Sentence-Level Revision

You’ve probably heard plenty of times that writing should be lean, mean, clear, direct, concise, active, and so on. This statement is one of those self-evident truths—why would anyone set out to write any other way? But what does this advice really mean? What do sentences that are not “lean, mean,” and so on look like? What sorts of things are wrong with them? How do you fix them?

Sentences have ways of becoming flabby, redundant, wordy, unclear, indirect, passive, and just plain old hard to understand. Even so, they remain grammatically “correct”—all their subjects and verbs agree, the commas are in the right places, and the words are spelled correctly. Still, these sentences are far more challenging to read than a sentence with just a comma problem.

The following sections can’t pretend to cover all of the ways sentences can go wrong at this higher level, but they cover seven of the most common problems and show you how to fix them. And knowing these seven will probably enable you to spot others we have not trapped and labeled yet.

Nominalizations

Check your writing for sentences that use “to be” as the main verb and use a nominalization: as the sentence’s subject. (A nominalization is a verb that has been converted into a noun; look for -tion, -ment, -ance, and other suffixes. For example, “nominalization” is itself a nominalization; the root verb is “to nominate.” The “to be” verbs are am, is, are, was, were.)

These sentences are usually weak and indirect. Revise them by changing the nominalization into a verb and replacing the “to be” verb. Your sentences will sound more active, and they will be easier for the reader to understand.

Sometimes, you can’t convert a nominalization into a main verb. Or a nominalization will need to remain a sentence’s subject. (For example, “information” is a nominalization, but try converting “information” into a main verb. The sentence will be awkward, at best.) More often, you can convert that nominalization into a main verb.

The following examples demonstrate this problem and how to fix it. Notice how a noun has been converted into the sentence’s main verb and replaced the original “to be” main verb in each revised version:

Problem: The contribution of Quality Circles is mostly to areas of training and motivating people to produce higher quality work.

Revision: Quality Circles contribute to the training and the motivating of people to produce high quality work.

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Problem: Measurement of temperature is done in degrees of Fahrenheit or Celsius, and its indications are by colored marks on the outside of the thermometer.

Revision: Temperature is measured in degrees of Fahrenheit or Celsius and is indicated by colored marks on the outside of the thermometer.

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Problem: The beginning of the clonic phase is when the sustained tonic spasm of the muscles gives way to sharp, short, interrupted jerks.

Revision: The clonic phase begins when the sustained tonic spasm of the muscle gives way to sharp, short, interrupted jerks.

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Problem: During speech, the generation of sound is by vocal chords and the rushing of air from the lungs.

Revision: During speech, sound is generated by the vocal cords and rushing air from the lungs.

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Problem: The response of the normal ear to sounds is in the audio-frequency between about 20-20,000 Hz.

Revision: The normal ear responds to sounds within the audio-frequency range of about 20-20,000 Hz.

True/False Review

Noun Stacks

Search your writing for sentences that contain long, piled-up strings of nouns. Their effect on a reader is similar to being hit on the head with a large, blunt object.

Revise these sentences and “unpack” or “unstack” their long noun strings into multiple verbs, clauses, and phrases.

The following examples demonstrate this problem and how to fix it. In each revised version, notice how a long string of nouns has been broken apart:

Problem: There is a growing awareness of organizational employee creative capacity.

Revision: Awareness of the creative capacity of employees in all organizations is growing.

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Problem: Position acquisition requirements are any combination of high school graduation and years of increasingly responsible secretarial experience.

Revision: To qualify for the position, you’ll need to be a high school graduate and have had increasingly responsible secretarial experience.

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Problem: The Quality Circle participation roles and tasks and time/cost requirements of Quality Circle organizational implementation will be described.

Revision: The tasks of the participants in Quality Circles and the time and cost requirements involved in the implementation of Quality Circles will be discussed.

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Problem: Proper integrated circuit packaging type identification and applications are crucial to electrical system design and repair.

Revision: Identifying the proper type of packaging for integrated circuits is crucial to the design and repair of electrical systems.

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Problem: Cerebral-anoxia-associated neonatal period birth injuries can lead to epileptic convulsions.

Revision: Birth injuries associated with cerebral anoxia in the neonatal period can lead to epileptic convulsions.

