Learn how to revise your writing at the sentence level for clarity, brevity, and specificity.

1. SENTENCE-LEVEL
REVISION
Making your words work for you

2. MAKINGWORDSWORKFORYOU(IMAGECOURTESYOFPROJECT
GUTENBERG)
As Lewis Carroll
aptly puts it in
Through the
Looking Glass, the
question when we
use words is:
“which is to be
master”?
Strong writing
uses every word
purposefully, to
convey
information. In
strong writing, your
words work for you.
Your enemy as a
writer is language
that obscures your
ideas behind
vagueness or
wordiness.
Sentence-level
revision is about
making every
word do its job—
and getting rid of
the ones that
don’t.
“When I use a word,”
Humpty Dumpty said, in
rather a scornful tone, “it
means just what I choose it to
mean — neither more nor
less.”
“The question is,” said
Alice, “whether
you can make words mean so
many different things.”
“The question is,” said
Humpty Dumpty, “which is
to be master — that's all.”

3. STEP ONE: REDUCE “FILLER”
LANGUAGE
Get rid of any words that don’t add meaning. Extra words hide your
ideas and make your prose clunky. “Fire” the words that aren’t
doing their job.
Clear and Concise: Disney musical numbers have become more lavish
since the 1950’s to captivate an increasingly inattentive child
audience.
“Revised” to Add Length: The Walt Disney Corporation’s animated film
musical numbers have recently become more and more lavish and
over-the-top since the 1950’s. The reason for this is because of the
need to captivate an audience of children whose attention spans
are getting shorter and shorter in the past years.
Length = Doubled; Clarity = Cut in half!
Victory?? In the short term, maybe (my paper is closer to the required
length). In the long term, NO. If I write my whole essay this way,
I’ll get a much lower grade because my ideas don’t come across
clearly.

4. HOW TO REVISE FOR EXCESS
LANGUAGE
• Eliminate as many prepositions as possible.
● The plans of Mattel to introduce a new line of toys for
tweens have been criticized in Parenting magazine. (5
prepositions)
● → Parenting magazine has criticized Mattel’s plans to
introduce a new tween toy line. (1 preposition)
• Get rid of any words that could be deleted without losing
meaning. This includes words that should be self-evident or
are redundant.
● Parents of tween children are very angrily protesting
that the toys are too highly sexualized and encourage
children to think about sex at too early an age.
● → Parents are protesting that the toys encourage
children to think about sex too early.

5. EXERCISE: ELIMINATE “FILLER” IN THE
FOLLOWING EXAMPLES
• Gum has been around for quite some time now, going
through many generations.
• The AIDS: The End of Civilization focuses on analyzing the
basic concept and theory of HIV/AIDS was a government
created virus.
• This mental image of Belle in the minds of the readers is
particularly impressionable because Disney’s creations of
his female characters are associated with beauty.
• No matter how or when this myth was originated, the truth
is that there are many people that still believe in this myth.
• Rather, there are numerous amounts of minor diseases that
combine into arthritis to cause pain into the joints of the
body.

6. STEP TWO: SHARPEN VAGUE
LANGUAGE
• Vague words don’t
do their share of
the work
• They confuse
rather than
clarifying.
• Make language as
clear and specific
as possible.
• Test to see if
readers could still
ask questions.
• Revise: answer
those questions.

7. HOW TO SHARPEN VAGUE LANGUAGE
• Make sure that words like ‘it,’ ‘this,’ ‘these,’
‘which,’ ‘that,’ and ‘they’ have a clear referent.
● Disney recently added a new princess film to its
collection. It has been widely criticized. (What has
been criticized? Disney? The film? The collection?)
● → Disney recently added a new princess film to its
collection. The film has been widely criticized.
• Avoid words that could mean almost anything,
like ‘many,’ ‘important,’ ‘good,’ etc. Use only
words that do a specific job.
● Female managers contribute many crucial qualities
that improve their companies.
● → Female managers contribute superior
communication skills and an inclusive management
style that increases employee retention and
teamwork.

8. EXERCISE: SHARPEN VAGUE LANGUAGE
IN THE FOLLOWING EXAMPLES
• The studies conducted to find results were varied by
different variables to make them credible. To make these
tests credible they used different things such as different
quantities of sugar in the diets.
• Robert Mapplethorpe is an extremely interesting
photographer; his pictures are quite unusual compared to
other photographers.
• The poem is very creative and imaginative for its readers
and makes one understand how it got so much attention.
• By looking into the different health problems women had
in the Victorian era, it will give us a better idea of how these
dresses affected a woman’s wellbeing.

9. STEP THREE: ELIMINATE PASSIVE
VOICE
Passive voice often confuses the issue by making the
actor invisible. It can also make sentences bulky and
awkward. Try rephrasing in active voice where
possible.
BREAKING NEWS!
PASSIVE VOICE... UN-
MANLY?
As 18th-century newspaper
columnist William
Cobbett writes, passive
voice can often sound
cowardly (according to
him, it’s also un-manly!).
This is because passive
voice avoids citing the
source or cause of an
action. Writers can use it
to make vague accusations
or imply support where
there is none.

10. OKAY,SOMETIMESYOUCANUSEPASSIVE
VOICE…
It’s acceptable to
use passive voice
when…
1.) You want to
avoid assigning
blame (i.e., “The
coffee maker was
broken.”).
2.) The actor is
unimportant in
the sentence (i.e.,
“Christmas
ornament prices
are markedly
reduced after the
holiday season.”).
3.) The actor is
unknown or
general (i.e., “The
film was
universally
disliked.”).
4.) You are a
ninja.

11. EXERCISE: CHANGE PASSIVE TO ACTIVE
VOICE IN THE FOLLOWING EXAMPLES
OR explain why passive voice is more appropriate
• Myths are believed because of a lack of
knowledge and how they are portrayed to
society by the media.
• Disney princesses are seen as having the
most perfect and desirable body types.
• The law was protested so vigorously that it
was abolished.
• Sex workers are most severely mistreated in
economically depressed areas.
• It has long been argued that Barbie dolls
have a negative effect on girls’ self esteem.

12. A NOTE: ON THE USE OF THE
THESAURUS
A thesaurus can be a good tool to liven up your writing. But use it
only to remind you of words you already know. Because each
word has unique shades of meaning and usage, a given synonym
might not make sense in your sentence. If you don’t know the
word, you might be unaware that you’re saying something
bizarre. The following sentences were thesaurus-ized with the
“help” of Microsoft Word.
• If you’re tempted to use the thesaurus the next time you’re
working on an essay, consider what is about to happen to this
sentence.
• → If you’re lured to utilize the thesaurus on the subsequent
occasion you’re toiling on a treatise, mull over what just
transpired to this stretch.
• Before going to sleep, he changed into pajamas and put out the
cat.
• → Before going to siesta, he transformed into pajamas and
extinguished the cat.