Editing Analytical Response

While I enjoyed reading this and learned a lot about Wikipedia in the process, I felt that this was very bland and needed some arrangement changes. The biggest modification I made to the article is the order of the information. I changed the order of the numbers because I felt that having the “It says so on Wikipedia” one was more important and should not have been last. I made it second because while I do not want to give up the biggest one right away, I do believe it was necessary to be at the beginning. I also changed the numbers to go from 1 to 10 instead of descending order. When the numbers were descending, I did not believe it sounded correct. With the numbers in ascending order, it made more sense because the most important pieces of information should be first.

From the sources, I used the clarity checklist in Working with Words on page 240, to make sure my article was sound and made sense throughout. Along with that, I used the coherence section of the Style book to make sure that I was not making points in the wrong areas, or adding on to a point that was already made. These two pieces of information helped me reform this article to make sense to every audience. Coherence was explained as, “Think of coherence as seeing what all the sentences in a piece of writing add up to, the way all the pieces in a puzzle add up to the picture on the box” (Williams 38). I wanted to be sure that in its entirety the article made sense.

“Write to others as you would have others write to you” (Williams 132). There were a few spots that I changed words to make the reading earlier to understand for any audience. While the original words were not impossible to understand, I just felt that it was important for a variety of people to understand. For example, under number 3, he states, “In order to properly evaluate information on the Internet, there are three questions you must always ask; the first two are “Who wrote this?” and “Why did they write it?” I edited this to say certain questions because if he is only going to state these two, he should not have said there were three in total. I was confused as to why he would say that and then not state the third questions.

There were a few parts where I added in a sentence to remind the reader that these examples are just one of many. While I was reading myself, I felt that was not repeated enough. Under number 4, he gives an example of information being fabricated on the Internet, and thus the information went out in newspapers. But that is just one example of the many false stories on the Internet. Even celebrity news magazines publish fake stories that are not always taken down. I added, as a reminder that is was just one of many cases, and to refer back to number 10, fact checking.

“If any man were to ask me what I would suppose to be a perfect style or language, I would answer, that in which a man speaking to five hundred people, of all common and various capacities, idiots or lunatics excepted, should be understood by them all, and in the same sense which the speaker intended to be understood” (Working with Words 239). Daniel Defoe said this quote. What I took away from this quote is that the overall piece needed to be understood by all and for all to have the same understanding of the article.

I felt the overall article had short and to the point sentences and paragraphs. Each section was no more than 5 sentences. The article is straight and to the point, which I believe made it easier to read. I kept that concept even with adding in my few points.

            I don’t think I am a very strong editor because I do not like the idea of changing an author’s work. With that being said, I understand why editing is important for writers. I know there are times when I have sent my sister something of mine to edit and when it is returned there are small errors that normally, I would not have noticed. It is always good to have an extra pair of eyes to look over your work. I attempted to keep this basically the same, but with adding some information to make the overall article come together better.

Brooks, Brian S., James L. Pinson, and Jean Gaddy. Wilson. Working with Words: A Handbook for Media Writers and Editors. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2006. Print.

Williams, Joseph M. Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace. New York: Pearson Longman, 2009. Print.