Redundant Phrasing

Eliminate redundant phrases in your writing. They can come from these three sources (but there are plenty more):

• wordy set phrases: Look for four- to five-word phrases; you can usually chop them to a one- to two-word phrase without losing meaning. For example, “in view of the fact that” can be reduced to “since” or “because.”
• obvious qualifiers: Look for a word that is implicit in the word it modifies. For example, phrases like “anticipate in advance,” “completely finish,” or “important essentials” are examples of obvious qualifiers.
• scattershot phrasing: Look for two or more compounded synonyms. For example, “thoughts and ideas” (what’s the difference?) or “actions and behavior” (if there is a difference between these two, does the writer mean to use it?) are common.

Here are some classic examples of wordy set phrases and their revised versions:

Wordy Phrase	Revised Phrase
in view of the fact that	since, because
at this point in time	now, then
it is recommended that	we recommend
as per your request	as you requested
in light of the fact that	since, because
being of the opinion that	I believe
in the near future	soon
during the time that	when
it would be advisable to	should, ought
due to the fact that	since, because
in this day and age	now, currently
for the reason that	since, because
in my own personal opinion	I believe, in my opinion, I think
to the fullest extent possible	fully
in accordance with your request	as you requested
four in number	four
predicated upon the fact that	based on
inasmuch as	since, because
pursuant to your request	as you requested
in connection with	related to
take cognizance of the fact that	realize
it has come to my attention that	I have learned that
with reference to the fact that	concerning, about
with regard to	concerning, about
in close proximity to	near, close, about
to the extent that	as much as
in the neighborhood of	near, close, about
until such time as	until
has the ability to	can
that being the case	therefore

Expletives

An expletive, as the term is used in grammar, is a word inserted into a sentence that adds nothing to the meaning but alters word order. The most common expletive phrases in English are “it is/are” and “there is/are.” They are sometimes helpful, but they are more often redundant and weaken a sentence’s impact. If you can, delete them from technical documents.

Here are some examples of sentences with expletives and their revised versions without expletives:

Problem: When there is a very strong build-up at the front of the plane, it is what is known as a shock wave.

Revision: When a very strong build-up occurs at the front end of the plane, a shock wave forms.

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Problem: When there is decay of a radioactive substance, there is the emission of some form of a high-energy particle—an alpha particle, a beta particle, or a gamma ray.

Revision: When a radioactive substance decays, some form of a high-energy particle—an alpha particle, a beta particle, or a gamma ray—is emitted.

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Problem: It is the results of studies of the central region of the M87 galaxy that have shown that there are stars near the center that move around as though there were some huge mass at the center that was attracting them.

Revision: Recent studies of the central region of the M87 galaxy have shown stars near the center moving around as though some huge mass at the center were attracting them.

True/False Review

Weak Use of Passive-Voice Verbs

Passive-voice construction is one of the all-time worst offenders for creating unclear, wordy, indirect writing.

Look for a “to be” verb coupled with a past participle (a past-tense verb, often ending in -ed). Change it to an active verb, and rearrange the sentence to make grammatical sense.

It’s easy enough to convert a sentence from active voice to passive voice, and back again:

Passive Voice: The report was written by the student.

Active Voice: The student wrote the report.

However, the passive voice can be a shifty operator—it can cover up its source, that is, who’s doing the acting, as this example shows:

Passive Voice: The papers will be graded according to the criteria stated in the syllabus. Graded by whom, though?

Active Voice: The teacher will grade the papers according to the criteria stated in the syllabus. Oh! That guy…

This ability to conceal the actor or agent of the sentence makes the passive voice a favorite of people in authority—police officers, city officials, and, yes, teachers. At any rate, you can see how the passive voice can cause wordiness, indirectness, and comprehension problems.

Passive Voice: Your figures have been reanalyzed in order to determine the coefficient of error. The results will be announced when the situation is judged appropriate. Who analyzes, and who will announce?

Active Voice: We have reanalyzed your figures in order to determine the range of error. We will announce the results when the time is right.

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Passive Voice: Almost all home mortgage loans nowadays are made for twenty-five years. With the price of housing at such inflated levels, those loans cannot be paid off in any shorter period of time. Who makes the loans, and who can’t pay them off?

Active Voice: Almost all home mortgage loans nowadays are for twenty-five years. With the price of housing at such inflated levels, homeowners cannot pay off those loans in any shorter period of time.

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Passive Voice: However, market share is being lost by ride-share operators, as is shown in the graph in Figure 2. Who or what is losing market share, who or what shows it?

