The
writing expert Richard Lanham offers a strategy for revising at the sentence
level (i.e. after revising for structure and content). I like the Paramedic
Method because the name has the ring of public health and suggests that we can
rescue sick sentences and breathe life back into dead (or deadly) prose. Using
this method helps to detect and correct the passive, wordy, unemphatic language
so common in bureaucratic and scholarly writing. There are four main steps:
1.Circle the prepositions. One
prepositional phrase is fine, two in a row sometimes unavoidable, but three in a
row should raise a red flag--that the sentence lacks focus and is full of nouns.
Our goal is more (and meatier) verbs, fewer nouns.
2. Circle the "is" forms. Watch for "is", "was", "will be", "seems to
be", "have been", and other forms of "to be", which often signal the passive
voice. "Is" is not a meaty verb.
3. Ask: Where's the action? Who's "kicking" who? You will likely find
the action nominalized, that is, turned into a noun in a prepositional phrase,
with no actual actor in sight.
4. Put this action in a simple active verb. If this verb has a human
subject, all the better.
Example:
Before: This sentence is in need of an active verb. (9 words)
After: This sentence needs an active verb. (6 words; Lanham calls the 3 word difference a "lard factor" of 33%)
This passage is from a draft of a paper entitled, "Drug Donations: Benefit or Burden?" It's typical of an early draft, in which the writer has captured some
important ideas but not yet attended to readability.
Drug donations, given by various donors (corporate, governments, and NGOs) are generally a humanitarian response to emergency or disaster situations; they can also represent an integral part of development aid in non-emergency situations. Drug donations can either be beneficial or a burden to recipient countries and organizations depending on the understandings and agreements, or lack of, between respective recipients and donors….
In terms of long-term development aid, drug donations often supplement meager health budgets in developing countries. In countries where annual health expenditure is as low, or lower, as $8 per capita, drug donations can go a long way. For example, in Ecuador there are 100 community medical centers run by the Catholic Relief Service relying soly on medical supplies and drug donations.
The collection of unsorted and unused drugs, unfortunately, is something many donors do without considering implications and, sometimes, dangerous consequences. Donations of large quantities of drugs without any content specifications result in the recipient loss of valuable time and effort in sorting and classifying. Further, unused drugs are sometimes partially empty or contain only a portion of the contents, which represents a loss of money and time for transporting them. 193 words
In the editing demonstrated below, the Paramedic Method is the guiding strategy, but not the only one.
A first stab at editing yields the following paragraphs, which still have room for improvement, but at least we've (1) eliminated some wordiness and redundancy; (2) combined sentences; (3) sharpened the emphasis of sentences; (4) made a few word changes, for precision; (5) converted many nouns to verbs or adjectives and thereby reduced the passive tone and several prepositional phrases; (6) replaced "fancy" wording ("without content specifications") with simpler language ("unlabeled"); (7) let the actors be the grammatical subject of sentences and thereby (8) made the people involved in the issue a little more visible, which is always good in public health. The passage has shrunk from 193 to 125 words, or 35%.
Drug donations from corporate, government and NGO donors can be either a humanitarian response to emergency situations or an integral part of non-emergency development aid. They can either benefit or burden their recipients, depending on the understanding and agreements, if any, between recipients and donors.
In the context of long-term aid, drug donations often supplement meager health budgets in developing countries, where annual health expenditure is $8 per capita or lower. In Ecuador, for example, 100 Catholic Relief Service community medical centers rely solely on donated supplies and drugs. However, many donors collect unsorted and unused drugs without considering the implications and sometimes dangerous consequences. Recipients waste valuable time and effort sorting and classifying unlabeled drugs and transporting containers that come to them partly empty. 125 words
A second round of editing might begin the passage much more actively:
Corporations, governments and NGOs donate drugs in response to humanitarian emergencies as well as through non-emergency development aid. These donations can either…..
And so the editing and re-editing should continue….
9. THE WRITING IS WEIGHED DOWN BY PASSIVE VERBS.
(PASSIVE VERBS ARE KILLING YOUR WRITING.)
The real meaning of the sentence is hidden -- and you are "off the hook" as far as precision -- when you use the passive voice. For example, look at sentences from a paper about the one-child policy in China: "The political structure in China...has been criticized as an instrument for exploitation." Has been criticized BY WHOM? "Chinese dissidents have criticized the political structure..." would be very different in meaning from "American women's groups have criticized the political structure...."When you really have to think about who is really doing what to whom, you have to be more demanding on yourself--and clearer to the reader. Another sentence in the same paragraph could also benefit from a conversion to active: "Mr. Lee's wife....was eventually found and forced to have an abortion...." could become: "The local cadres of two districts eventually found Mrs. Lee and forced her to have an abortion."
10. IT'S OKAY TO USE THE FIRST PERSON "I".
REALLY. FORGET ALL THE TEACHERS WHO TOLD YOU NEVER TO USE 'I'. Compare these two sentences:
"In this section I will analyze why HIV interventions must recognize the importance of gender roles."
"In this section the reasons why HIV interventions must recognize the importance of gender roles will be analyzed."
