by Jennie Ruby
The results of last week's redundancy contest were astonishing. We received several replies, all of them excellent improvements on the original redundant (and wordy) example. To judge the contest, we had to be brutal.
Contestants were asked to send in a list of the redundancies in the following paragraph, along with a rewrite:
You walk up to an ATM machine and enter your PIN number. While you are there, you print out a hard copy of your statement so you can check on the past history of your account. The reason you need a printout is because your total balance seems too high, and you want to make absolutely certain your rent check has cleared.
The first cut was made by disqualifying everyone who changed "walk up to" to "walked to." Some prepositions following a verb are redundant (as was "check on" in our example), but others actually complete or change the meaning of the verb. Think of the difference between "to follow up" and "to follow" or between "to throw out" and "to throw." Here, removing the word "up" changed the meaning from "approach" to something more like "hike to."
Second, the entries fell into three categories: editing the text to remove the redundancies, rewriting the text to make it more concise, and rewriting the text as a training document.
In the editing category, anyone who missed a redundancy (e.g. ATM machine or PIN number) was cut. Second (I said we had to be brutal), anyone who made a punctuation error was eliminated. The most common punctuation boo-boos were adding a comma in a compound predicate and adding a comma before a trailing subordinate clause.
In the rewriting category, the competition came down to cleverness and word count. And in the training category, cleverness and conciseness won the day.
And so, without further ado, here are the winners of the redundancy elimination contest:
In the editing category, coming in third at 36 words, is Sheri Kraft:
You walk up to an ATM, enter your PIN, and print out your statement so you can check on your account because your balance seems high and you want to see if your rent has cleared.
In the rewriting category, coming in second at 28 words, is Karla Marsh:
You want to view your account history to be certain your rent check has cleared, so you go to an ATM, enter your PIN, and print your statement.
In the rewriting category, coming in first at 25 words, is Jim Dages:
While at an ATM, you notice your balance seems too high so you print a statement to verify the rent check has cleared.
In the training category, coming in first at 16 words, is Charles Ormiston:
To make certain a check has cleared:
1. Approach an ATM
2. Enter your PIN
3. Print your statement
And our overall winner, from the rewrite category, is again Charles Ormiston, with 24 words:
You want to make certain your rent check has cleared, so you walk up to an ATM, enter your PIN and print your statement.
Thanks to all who participated.
About the Author: Jennie Ruby is a veteran IconLogic trainer and author with titles such as "Editing with Word 2003 and Acrobat 7" and "Editing with MS Word 2007" to her credit. She is a publishing professional with more than 20 years of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing.
Was there a requirement to keep everything into one sentence? Other than the rewriting in procedure format and maybe the overall winner, these examples greatly compromise clarity of the text.
Posted by: Eosgrafx | June 09, 2011 at 06:48 PM
To Jenny Ruby: Thanks for expanding the conversation about what editors should edit in today's (June 14, 2011) Skills and Drills. This is a tricky question: a key part of an editor's job is to make the author feel that the editor is working in partnership with both the writer and the readers to provide the most effective communication channel. It's important to dispense editoral improvements with tact and respect for both writers and readers.
Posted by: Joeth Barlas | June 14, 2011 at 12:18 PM