to know enough material to understand the points you
are making. It‘s like the old forest/trees metaphor. If you give the reader nothing but
trees, she won‘t see the forest (your thesis, the reason for your paper). If you give her a
big forest and no trees, she won‘t know how you got to the forest (she might say, ―Your
point is fine, but you haven‘t proven it to me‖). You want the reader to say, ―Nice forest,
and those trees really help me to see it.‖ Our handout on paragraph development can
help you find a good balance of examples and explanation.
These techniques can help you read your paper in the same way your reader will and
make revisions that help your reader understand your argument. Then, when your
instructor finally reads your finished draft, he or she won‘t have to fill in any gaps. The
more work you do, the less work your audience will have to do—and the more likely it is
that your instructor will follow and understand your argument.
WORDS. There‘s a kind of writing that might be called journalese, and it‘s the death of
freshness in anybody‘s style. You will never make your mark as a writer unless you
develop a respect for words and a curiosity about their shades of meaning that is almost
obsessive. The enlist language is rich in strong and supple words. Take the time to root
around and find the ones you want.
1. The writers don‟t choose words that properly resonate within their genre.
For example, if you‘re writing a Tolkienesque fantasy, you wouldn‘t send your
protagonists to eat at a local ―restaurant,‖ nor would you have them eat a ―hamburger‖
or have them drink a ―cold beer.‖ Those words all suggest a modern setting, like the
Wendy‘s just down the street from my home. Instead, you‘d try to use words that evoke
a fantasy setting. Your characters would go to the local ―inn,‖ where they might ―feast
upon a wild swan,‖ while drinking ―warm ale.‖
2. Very often a writer uses a word that is close to what he or she means, but is
not quite right.
For example, you might say ―she said,‖ thinking that a dialog tag is needed. But
sometimes a dialog tag doesn‘t really convey what you mean. Perhaps you might need
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to say ―she swore.‖ Very often, writers will get so used to using ―said,‖ that they will use
it when the speaker is actually asking a question. ―Are you going to eat that?‖ she said.
A similar thing might happen when you‘re talking about a home. Does your character
live in a manor, a mansion, a cottage, or a duplex? A wealthy character might well talk
about his ―summer cottage,‖ while a poor neighbor might consider the same building to
be an ―estate,‖ since it has its own golf course, horseback riding trails, and a private
lake.
6. Last of all, sometimes authors just bungle altogether, not being aware that
they are using the wrong word, or have perhaps simply typed something
incorrectly.
When I was young, I thought that the word ―enervated‖ meant the same as ―energized.‖
So I confused a couple of editors before I learned that I was using the word incorrectly. I
USAGE. Is a much more slippery concept than grammar. It has to do with habitual or
customary practices in spoken or written language. The concept is important for
understanding how language works, because members of a language community, who
by definition all share more or less the same grammar, will nevertheless differ when it
comes to certain specific modes of expression. Anyone who speaks English
competently understands, and knows how to use, the word isn‘t, a word that has been
part of the language for nearly two hundred years. Yet, at least in written English, isn‘t
widely frowned upon as unacceptable usage.
What makes some usage unacceptable? The answer - tautological as it may sound - is
that it is not accepted. Not accepted by whom? By those in a position to make some
usages acceptable and others unacceptable that is, teachers, editors, compilers of
dictionaries and, of course, authors of usage manuals.
If usage seems a highly arbitrary matter, it's worth remembering that all language is,
after all, ultimately a matter of convention. In Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-
Glass, Alice objects when Humpty Dumpty uses the word glory to mean "a nice knock-
down argument." The word doesn't have the meaning Humpty gives it but only, of
course, because people don't use it that way. If tomorrow every English speaker used
the word as Humpty does, "a nice knock-down argument" would become one meaning
of glory.
The rules of usage are no more arbitrary than those of grammar, then; but whereas the
core conventions that constitute the grammar of a language are established by the vast
majority of users, the canons of "acceptable" usage, as we've already indicated, derive
their force from the authority of a relative few. The rules of grammar result from
humanity's intrinsically social nature; those of usage result from social hierarchy.
History suggests that in the long run the many prevail over the few. In his Dictionary of
Modern English Usage (1926), H. W. Fowler recoiled from intrigue in the sense of
"puzzle" or "perplex" (as in "His clothes intrigued me"); in Modern American
Usage(1966), Wilson Follett took aim at finalize. Despite their protests, both words have
moved from the periphery to the core. Follett insisted that "To burgeon means to put out
buds; figuratively to come out in a small modest way, not to spread out, blossom, and
cover the earth," but thirty years later, any writer who used the word his way would
almost certainly be misunderstood. Language authorities have failed to rebuff the
dreaded prioritize or to prevent impact from becoming a verb synonymous with "affect"
(e.g., "How will the new requirements impact our curriculum?").
