Entries for March 2008

2 comments Contributed by David Kent on 28 March 2008 at 08:58

Students often remember that Thomas Edison said, “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% desperation”. While you undoubtedly write best when under pressure, many students, myself included, simply use this delusion to justify our procrastination. We become like one desperate for a date; as the night draws on, we begin to dictate our thoughts, sacrificing beauty for availability. However, if we are to still respect ourselves in the morning, we should take preventive measures to avoid receiving a rash of red marks a week later.


When we become tired, our writing becomes bloated; this is often an attempt to artificially increase the length of our sentences. Powerful sentences are succinct. But they are not choppy. One must first untangle a sentence before it can be pruned and allowed to flourish. Here is a typical twilight sentence:

Wars come and go, and, as such, different periods in history arise, because few things can cause such a change as a major war.

This sentence can quickly be made clearer by making the main subject (currently Wars) the same as the main actor (different periods):

Different periods in history arise as wars come and go because few things can cause such a change as a major war.

The sentence now flows logically, but the thought it expresses is a bit elementary, which was partially disguised previously by awkward wording. Seemingly simple concepts need not be suppressed, but should not parade as profundity. This same idea could be expressed in fewer words:

Every epoch is defined by its war.

The above revision is concise, but a bit enigmatic. We could achieve a different tone by intertwining this thought with a metaphor:

Historical eras are born of wars, nursed by the blood of the fallen and the ink of historians.

This revision has imagery the original lacked, but creates a tone that might be difficult to maintain throughout the essay. Usually, the easiest and most appropriate method to improve an exceedingly simple sentence is to combine it with another simple sentence from the same paragraph:

In order to study different eras, historians will often examine the wars that defined them.

This revision may be considered ideal because it sounds the most natural. In general, make sure the number of words in a sentence is justified by the number of concepts expressed.


The composition of an exhausted author bores the reader into sleep. However, appropriately polished prose will persuade the reader more than tired truths. As you edit your essay, critically examine each sentence. Experiment with alternate wordings and see if a better sentence evolves. Speak it out loud and hear if it sounds natural. Above all, never forget that sound logic is often indistinguishable from that which sounds logical.

0 comments Contributed by Janette Siu on 01 March 2008 at 13:57

You've finally finished that terrible essay that your prof gave you last week. What a relief that that's over with! Now, just to make absolutely sure that your paper is what it's supposed to be, you go back and check the assignment sheet one last time... and at the bottom, you notice this little sentence that says, "Be sure to revise your paper."

"Revise?" you say. "I thought my paper was pretty decent while I wrote it... and I did my best and I don't think I could do any better. Besides which, I just finished writing this monster. The last thing I want to do is read it over again... after all, it's 10 pages long!" After a moment's thought, you add, "I don't even know how to go about revising anyway..."

Fear not, my friend. There are ways to tackle this beast called Revision.

Here's a funny coincidence of the English language. "Revision" comes from "revise," but by one of those strange and happy occurrences, the noun form of the word can give us a hint about how to do the verb. Re-vision. Look at it again. "OK," you say, "I knew that already. So what?" So, you should look at it with fresh eyes. That means setting it aside for 24 hours or more before you read it over. Why? Because after a while, you will recover from being tired of writing this assignment, and you won't be thinking, "I'm so sick of this paper!" while you reread it. Instead, you can focus on the organization and flow of your writing. Also, you'll be better able to detect places where you did not clearly explain your thinking (which was so clear to you while you were writing it!), or maybe you'll be able to come up with that one word that escaped you while you were writing.

But I can hear you laughing now, "Silly! I always finish my papers an hour before they're due... I would never have time to set it aside for a day before revising it!" Well, though I would encourage you to try to finish earlier than that, I can certainly understand where you're coming from. And don't worry, there are still more strategies for revising, which don't take 24 hours.

As you reread your paper, try reading it out loud. Don't just whisper it quickly ("themosttellingcomponentofthisimageisitsdrabcolorpalette...") because that won't help as much as if you read it in a slow speaking voice. Pretend you're presenting your paper; read it like you're making a speech. (Don't be embarrassed; let your roommates hear what a great paper you wrote! Maybe they'll even have some good input about how you can revise it.) The point of reading out loud is to slow you down so that you actually read what's on the page, instead of what you know should be on the page. This will help you to catch places where you left out a word (which often happens to the best of us!), where you used the wrong word or the wrong form of the word, or other such mistakes. Also, reading your paper out loud will help you to pick out awkwardly phrased sentences ("That doesn't sound quite right..."), overly long sentences ("If it took me three breaths to get through this sentence, maybe I need to cut it down..."), or excessive repetition ("I used 'good' five times in two sentences... maybe I need to find some more descriptive words..."). If you find that reading out loud doesn't slow you down enough, try reading the entire thing out loud and backwards, word by word.

There are lots of other strategies you can try too. If you've been fighting with the phrasing of a sentence or two, try asking a friend if what you've written is clear. If you know that you've had trouble with homonyms in the past, use Control + F (if you're writing in Word) to search for all the instances of the troublesome words (such as "their," "there," and "they're") so you can check specifically to make sure you used them correctly. If you're struggling with a particular grammatical issue, try looking in a writing guide. We even wrote one just for you, and we put it online at http://studentaffairs.case.edu/education/resources/sagesguide/. Of course, you can always schedule an appointment with the SAGES Peer Writing Crew, and we would love to help you out!

Whenever you write, keep in mind that no matter how good your ideas are, people are less likely to listen to what you think if you don't communicate your thoughts clearly. Though it's sad, it's a fact that if you have a lot of small mistakes in your writing, you are less likely to be given credit for good thinking than if your writing is polished and professional. Therefore, go forth and revise, and knock 'em dead!