Active Voice: However, ride-share operators are losing market share, as the graph in Figure 2 shows.

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Passive Voice: For many years, federal regulations concerning the use of wire-tapping have been ignored. Only recently have tighter restrictions been imposed on the circumstances that warrant it. Who has ignored the regulations, and who is imposing them?

Active Voice: For many years, government officials have ignored federal regulations concerning the use of wire-tapping. Only recently has the federal government imposed tighter restrictions on the circumstances that warrant it.

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Passive Voice: After the arm of the hand-held stapler is pushed down, the blade from the magazine is raised by the top-leaf spring, and the magazine and base. Who pushes it down, and who or what raises it?

Active Voice: After you push down on the arm of the hand-held stapler, the top-leaf spring raises the blade from the magazine, and the magazine and base move apart.

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Passive Voice: The solution was heated to 28.4 degrees Celsius and was stirred for 9 minutes and 1 second. Who heated the solution, and who or what stirred it?

Active Voice: My lab partner and I heated the solution to 28.4 degrees Celsius and took turns stirring it for 9 minutes and 1 second.

Don’t get the idea that the passive voice is always wrong. It is a good writing technique if:

• the subject is obvious or too-often-repeated
• the actor is unknown
• the actor isn’t important
• we want to stress the action more than who did it
• we need to rearrange words in a sentence for emphasis.

Check out this video on tips for using active and passive verbs:

True/False Review

Readability, Sentence Lengths, and Sentence Structures

When writing about highly technical subject matter, it is easy to construct long sentences that become hard to read or bore your reader with highly repetitive sentence lengths and grammatical structures.

Readability

The reader of a technical document needs to extract information from it as efficiently as possible, so most technical documents are written at the 8th-grade level. The average sentence length should be about fifteen words.

When you revise, look for long sentences that contain lots of information. Break them into shorter, bite-sized chunks that contain single ideas, and run the resulting sentences through a readability checker. For example, MS Word has a built-in readability tool that will tell you the number of words per sentence and the Flesch-Kincaid model’s estimate of the text’s grade level. (Open your document in MS Word, click File > Options > Proofing, check the “Show readability statistics” box, and run the spellchecker.)

Sentence Length

The average sentence in a technical document should contain about fifteen words, but you can use significantly longer or shorter sentences if necessary. Any sentence over thirty-five or forty words almost definitely needs to be broken up. An occasional short sentence (say, five to ten words) can be very effective, but lots of them can cause writing to be choppy and hard to follow.

Similarly, if the document contains a string of sentences close to the same length (for example, six sentences of exactly fifteen words each), the reader will fall into a rhythm and find it hard to pay attention. Break apart or combine sentences to create variety in their length.

Sentence Structures

In English, there are four basic sentence structures:

• Simple: This type of sentence contains a single independent clause.
• Compound: This type of sentence contains two independent clauses.
• Complex: This type of sentence contains an independent clause and a dependent clause.
• Compound complex: This type of sentence contains a compound sentence and at least one dependent clause.

Here’s a quick refresher on sentence structures:

Technical writing usually uses simple and compound sentences, and sometimes complex sentences. It very rarely uses compound-complex sentences. Look for these sentence structures and revise your technical document accordingly.

Also, as with sentence lengths, if all your sentences use the same grammatical structure, your reader will fall into a rhythm and find it hard to pay attention. Break apart or combine sentences to create variety in their grammatical structure.

Here are some examples of overly long, complex sentences and their revised versions:

Problem: In order to understand how a solid, liquid or gas can be made to give off radiation in the form of a laser beam, one must understand some of the basic theory behind laser light.

Length: 35 words
Grade level: 15.2

Revision: A solid, liquid or gas can be made to give off radiation in the form of a laser beam. Understanding this process requires some knowledge about the basic theory behind laser light.

Length: 16 words
Grade level: 9.0

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Problem: Laser beams, which have many properties that distinguish them from ordinary light, result from the emission of energy from atoms in the form of electromagnetic waves whose range in most laser beams is 10^-3 to 10^-7 meters.

Length: 37 words
Grade level: 19.5

Revision: Laser beams are just beams of light, but they have special properties that distinguish them from ordinary light. Laser beams come from atoms that emit energy as electromagnetic waves. The average wavelength ranges from 10^-3 to 10^-7 meters.

Length: 12.6 words
Grade level: 10.7