On the other hand, aren‘t, despite enormous popularity, remains peripheral. Perhaps
this represents a rare success for language authorities; more likely, it reflects the
language community's need to keep some expressions marginal as handy indicators of
educational attainment and social class. It's hard to believe that logic has
kept aren‘t from passing into acceptable usage; as R. W. Burchfield points out, ain't I is
no less logical than the perfectly acceptable aren't I as a substitute for the apparently
unusable isn‘t I. Similarly, your and y'all have failed to gain respectability, even though a
plural form for you would clear up many an ambiguous English sentence. (Other
languages distinguish singular from plural you for example, the French
have tu and vous.)
If language authorities hold so little power in the long run, one might well ask why they
even bother to resist linguistic change. Is it mere elitism? At times, alas, it has been just
that. But the most responsible language authorities have always provided thoughtful
Every language has resources for clear, precise, economical expression. If a change in
usage threatens some existing resource, other means must be and always can be
found. Yet it's reasonable to fight for the preservation of what has worked in the past.
Words. Usage authorities often hold out for subtle distinctions among words. Some insist, for example,
that viable, which originally meant "capable of maintaining life," should not be confused
with practicable or workable. Practicable is often used interchangeably with practical, whereas sticklers
employ the former to mean "possible in practice" and the latter to mean either "concerned with
practice as opposed to theory" or "(of persons) inclined to action." (The preferred negatives are,
respectively, impracticable and unpractical.) Some authorities deprecate the use of disinterested to
mean "uninterested, bored" as opposed to "impartial." A few still deprecate the depreciation
of deprecate through its confusion with depreciate.
There is a fine distinction of meaning here that English is in danger of losing. Sentence
(1) says, in effect, that it's possible Smith really was a great ballplayer, whereas (2) says
that Smith was not a great ballplayer but could have been one if circumstances had
differed. What threatens the distinction is the increasing prevalence of sentences like
the following: "If he could only hit the ball, Smith may have been a great ballplayer."
The word has in (4) is an example of the subjunctive, a verb form that has been dying a
slow death in American English. Readers and writers attuned to the subjunctive will
read (3) to mean that Jones actually has the degree in question, and that her having it is
a fact of some importance, while they'll take (4) to mean that Jones doesn't yet have the
degree but must get it. The more speakers and writers use (3) when they mean (4),
however, the less reliable the distinction becomes.
Our language may also reveal personal qualities over which we have more control. How
I speak and write says something about the kind of person I am how I think and act,
what I believe, what I value. In "The Decline of Grammar," linguist Geoffrey Nunberg
quotes Joseph Epstein to explain his own aversion to the word life-style:
The objection to the word "lifestyle" is that it is at too many removes from reality; in its
contemporary usage are implied a number of assumptions about life that are belied by
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experience. Chief among these is an assumption about the absolute plasticity of
character - change your lifestyle, change your life - that is simply not true; and the
popularity of the word "lifestyle" is testimony to how much people want to believe it.
Do you really want to be the kind of person who embraces the life-style view of human
identity? Do you want to be the kind of person who mixes metaphors? What kind of
person knows the intricacies of the who/whom distinction and can manage them in
print? What kind of person insists on obeying the distinction rigidly in speech?
Fowler's often quoted admonition against the expression if and when is another
example of a usage argument based on the manifestation of character in language:
Any writer who uses this formula lays himself open to entirely reasonable suspicions on
the part of his readers. There is the suspicion that he is a mere parrot, who cannot say
part of what he has often heard without saying the rest also. There is the suspicion that
he likes verbiage for its own sake. There is the suspicion that he is a timid swordsman
who thinks he will be safer with a second sword in his left hand. There is the suspicion
that he has merely been too lazy to make up his mind between if and when. Only when
the reader is sure enough of his author to know that in his writing none of these
probabilities can be true does he turn to the extreme improbability that here at last is a
sentence in which if and when is really better than if or when by itself.
In The Practical Stylist, Sheridan Baker attacks what he calls "of-and-which disease"
largely on aesthetic grounds. The disease, which principally afflicts passive sentences,
is "something like sleeping sickness. With's, in's, to's and by's also inflamed." It's plain
that Baker finds the victim disfigured and deformed.
To illustrate "of and which disease," Baker quotes the following sentence:
Many biological journals, especially those which regularly publish new scientific names,
now state in each issue the exact date of publication of the preceding issue. In
dealing with journals which do not follow this practice, or with volumes which are issued
individually, the biologist often needs to resort to indexes . . . in order to determine the
actual date of publication of a particular name.
UNITY. means oneness. It describes writing that sticks to a central idea, theme, or
story. Good writing doesn‘t wander around like a gossip at a dinner party; it stays
focused like an astronomer at his telescope. It also means that each paragraph
has only one main idea (expressed in the topic sentences) and that all other
sentences and details in that paragraph revolve around that main idea. If a sentence or
detail does not adhere closely to the central idea expressed in the topic sentence, it
does not belong in that paragraph. Unity is the quality of sticking to one idea from start
to finish, with every sentence contributing to the central purpose and main idea of that
paragraph.
