This screen capture presentation would be the first in a series of "how-to" screencasts, to illustrate different writing strategies for students before asking them to practice them. This first presentation is a game I have used in workshops, where student groups compete to whittle sentences down to as few words as possible without compromising meaning. It is always a loud and animated process in a classroom. Using Google Docs to allow student groups to work online together with the document in front of them seems like a workable solution for an online class.
Revision Game 1: Editing (script)
How short can we make this sentence without losing the main idea as we understand it?
1. It is the case that frogs released into the world following being raised in captivity often face a kind of ecological “culture shock” upon encountering the natural world for the first time. (32 words)
(Eliminate wordiness of unnecessary clause)
1.a. Frogs released into the world following being raised in captivity often face a kind of ecological “culture shock” upon encountering the natural world for the first time. (27 words)
(What kind of frogs? Frogs raised in captivity—so we move this information forward which allows us to eliminate a few more unnecessary words)
1.b. Frogs raised in captivity released into the world often face a kind of ecological “culture shock” upon encountering the natural world for the first time. (25 words)
(Now we see the word “world” repeated in very close proximity—can we condense these two phrases which repeat a similar idea—that of release?)
1.c. Frogs raised in captivity often face a kind of ecological “culture shock” upon encountering the natural world for the first time. (21 words)
(We have lost the word “release” in the above revision—is it necessary or is it inherent in the idea of something once in captivity now being in the wild? Let’s see how it reads—let’s also eliminate a kind of since we do not name which kind of culture shock.)
1.d. Frogs raised in captivity often face ecological “culture shock” upon encountering the natural world for the first time. (18 words)
(Let’s see if we can tighten it up a bit more by focusing on the last phrase)
1.e. Frogs raised in captivity often face ecological “culture shock” upon release into the natural world. (15 words)
(We have re-introduced the word “released” to more succinctly say “upon encountering,” and we can eliminate “for the first time” because this meaning is already in the sentence with the words “upon release,” since the frogs are unlikely to have been released more than once.
So, we have edited this sentence down by half—to a more succinct and direct statement of the information in the original.
In the assignment folder, you will find 6 more sentences talking about the frogs, working in your assigned groups, you will be editing them down as much as is possible, to eliminate wordiness, repetition of words and concepts, and to focus the readers on what you think is the main idea in each sentence.