Here’s the situation.
In front of you sits a piece of writing you’ve just completed. You probably began with several ideas that evolved into a working thesis, which you then supported with argument and evidence. Along the way you may have discovered that your perspective on the subject had changed, and therefore the thesis had to be clarified, modified, or even recast. But you handled this task as well, and thereby unified your thoughts from introduction through conclusion.
Thus the toughest part of the creative process is over. What remains, though, is still a challenge: fine-tuning your product so that it communicates as effectively as possible what you’re trying to say.
How do you proceed? How do you take your draft, which you know is better than “rough” but worse than “smooth,” and refine it?
This book is intended to help. It’s divided into two sections. In the first, we offer ten strategies for correcting an individual sentence. These don’t cover every error, but we think they apply to virtually every manuscript. Each strategy is complemented by five practice sentences.
In the second section, we demonstrate how the principles we advocate can be used in editing paragraphs. We also add a few more guidelines.
We don’t focus on rules of grammar, such as those about pronoun case or verb mood, nor do we stress subtleties of punctuation. We touch on these matters, but when issues of mechanics arise, here and elsewhere, we advise you to consult a quality reference book. Besides, we want to keep our volume short and readable.
Remember, too, that you may disagree with some of our suggestions. Virtually all edicts about writing have exceptions, and the ultimate measure of your prose is whether it succeeds with your audience.
Perhaps most important, in offering these tips, we don’t want you to lose your individual tone. Every writer has a voice, and our goal is that yours will resound with clarity of thought and felicity of style.
We conclude with two samples of our own individual work. After reading so much of our counsel, you deserve to see how we apply it when the material belongs entirely to us.