Answer
The third sentence in the paragraph ("A natural building material used for several
thousand years, adobe...) is the odd one out. The information about adobe bricks is not
1. The Five W‟s and H: Before writing a lead, decide which aspect of the story –
who, what, when, where, why, how – is most important. You should emphasize
those aspects in your lead. Wait to explain less important aspects until the
second or third sentence.
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2. Conflict: Good stories have conflict. So do many good leads.
3. Specificity: Though you are essentially summarizing information in most leads,
try to be specific as possible. If your lead is too broad, it won‘t be informative or
interesting.
4. Brevity: Readers want to know why the story matters to them and they won‘t
wait long for the answer. Leads are often one sentence, sometimes two.
Generally, they are 25 to 30 words and should rarely be more than 40. This is
somewhat arbitrary, but it‘s important – especially for young journalists – to learn
how to deliver information concisely. See the OWL‘s page on concise writing for
specific tips. The Paramedic Method is also good for writing concisely.
5. Active sentences: Strong verbs will make your lead lively and interesting.
Passive constructions, on the other hand, can sound dull and leave out important
information, such as the person or thing that caused the action. Incomplete
reporting is often a source of passive leads.
6. Audience and context: Take into account what your reader already knows.
Remember that in today‘s media culture, most readers become aware of
breaking news as it happens. If you‘re writing for a print publication the next day,
your lead should do more than merely regurgitate yesterday‘s news.
7. Honesty: A lead is an implicit promise to your readers. You must be able to
deliver what you promise in your lead.
What to Avoid?
Types of Leads:
Summary lead: This is perhaps the most traditional lead in news writing. It is often
used for breaking news. A story about a city council vote might use this ―just the facts‖
approach. Straight news leads tend to provide answers to the most important three or
four of the Five W‘s and H. Historically this type of lead has been used to convey who,
Anecdotal lead: Sometimes, beginning a story with a quick anecdote can draw in
readers. The anecdote must be interesting and must closely illustrate the article‘s
broader point. If you use this approach, specificity and concrete detail are essential and
the broader significance of the anecdote should be explained within the first few
sentences following the lead.
Other types of leads: A large number of other approaches exist, and writers should not
feel boxed in by formulas. That said, beginning writers can abuse certain kinds of leads.
These include leads that begin with a question or direct quotation and those that make a
direct appeal using the word you. While such leads might be appropriate in some
circumstances, use them sparsely and cautiously.
Examples:
Summary lead:
County administrator faces ouster
By Tony Cook for The Cincinnati Post, Jan. 14, 2005
Two Hamilton County Commissioners plan to force the county‘s top administrator out of
office today.
Commentary: This lead addresses the traditional who, what and when. If this
information had been reported on TV or radio the day before, this lead might not be a
good one for the print edition of the newspaper; however, if the reporter had an
exclusive or posted this information online as soon as it became available, then this
lead would make sense. Note that it is brief (15 words) and uses an active sentence
construction.
Summary lead:
Lobbyists flout disclosure rules in talks with commissioners
By Tony Cook and Michael Mishak for the Las Vegas Sun, July 13, 2008
On more than 170 occasions this year, lobbyists failed to file disclosure forms when
they visited Clark County commissioners, leaving the public in the dark about what
issues they were pushing and on whose behalf.
Anecdotal lead:
Tri-staters tell stories of the devastating tsunami
By Tony Cook for The Cincinnati Post, Jan. 8, 2005
From Dan Ralescu‘s sun-warmed beach chair in Thailand, the Indian Ocean began to
look, oddly, not so much like waves but bread dough.
Commentary: This article is a local angle on the devastating tsunami that struck
Southeast Asia in 2005. As a result of the massive death toll and worldwide impact,
most readers would have been inundated with basic information about the tsunami.
Given that context, this lead uses an unexpected image to capture the reader‘s attention
and prepare them for a new take on the tsunami. Again, it is brief (23 words).
Question lead:
Same lobbyist for courts, shorter term, more money
By Tony Cook for the Las Vegas Sun, June 29, 2008
What‘s increasing faster than the price of gasoline? Apparently, the cost of court
lobbyists. District and Justice Court Judges want to hire lobbyist Rick Loop for $150,000
to represent the court system in Carson City through the 2009 legislative session.
During the past session, Loop‘s price tag was $80,000.
Commentary: Question leads can be useful in grabbing attention, but they are rarely as
effective as other types of leads in terms of clearly and concisely providing the main
point of a story. In this case, the second paragraph must carry a lot of the weight that
would normally be handled in the lead.
