User talk:Tony1/Exercises in textual flow

Exercise two

This is tough. From a technical standpoint, no problem, and the hints/explanations are great. Helpful and not too wordy. Question though—what's the goal? Is it to show how to split sentences only, or is it to show how to improve run-on sentences? The problem is that most long sentences need more work than just a simple split. Below are specific comments on the first three examples; the fourth one I liked as is. Not sure if these are what you're looking for, but they at least explain my concern.

To me the answer of the first example is an improvement, but an uninteresting one. The same underlying structure is there; only now we've repeated a word and replaced a comma with a period. In the second sentence we're still packing in three distinct pieces of information about the development (who, where, and when), and then tacking on a catch-all at the end. And "mainly in western and central Europe" comes across to me as redundant; wasn't Catholocism "mainly" in that part of the world in those times? But this isn't a redundancy exercise.

The solution to example B introduces a loss of meaning; to maintain it one could use a dash instead of a period:

However, ardent debate between political factions known as the Federalists and anti-Federalists ensued over the balance between strengthening the nation’s government and weakening the rights of the people—people who just 10 years earlier had rebelled against the perceived tyranny of George III of England, particularly his unwillingness to change the taxation regime.

To me that reads better. It provides a dramatic pause, and doesn't dilute the author's intended meaning. Side question: is there any sort of guideline for the order of the subject, verb and prepositional phrase of sentence one? Is (debate) --> (between political factions...) --> (ensued) better than (debate) --> (ensued) --> (between political faction...)? I would have thought not.

Example C—One thing I've learned is to hate "to be" verbs, so adding two of them doesn't excite me. Personally, I would have split it like this:

As such, the comic strip holds a unique place in British football folklore, demonstrated most clearly by the phrase “real Roy of the Rovers stuff”. Commonly used by football writers and commentators in describing displays of great skill or results that go against the odds, the phrase refers to the dramatic storylines that became the trademark of the comic strip.

I guess my point is that these are pretty good exercises for methods of splitting long sentences, but I feel like in some cases they fail to address the underlying problem (ex. A) or they introduce new problems (B & C). --Spangineer^es (háblame) 16:49, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks so much for this detailed feedback, Spangineer. The goal is to teach people how to split sentences; if this involves minor secondary issues, I've included them, hoping that they don't cloud the issue.

Question A

I think by "mainly in western and central Europe" the author means "not in Italy (i.e., southern Europe): elsewhere in the Roman church". But it's a good point: I'll ask Peirigill (and will have to admit that I've used his text here, but he won't mind!) If I need to, I'll change the text—it's shameful, but I have falsified information when it's linguistically convenient to prove a point. This is not a content article, but a process article, I keep telling myself. <smile>

Oh, I already knew this sentence was on display as a prime example of poor writing. I don't take it personally, though; it wasn't my text originally. I did modify it, but had been making a point of keeping as much of the article's original text as I could, in the spirit of collaboration. Now I know better.  ;-)

In this particular case, there was some deliberate fudging on my part. We know that Gregorian chant grew from a synthesis of Roman and Gallican chant under the auspices of the Carolingian rulers, but it's not entirely clear how and where the chant was modified from the original Roman models. Any number of places may have played a role: Paris, Metz, St. Gall, even Prague. I didn't want to go into great detail in the lede, so I kept the geography vague. I didn't want to use the anachronistic terms "France" and Germany" or the obscure term "Francia." As Tony surmised, I did want to imply strongly that Italy wasn't involved, since many people are under the misapprehension that Pope Gregory the Great composed the whole repertory and that Gregorian chant spread outward from Rome. My decision was also influenced by the pattern I had established in the other plainchant articles, which I did write from scratch: Ambrosian chant, Beneventan chant, Celtic chant, etc., where the geography of each tradition is critical information for the lede.

I agree that the solution uses the word "chant" (albeit in two different forms) redundantly. Moreover, it's inaccurate; "plainchant" and "Gregorian chant" aren't synonymous. Plainchant developed long before the eighth and ninth centuries, and it didn't develop primarily in the Frankish lands. The solution in the actual article repeats the phrase "Gregorian chant" several times in the lede, in order to avoid the pronoun "it," which Tony disapproved. Unfortunately, repeating "Gregorian chant" also impedes flow. Consider this inelegant exaggeration of the effect: "Gregorian chant is monophonic. Gregorian chant is unaccompanied. Men, not women, typically sing Gregorian chant." It's as awkward as Bob Dole's fabled repetition of his own name.

This factual inaccuracy isn't important for your hermeneutical purposes, though. These exercises are designed to teach good editing. The solutions should be examples of excellent prose, even if more than one kind of change is required. Editors need to learn to keep all the guidelines in mind at the same time, after all. However, if you think these examples will make better teaching tools when they isolate specific editing techniques, then you should modify the bad versions of the prose so that only one technique is required to fix each problem. Peirigill 12:54, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I absolutely agree. Tony 01:18, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Question B

I read it several times and then realised (I think) where the loss of meaning might be. Can I add "same" to get around this?

However, ardent debate between political factions known as the Federalists and anti-Federalists ensued over the balance between strengthening the nation’s government and weakening the rights of the people. Just 10 years earlier, the same people had rebelled against the perceived tyranny of George III of England, particularly his unwillingness to change the taxation regime.

Either word order is possible, but I think the existing one is the easiest. (Otherwise, there might be an undesirable juxtaposition of "the people" and "the factions".)

I like the dramatic pause of the em dash (and I'm an em-dash guy, as you know), and it's a good solution. But I wanted an example in which they observe a straight repetition "the people. The people" avoided. I need to make it clear in the hint that this is only one solution.

Question C

Your suggestion is much better!

Thanks, Span. Tony 03:07, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Question A: Ah, that makes sense; I hadn't considered Italy. Question B: Yes, that's the loss of meaning that I'm talking about; sorry I didn't make that more clear. Using "same" solves the problem. Explain what you mean though by juxtaposition of factions and people (they seem far apart to me):

However, ardent debate ensued between political factions known as the Federalists and anti-Federalists over the balance between strengthening the nation’s government and weakening the rights of the people.

Or does that just open a new can of worms by separating the verb from "over"? "Ensue" here has two prepositions, so it can't be next to both, and I guess I just like seeing the verb earlier in the sentence. Not a big deal though. Question C: Cool =). --Spangineer^es (háblame) 13:07, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

"Over" was the word I was looking for yesterday (Question B). I think I'll use your suggestion. Thanks muchly. Tony 14:49, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Dumb question

What's the point of having an image of the sun? You're editing the copy, not the image, which is incongruous when every other image illustrates the art of editing. Peirigill 23:08, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Most FAs do have an image at the top, so it's in keeping with the WP editing experience. But maybe you're right. Tony 01:10, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Exercise 2

As I understand the MoS centuries always use numerals, so it should be 9th century and 10th century.

Thank you for all of your helpful essays. I found the one on hyphens and dashes to be the most helpful; I'm going to have to go back to reread it.

Again, thank you. Bettymnz4 (talk) 22:59, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

I'll change it now. Thanks for your kind words. Tony (talk) 00:32, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Commas and Solutions

The fourth excercise is not clear enough to be of general use. Please clarify it. I suggest a short note at the start and a indication of what is going in each drill.

Also the putpose of the text following solution #1 is unclear. BO | Talk 10:12, 3 July 2012 (UTC)