Which one is clearer? You can use "I", selectively and judiciously, to narrate parts of your paper. And if you are a player in your research, you can say so. In the post-modern world, we no longer have to pretend there we're reporting on an objective reality "out there" that has nothing to do with our own agency or world view. You establish credibility and validity by the strength of your argument, not by eliminating yourself from the scene or using impersonal language that pretends to be objective. (Serious skeptics: please see me for examples of the first person in research papers published in The Lancet, American Journal of Public Health, New England Journal of Medicine, and other professional journals.)
11. IF ANY WORDING IS BORROWED FROM YOUR SOURCE, BE SURE TO PUT THOSE WORDS IN QUOTATION MARKS AND CITE THE SOURCE.
**Be very careful about borrowing words, phrases and sentences from sources. If you use another writer's phrasing, the borrowed words must be enclosed in quotation marks, and the source must be cited. But stringing together many sentences in quotation marks is not a very mature approach to bringing sources into your narrative. There is rarely a good reason to stick so closely to the original text; think of your own writing as commenting on a source, or telling a story about it. Step back and report on what you've read. Make sure that paraphrases and summaries are in your own words and sentence structures. (You'll still need to cite the source, but you won't need quotation marks.)
**A good way to avoid inadvertent plagiarism while summarizing ideas from a source is to write the summary WITHOUT looking at the source. That means you really have to understand it well. This is a method recommended by Rebecca Moore Howard, a writing specialist at Colgate University. She suggests that you read the source at least twice, first quickly to get a general idea, then more carefully, taking some notes. Then let some time go by -- about half an hour --
...and with the book closed, write your own summary of it.....Once you have drafted your summary, go back to the book and check to see if any of our phrasing resembles that of the source; if so, quote it exactly. Provide page citations for both your paraphrases and quotations. Also, check your version to see what you forgot; what you forgot is usually what you didn't understand [1]. (Howard R.M. Plagiarisms, authorships, and the academic death penalty. College English 1995; 57:801.)
(Notice, by the way, that when you include a direct quotation of four lines or more, like this one, it should be set off in an indented, single-spaced block. No quotation marks are used in this case; the block format itself signals that the source is quoted directly.)
I also suggest that you think about how accurately you've used sources, and how appropriately you've cited them, in terms of your own role as an expert among colleagues. What if you were invited to read your paper at a conference, where all the experts on your topic will be congregating? (This happens.) You can expect that the authors of your source materials will be in your audience, listening carefully, and will, of course, recognize references to their own work. Have you credited them for their ideas? Have you made it clear when you've quoted their words? Are you sure no one will be angry at you?
12. DIRECT QUOTATIONS HAVE BEEN 'DROPPED' INTO THE TEXT WITHOUT ATTRIBUTION OR EXPLANATION.
It's not polite to either your reader or your source to use someone else's words -- even if you've correctly cited and punctuated them -- without some form of introduction or attribution that gives the reader an idea of why you're bringing someone else into your narrative. Direct quotations need to be integrated into your own writing. Notice how I did it with the quotation from Rebecca Moore Howard, up there in #11. You might name your source, if it's an important authority worth noting: "According to X, the Director of the World Federation of YZ, "this intervention is foolproof." Or you might write a less personalized attribution : "A 1992 study in Zambia revealed that "direct quotation here". But once you've signaled with quotation marks that you're bringing another voice into your monologue, it's only fair to let the reader know why.
13. THE REFERENCE LIST IS A MESS!
You need to attach a list of references to all drafts of the paper. The two most frequently used styles of referencing in the health literature are the Vancouver system (used by the AJPH, NEJM, BMJ, JAMA) and the Author-Date (Harvard) system (used by Social Science and Medicine). Stick with one or the other in any single paper. Don't waste valuable brain space trying to memorize the format, but do have models and guidelines in view as you proceed. Here, once again, are samples of my most frequent comments:
"If you have more than one reference to the same source, then you use the page number in addition to the reference number. For example, two separate references to the document numbered 14 might look like this (14, p. 57) and this (14, p. 102). In this case, you don't repeat the reference in the list of references at the end, but re-use number 14. In all other cases, when a reference is cited only once, use only the reference number in parenthesis (or superscript) in the text, and include in the list at the end the page/pages."
"You need many more citations within the text. I've written "ref" for reference where it was most obvious to me that you needed to cite a source. ANY information or idea that originated in something you've read needs to be cited -- and in this first draft, it's much safer to over-reference than under-reference. If you are referring to the same source throughout a paragraph, you'll need, at minimum, a citation at the end of the first sentence that begins the reference and at the end of the last sentence that closes the reference."
(Vancouver system) "The numbering of citations must be in the order in which they appear in the text, so your first citation MUST be number 1, the second 2, the third 3. Then the list at the end of the paper must be chronological 1-2-3-4- etc."
(Author-date system) "The in-text citations in parenthesis should NOT include the first initials of the authors, only the last names. When a source has two authors, both names belong in the in-text citation; with more authors, the first author's name can be followed by "et al." In the list of references at the end, the first initials should be included, but not the first names. The year always immediately follows the author in the author-date list. "
"Journal articles require the title of the journal, volume and page number, but not the month or the issue number. Anything that is not a journal -- a book or report -- must include the place of publication and the publisher, as well as page numbers when appropriate."