THE ENDING. The most-asked question when someone describes a novel, movie or
short story to a friend probably is, ―How does it end?‖ Endings carry tremendous weight
with readers; if they don‘t like the ending, chances are they‘ll say they didn‘t like the
work. Failed endings are also the most common problems editors have with submitted
works.
Making your ending a success involves two things. The first is content; the events of the
ending must satisfy everything that has gone before. There‘s no easy way to tell anyone
Easier to discuss, and just as important, is how you tell your ending. You have five
choices, each with its advantages, drawbacks and optimum uses. The barely there
ending, this ending is extremely brief and somewhat inconclusive, hinting at what the
character will do next, but leaving most of the interpretation for the reader.
Raymond Carver was a master of this subtle ending. His classic short story ―Fat‖
consists of six pages of a waitress serving a very fat man, their conversation, her
thoughts about his size, and the mean-spirited mockery by her co-workers. Afterward,
the waitress goes home and retells the incident to her best friend, who is baffled by why
it matters to the waitress. This is the story‘s ending:
How is the protagonist‘s life going to change? Why? What does it have to do with
serving the fat man? None of this is explicitly stated. The ending leaves the answers,
and the links between them, to the reader, whose imagination fills in what is missing.
Sometimes the brief ending is even more inconclusive, balancing two possible courses
of action evenly, and then giving no clue as to which the character chooses. ―The
Meeting,‖ a science-fiction story by Frederik Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth, concerns the
father of a 9-year-old, severely disturbed child who may be a danger to himself and
others. The father, Harry Vladek, is presented with a possibility that will allow the family
to retain custody: agree to a brain transplant—put the brain of a normal child who
has just died in an accident into the body of his son. The story ends with the Vladeks in
the boy‘s bedroom:
The two of them stood next to the outsize crib that held their son, looking in the night
light at the long fair lashes against the chubby cheeks and the pouted lips around the
thumb. Reading. Model airplanes. Riding a bike. Against the quick sketch of a face and
the occasional, cherished, tempestuous, bruising flurry of kisses.
Vladek stayed there the full half hour and then, as he had promised, went back to the
kitchen, picked up the phone, and began to dial.
Does Harry agree to the brain transplant or not? By not so much as hinting at the
answer, the authors force the reader to choose. What would you do? The story
becomes part narrative, part participatory moral question.
Obviously, the barely there ending will not work for every piece of fiction. Use it when:
Your story is built around quiet events. In both of these examples, characters are
wrestling with decisions within themselves. That conflict may be extreme, but the events
that personify it are mundane. If your fiction includes dramatic James Bond-type
chases, murders, plane crashes and the like, you are going to need a much more
definite, forceful ending to match the forceful events you‘re portraying.
Your readership is sophisticated. Where do you want to publish? The subtle, elusive
ending is a literary ending, relying on allusion and metaphor, and many readers will
object to it as ―having no ending at all!‖ Know your markets if you write these type of
endings.
Jhumpa Lahiri, winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for her short-story collection Interpreter
of Maladies, uses the real-life ending in her story ―A Temporary Matter.‖ Shoba and
Shukumar have been drifting apart ever since their first child was born dead. During a
temporary power crisis in which they have no light for several evenings, they tell each
other hurtful things they had previously concealed. At the end of the story, Shoba
announces she‘s leaving Shukumar. He tells her one last, supremely hurtful secret, and
then comes the last paragraph:
Shukumar stood up and stacked his plate on top of hers. He carried the plates to the
sink, but instead of running the tap he looked out the window. Outside the evening was
still warm, and the Bradfords were still walking arm in arm. As he watched the couple
the room went dark and he spun around. Shoba had turned the lights off. She came
back to the table and sat down, and after a moment Shukumar joined her. They wept
together, for things they now knew.
This ending is full of mundane details, and it in no way reverses or changes what has
been happening throughout the story. Instead, it just confirms and fulfills previous
events in a way that seems very much like real life. This sort of ending also works best
when the readership is sophisticated and the story is concerned with quiet, real-life
dilemmas.
However, it can also be used with longer lengths, provided the novel is not expected to
be highly commercial, with wide mass appeal.
O. Henry‘s stories may seem a bit dated but the surprise ending is alive and well in
some science fiction and almost all mysteries. It depends on a writerly balancing act, in
that to be successful a twist must be an ending the reader did not see coming, but also
logical and plausible once it happens. Surprise endings work best when:
Be proportionate to the work. A brief short story may require only a few paragraphs
after the climax. On the other hand, in his massive novel The World According to Garp,
John Irving‘s denouement consisted of 10 separate sections, each devoted to an
individual character‘s fate and each almost a story in itself.
Avoid being anticlimactic. This is not easy with a long denouement. Your climax
should have reached a pitch of excitement and satisfactory resolution, and you don‘t
want to dilute that with too much exposition. Have a few readers look at your
denouement to tell you if it‘s a letdown. If so, shorten it as much as possible.
