English 5365 Week Three Post
Topic: Provide an example of action or character in something you've read or something you've written recently, and how that might improve according to Williams.
This prompt gave me a little bit of trouble. Most of what I have read recently is confidential unpublished work that I am not at liberty to share. Most of what I have written recently has appeared in this blog.
In addition to the assigned reading for the course, I have rereading Jane Austen's Emma and a book titled The End of Overeating by David A. Kessler, MD. I would expect to find many instances of poor character or action descriptions in a book written by an MD, but I did not find any with a quick perusal, so I was forced to look more closely.
On page 8, Dr. Kessler writes, "As it turned out, the weight of their parents and the amount of energy the children burned were less important factors than their caloric intake." The whole subject of this sentence is rather long: "the weight of their parents and the amount of energy the children burned." The simple subjects are "weight" and "energy" but the characters are parents and children. The verb here is "were," which is not really an action.
However, my poor, scientifically trained mind has a terrible time coming up with an alternative to this sentence that would make parents, children, or both the subjects and the verb an action. This may also explain why I had a hard time identifying a sentence in the first place. This type of writing is very normal to me.
After much pondering, I came up with the following:
The children experienced a greater impact on their weight from their caloric intake than from their parents' weight or from their own energy burn.
This still seems extremely awkward to me. Now, where do I go?
Kessler provided his own simplification of the sentence, perhaps realizing that he was writing for a mass market. He states, "The children who ate more weighed more." Far better than the sentence that I attempted to construct while retaining the vast majority of Kessler's words.
My new sentence is as follows:
The children who ate more weighed more, regardless of their parents' weight or of their activity level.
That seems to be more in line with the character portion, but what about the action? Is "weighed more" enough of an action?
Perhaps my sentence should be the following:
The children who ate more gained more weight, regardless of their parents' weight or of their activity level.
What do you think?
This prompt gave me a little bit of trouble. Most of what I have read recently is confidential unpublished work that I am not at liberty to share. Most of what I have written recently has appeared in this blog.
In addition to the assigned reading for the course, I have rereading Jane Austen's Emma and a book titled The End of Overeating by David A. Kessler, MD. I would expect to find many instances of poor character or action descriptions in a book written by an MD, but I did not find any with a quick perusal, so I was forced to look more closely.
On page 8, Dr. Kessler writes, "As it turned out, the weight of their parents and the amount of energy the children burned were less important factors than their caloric intake." The whole subject of this sentence is rather long: "the weight of their parents and the amount of energy the children burned." The simple subjects are "weight" and "energy" but the characters are parents and children. The verb here is "were," which is not really an action.
However, my poor, scientifically trained mind has a terrible time coming up with an alternative to this sentence that would make parents, children, or both the subjects and the verb an action. This may also explain why I had a hard time identifying a sentence in the first place. This type of writing is very normal to me.
After much pondering, I came up with the following:
The children experienced a greater impact on their weight from their caloric intake than from their parents' weight or from their own energy burn.
This still seems extremely awkward to me. Now, where do I go?
Kessler provided his own simplification of the sentence, perhaps realizing that he was writing for a mass market. He states, "The children who ate more weighed more." Far better than the sentence that I attempted to construct while retaining the vast majority of Kessler's words.
My new sentence is as follows:
The children who ate more weighed more, regardless of their parents' weight or of their activity level.
That seems to be more in line with the character portion, but what about the action? Is "weighed more" enough of an action?
Perhaps my sentence should be the following:
The children who ate more gained more weight, regardless of their parents' weight or of their activity level.
What do you think?
posted by Jessica Badger at
4:18 PM
2 Comments:
Hey, Jessica,
I like your last sentence/suggestion, and I wish we could edit like you suggest and get to the bare bones of the sentence. I know, though, that often we can't. There's so much more invovled, and there may be a good reason we have to keep most of the author's words.
Plus, we have to be careful how we suggest the edits to the author.
I do think you improved the sentence. :)
Thanks for the thoughts.
~Rhonda
Good examples of how one might revise Kessler for a different stylistic effect. Nice thinking here. Yes, as Rhonda said, there is a lot involved. We'll talk about how we might suggest revisions on others' papers. There's an ethic there, whether private or not.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home