Tell us everything we want to know. A denouement that leaves us asking, ―But what
happened to Aunt Lucy? Did she survive, and anyway how did she get into that locked
room?‖ needs to be rewritten.
Relocate. It should be set at a different time and/or place than the last scene of the
story. For this reason, epilogues work best for fiction that covers a lot of one or the
other.
Offer something new. Since the epilogue usually follows a classic denouement, the
novel in effect has two endings. They should be very different from each other so it
doesn‘t feel as if the same thing has been stated twice. The epilogue should add
something different, an extra value: an insight, a consequence, a different perspective
on the story‘s events. You has considerable choice in how you end your fiction. For all
stories, the basic rule is the same: Choose the type of ending that best suits what‘s
gone before.
BITS AND PIECES. One of my favorite chapters in William Zinsser‘s book On Writing
Well was the one on all the little bits and pieces of writing. I found it to be very practical
and refreshing. A lot of things I was taught in school made writing seem like a chore. His
chapter called the Bits and Pieces brings the enjoyment back to writing. I wanted to
share some of his thoughts.
VERBS. Use active verbs unless there is no comfortable way to get around using a
passive verb. The difference between an active-verb style and a passive-verb style — in
clarity and vigor — is the different between life and death for a writer.
Passive voice writers are fond of long words of Latin origin like ―perpetrated‖ versus short
Anglo-Saxon words. Long words make their sentences more glutinous. In Abraham
Lincoln‘s Second Inaugural Address, 505 out of 701 words were one syllable, and 122
were two syllables.
Verbs. are the most important of all your tools. They push the sentence forward and give
it momentum. Active verbs push hard; passive verbs tug fitfully. Active verbs also enable
us to visualize an activity because they require a pronoun (―he‖), or a noun (―the boy‖), or
a person (―Mrs. Scott‖) to put them in motion.
Make active verbs activate your sentences and avoid the kind that need an appended
preposition to complete their work.
Adjectives. Most adjectives are also unnecessary. Like adverbs, the are sprinkled into
sentences by writers who don‘t stop to think that the concept is already in the noun.
Make adjectives do work that needs to be done.
Little Qualifiers. Prune out all those little qualifiers: ―a bit‖, ―a little‖, ―sort of‖, ―kind of‖,
―rather‖, ―quite‖, ―very‖, ―too‖, ―pretty much‖, etc. ―They dilute your style and your
persuasiveness.‖
Don‘t say you were a bit confused and sort of tired and a little depressed and somewhat
annoyed. Be confused. Be tired. Be depressed. Be annoyed. Don‘t hedge your prose
with little dimidiation. Good writing is lean and confident.
Every little qualifier reduces the trust in the writer. It displays a lack of confidence in the
writer and their opinion on the matter. ―Don‘t be kind of bold. Be bold.‖
The Semicolon. A semicolon splits the sentence, and adds a related thought to the first
half. The semicolon brings the reader, if not to a halt, at least to a pause. So use it with
discretion, remembering that it will slow to a Victorian pace the early-21st-centruy
momentum you‘re striving for, and rely instead on the period and the dash.
The Dash. The dash is used in two ways. One is to amplify or justify in the second part of
the sentence a thought you stated in the first part. ‗We decided to keep going — it was
only 100 miles more and we could get there in time for dinner.‘ By its very shape the
dash pushes the sentence head and explains why they decided to keep going. The other
use involves two dashes, which set apart a parenthetical thought within a longer
sentence. ‗She told me to get in the car — she had been after me all summer to have a
haircut — and we drove silently into town.‘ An explanatory detail that might otherwise
have required a separate sentence is neatly dispatched along the way.
The Colon. The colon serves the single role of bringing your sentence to a brief half
before listing an itemized list or focusing on a single target.
Mood Changers. The part on mood changers was very insightful. As a writer, you are
guiding the reader through your thoughts. The reader should never try dissect your
If your mood changes, alert the reader as soon as possible. If you don‘t they will remain
confused as to what is happening. This hurts the reading experience and ultimately
makes your writing worse.
Many of us were taught that no sentence should begin with ‗but‘. If that‘s what you
learned, unlearn it — there‘s no stronger word at the start. It announces total contrast with
what has gone before, and the reader is thereby primed for the change.
Don‘t put ‗however‘ at the start of the sentence, but if you are going to use it, use it very
close to the beginning and it becomes a virtue.
That and Which. Always use ―that‖ unless it makes your meaning ambiguous.‖ Notice
that in carefully edited magazines, such as The New Yorker, ―that‖ is by far the
predominant usage. In most situations, ―that‖ is what you would naturally say and
therefore what you should write.
If your sentence needs a comma to achieve its precise meaning, it probably needs
―which‖
Concept Nouns. Nouns that express a concept are commonly used in bad writing
instead of verbs that tell what somebody did. Here are three bad sentences to
demonstrate:
The common reaction is incredulous laughter. Bemused cynicism isn‘t the only response
to the old system. The current campus hostility is a symptom of the change.
Get people doing things:
Most people just laugh with disbelief some people respond to the old system by turning
cynical; others say… It‘s easy to notice the change — you can see how angry all the
students are.
The first set of examples is passive and lack energy; they use concept nouns to describe
some event. His revised sentences are more descriptive and are easier to imagine —
they use simple words (I have no idea what bemused means). The second set replaces
the concept noun with verbs that describe people doing something in simpler language.
Credibility. Credibility is just as fragile for a writer as for a President. Don‘t inflate an
incident to make it more outlandish than it actually was. If the reader catches you in just
one bogus statement that you are trying to pass off as true, everything you write
thereafter will be suspect. It‘s too great a risk, and not worth taking.
Paragraphs
Keep your paragraphs short. Writing is visual — it catches the eye before it has a chance
to catch the brain. Short paragraphs put air around what you write and make it look
inviting, whereas a long chunk of type can discourage a reader from event starting to
read.
Rewriting
Rewriting is the essence of writing well: its where the game is won or lost. That idea is
hard to accept. We all have an emotional equity in our first draft; we can‘t believe that it
wasn‘t born perfect.
The newly hatched sentence almost always has something wrong with it. It‘s not clear.
It‘s not logical. It‘s verbose. It‘s clunky. It‘s pretentious. It‘s boring. It‘s full of clutter. It‘s
full of clichés. It lacks rhythm. It can be read in several different ways. It doesn‘t lead out
of the previous sentence. It doesn‘t…The point is that clear writing is the result of a lot of
tinkering.
Little qualifiers. Words that qualify how you feel and how you think and what you saw;
― a bit,‖ ―a little‖, ―sort of,‖ ―kind of,‖ ―rather‖, ―quite‖, ―very‖, ―too‖, ―pretty much‖, in a
sense, and dozen more. They dilute both your style and your persuasiveness.
Don‘t say you were a bit confused and sort of tired and a little depressed and somewhat
annoyed. Be confused. Be tired. Be depressed. Be annoyed. Don‘t hedge your prose
with little timid less. Good writing is learn and confident.
Qualifiers and intensifiers are words or phrases that are added to another word to
modify its meaning, either by limiting it (He was somewhat busy) or by enhancing it (The
dog was very cute). Qualifiers can play an important role in your writing, giving your
reader clues about how confident you feel about the information you‘re presenting. In
Mood changers. Learn to alert the reader as early as possible in a sentence to any
change in mood from the previous sentence. At least a dozen words will do this job for
you: ―but‖, ―yet‖, ―however‖, ―nevertheless‖, ―still‖, ―instead‖, ―thus‖, ―therefore‖,
―meanwhile‖, ―now‖, ―today‖, ‗subsequently‖ and several more. It is for readers to
process a sentence if you start with ―but‖, when you‘re shifting direction, or conversely,
how much harder it is if they must wait until the end to realize that you‘re now in a
different gear.
Many of us were taught that no sentence should begin with ―but‖. If that‘s what you
learned, unlearn it. There‘s no stronger word at the start. It announce total contrast with
what was gone before, and the reader is primed for the change. If you need relief from
too many sentences beginning with ―but‖ switch to ―however‖ .. it is, however, a weaker
word and therefore needs careful placement. Don‘t start a sentence with ―however‖ . IT
hangs there like a wet dishrag. And don‘t end with ―however‖, by that time it has lost its
homeverness. Put it as early as you reasonably can. Its abruptness then becomes a
virtue.
Contractions. Your style will obviously be warmer and truer to your personality. If you
use contractions like ―I‘ll‖ and ―won‘t‖ when they fit comfortably into what you‘re writing.
Ex:
I‘ll be glad to see them if they get mad.( is less than I will be glad to see them if
they do not get mad). There‘s no rule against such informality. Trust your ear and your
instinct. Avoid using ―I‘d, He‘d, we‘d, because ―I‘d‖ can mean both ―I had‖ and ―I would‖,
and readers often get well into a sentence before learning which meaning it is. Also
don‘t invent contradictions, like ―could‘ve‖. Stick with the ones you can find in the
dictionary.
Sexism. Probably the most vexing new question for writers is what to do about sexist
language, especially the ―he-she‖ pronoun. The feminist movement has revealed how
much sexism lurks in English, not only in the bothersome ―he, but in the hundreds of
words that carry a discontent meaning or some overtone of judgement. They are words
that patronize (―gal‖), or the imply second class status (poetess) or a second class role
(―housewife‖)or a certain kind of empty-headedness (the girls), or that demean the
ability of a woman to do man‘s job (―lady lawyer‖), or that are prurient (―divorcee‖,
―code‖, ―blonde‖) and are seldom applied to men. Met get mugged; a woman who gets
mugged is shapely stewardess or a sexy brunette.
Just as damaging and more subtle are the countless usages that treat women as a
possession of the family male, not as a people with their own identity whom played an
equal part in the family saga: ―Early settlers pushed west with their wives and children.‖
Turn those settlers into pioneer families, or pioneer couples who went west with their
sons and daughters, or men and women who settled the west. Today there are very few
jobs that aren‘t open to both sexes. Don‘t ever use constructions which suggest that
only men can be settlers or farmers or cops or firefighters. Good writers and editors are
now pushing these stereotype out of the language.
1. the period .
2. the question mark ?
3. the exclamation mark !
4. the comma ,
5. the semi-colon ;
6. the dash
7. the colon :
8. the parentheses ( )
9. the apostrophe ‗
10. the quotation mark ― ―
11. the point of ellipsis . . .
12. the hyphen –
13. the slash /
There‘s not much to be said about the period except that most
writers don‘t reach it soon enough.
A full stop should always be used to end a sentence.
The full stop indicates that a point has been made and that you are
about to move on to further explanations or a related point.
Less frequently, a series of three full stops (an ellipsis) can be used to indicate
where a section of a quotation has been omitted when it is not relevant to the text, for
Example:
A single full stop may also be used to indicate the abbreviation of commonly used words
as in the following examples:
September = Sept.
Pages = pp.
The question mark (?) follows an interrogative word, phrase, clause, or sentence,
yet it may also punctuate a quotation within a sentence without finding the sentence.
This mark is always used to indicate a question.
Ex:
Ex:
Don‘t use it unless you must to achieve a certain effect. It has a gushy. The
breathless excitement of a debutante commenting on an event that was exciting only to
other. Construct your sentence so that the order of the words will put the emphasis
where you want it. Also resist using the exclamation point to notify the reader that you
are making a joke or being ironic. ―It never occurs to me that the water pistol might be
Exclamation marks make the greatest impact when they are used sparingly.
Follow these easy-to-remember rules when you use them.
When an exclamation point is not part of an italicized phrase or title that comes at
the end a sentence, it should not be italicized.
The Comma,
The comma is comparatively weak but subtle mark of punctuation. It is used and
misused more frequently than any other punctuation mark. This is because the comma
has such varied functions. Chiefly, it introduces, separates, and encloses. In addition, it
indicates omission. None of these functions is performed by the comma with the
authority or finality of such marks as the colon, semi colon, or dash.
All the comma indicates is a mild pause, hence its subtle, elusive nature. In the
rules for comma usage that follow, the term ―to separate‖ means that the comma
separates a word, phrase, or clause from the rest of the sentence. A single comma is
used to separate. The term ―to enclose‖ means that an expression to be enclosed in
commas.
Ex:
*A comma is used after a quotation to separate such expressions as he said and she
replied.
*Commas are used to enclose such expressions when they break into or interrupt a
quotation.
Ex:
―The weather is perfect,‖ she said, ―for the Holy West Celebrations‖ main
Ex:
We do not know what to do with this short life, yet we want another which
will be eternal---- Anatole France.
This we associate it with the carefully balanced sentences, the judicious weighing
of ―on the one hand‖ and ―on the other hand‖. Therefore it should be used sparingly by
writers of nonfiction today.
Ex:
----Abraham Lincoln.
The dash (---) is roughly twice the length of a hyphen. The dash is extraordinary
versatile. It can perform any one of the four major functions of punctuation: Introduction,
separation, enclosure, and termination, in audition, the dash can indicate interruption
and omission (of words, letters, and numbers).
Ex:
The colon:
The colon has begun to look even more antique than the semicolon, and
many of its function have been taken over by the dash. But it still serves
well, its pure role of bringing your sentence to brief half before you plunge
into, say, an intermixed list.
The colon (:) is a formal mark of punctuation. It has two functions: to
introduce and to separate as a mark of introduction, the colon introduces
formal quotations, restatements or clarifying examples, and list or
enumerations. This construction gives more emphasis to these items than
alternative sentence structures. As a mark of separation, the colon
separates the salutation in a formal letter from the main body of the letter,
titles from subtitles, the hours from minutes etc.
A colon is used to call attention to a formal quotation.
Ex:
The first line of Franz Kafka‘s The Trial reads: ―Someone must have been
telling lies about Joseph K, for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one
fine morning.‖
The Parentheses ( )
Parentheses are used to set off a comment that may be only remotely connected
to the meaning of the sentence itself.
Ex:
The astronomer reported (as the result of too much stargazing, I suppose)
that the mean distance between the moon and the earth was 238 miles.
- The apostrophe, sometimes called an inverted comma has two main uses.
- The apostrophe indicates possession or ownership.
Ex:
This shows the reader that the hat belongs to the girl.
The girls' hats were green, (girls in this instance are plural, i.e. more than
one girl, more than one hat).This indicates that the hats belong to the girls.
Ex:
Newspapers and magazines often use quotation marks, for example, to set off
the titles of books and plays, a practice not countenanced in formal writing.
Formal writing limits quotation marks to subdivisions: the titles of the chapters of
books, the titles of the stories and the articles appearing in the books or
magazines, and the titles of episodes from a radio or television series.
Quotation marks are used at the beginning and end of every direct quotation
except when the direct quotation is continued beyond the first paragraph. A direct
quotation consists of the exact words of a speaker and the exact words used in
reproducing a quoted passage.
Ex:
―Even when laws have been written down,― said Aristotle ―they ought not
always to remain unaltered‖.
Ex:
The reporter quoted President Bush as saying ―American has gone more
than seven years without another . . . ―when what he really said was ―
America has gone more than seven years without another terrorist attack
on our soil.
Ex:
sub-part
eighteenth-century people
week-end
second-class post
gender-neutral
non-verbal
EDSENG11: Translation and Editing of Text
Ms. Oharrah Mae Bernardez
Officer-in-Charge, College of Education Page 71
The hyphen is also used when a word is split between two lines. The hyphen should be
placed between syllables at the end of the upper line and indicates to the reader that
the word will be completed on the next line. Hyphens' main purpose is to glue words
together. They notify the reader that two or more elements in a sentence are linked.
Although there are rules and customs governing hyphens, there are also situations
when writers must decide whether to add them for clarity
Ex:
555-1212
032-16-1379
Rule 1. Generally, hyphenate two or more words when they come before a noun they
modify and act as a single idea. This is called a compound adjective.
Rule 2.
A hyphen is frequently required when forming original compound verbs for vivid
writing, humor, or special situations.
Examples:
The slacker video-gamed his way through life.
Queen Victoria throne-sat for six decades.
Rule 2b. When writing out new, original, or unusual compound nouns, writers should
hyphenate whenever doing so avoids confusion.
Examples:
I changed my diet and became a no-meater.
No-meater is too confusing without the hyphen.
Writers using familiar compound verbs and nouns should consult a dictionary or look
online to decide if these verbs and nouns should be hyphenated.
This rule applies only to adverbs. The following two examples are correct because
the ly words are not adverbs:
Rule 4. Hyphens are often used to tell the ages of people and things. A handy rule,
whether writing about years, months, or any other period of time, is to use hyphens
unless the period of time (years, months, weeks, days) is written in plural form:
With hyphens:
We have a two-year-old child.
We have a two-year-old.
Exception: The child is one year old. (Or day, week, month, etc.)
Rule 5. Never hesitate to add a hyphen if it solves a possible problem. Following are
two examples of well-advised hyphens:
*Without the hyphen, the sentence seems to say that Springfield is a dreary place. With
the hyphen, little-town becomes a compound adjective, making the writer's intention
clear: Springfield is a charming small town.
*With no hyphen, we can only guess: Was the weapons permit hidden from sight, or
was it a permit for concealed weapons? The hyphen makes concealed-weapons a
compound adjective, so the reader knows that the writer meant a permit for concealed
weapons.
Rule 6. When using numbers, hyphenate spans or estimates of time, distance, or other
quantities. Remember not to use spaces around hyphens.
Examples:
3:15-3:45p.m.
1999-2016
300-325 people
Note: Most publishers use the slightly longer en dash instead of a hyphen in this
situation.
Examples:
3:15–3:45 p.m.
1999–2016
300–325 people
Examples:
thirty-two children
one thousand two hundred twenty-one dollar
The asterisk (*), once then universal mark of omission, is now little more
than a reference mark.
The asterisk was first used in printing and writing in the early 1600s.
Even in this capacity, it is rapidly being superseded by the superior figure. The asterisk
may be used as a footnote reference when only a few such reference are planned.
*first footnote
**second footnote
***third footnote
Be sure that footnotes at the bottom of the page match the asterisks in the original text.
Examples:
Slash (virgules).
Ex:
It will never/Pass into nothingness; but still will keep/A bower quite for us,
and a sleep/Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quite breathing/--John Keats.
Use the slash , in addresses, to separate the letters c and o to form the
symbol meaning in care of, c/o Richard Evangelista.
The one inarguably acceptable use of the slash in formal writing pertains
to poetry. The slash, with one space on either side, indicates a line break.
In choosing your path in life, you might consider the words of Robert Frost,
in his poem ―The Road Not Taken‖: ―I took the one less traveled by, /And
that has made all the difference.‖
Meaning per. The slash sometimes serves as shorthand for per, as in:
Ex:
An $800/week salary.
Ex:
Once the new president is elected, he/she will have little time
to waste.
Ex:
w/ (with)
Ex: 4/5
Ex:
First words: capitalize the first words of sentences, lines of poetry, and items in
an outline.
Ex:
Was leafless all the winter time and pinning for the spring
Ex: