User talk:Tony1/Exercises in textual flow: Difference between revisions

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:As such, the comic strip holds a unique place in British football folklore, demonstrated most clearly by the phrase “real Roy of the Rovers stuff”. Commonly used by football writers and commentators in describing displays of great skill or results that go against the odds, the phrase refers to the dramatic storylines that became the trademark of the comic strip.

I guess my point is that these are pretty good exercises for methods of splitting long sentences, but I feel like in some cases they fail to address the underlying problem (ex. A) or they introduce new problems (B & C). --[[User:Spangineer|Spangineer]]^{[[:es:Usuario:Spangineer|es]]}&nbsp;<small><font color="brown">[[User talk:Spangineer|<span style="font-size:smaller; color:brown;">(háblame)]]</font></smallspan>]] 16:49, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

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:I agree that the solution uses the word "chant" (albeit in two different forms) redundantly. Moreover, it's inaccurate; "plainchant" and "Gregorian chant" aren't synonymous. Plainchant developed long before the eighth and ninth centuries, and it didn't develop primarily in the Frankish lands. The solution in the actual article repeats the phrase "Gregorian chant" several times in the lede, in order to avoid the pronoun "it," which Tony disapproved. Unfortunately, repeating "Gregorian chant" also impedes flow. Consider this inelegant exaggeration of the effect: "Gregorian chant is monophonic. Gregorian chant is unaccompanied. Men, not women, typically sing Gregorian chant." It's as awkward as Bob Dole's fabled repetition of his own name.

:This factual inaccuracy isn't important for your hermeneutical purposes, though. These exercises are designed to teach good editing. The solutions should be examples of excellent prose, even if more than one kind of change is required. Editors need to learn to keep all the guidelines in mind at the same time, after all. However, if you think these examples will make better teaching tools when they isolate specific editing techniques, then you should modify the bad versions of the prose so that only one technique is required to fix each problem. [[User:Peirigill|Peirigill]] 12:54, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

::I absolutely agree. [[User:Tony1|Tony]] 01:18, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

'''Question B'''

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I read it several times and then realised (I ''think'') where the loss of meaning might be. Can I add "same" to get around this?

:However, ardent debate between political factions known as the Federalists and anti-Federalists ensued over the balance between strengthening the nation’s government and weakening the rights of the people. Just 10 years earlier, the <fontspan colorstyle="color:crimson;">same</fontspan> people had rebelled against the perceived tyranny of George III of England, particularly his unwillingness to change the taxation regime.

Either word order is possible, but I think the existing one is the easiest. (Otherwise, there might be an undesirable juxtaposition of "the people" and "the factions".)

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:Question A: Ah, that makes sense; I hadn't considered Italy. Question B: Yes, that's the loss of meaning that I'm talking about; sorry I didn't make that more clear. Using "same" solves the problem. Explain what you mean though by juxtaposition of factions and people (they seem far apart to me):

::However, ardent debate ensued between political factions known as the Federalists and anti-Federalists over the balance between strengthening the nation’s government and weakening the rights of the people.

:Or does that just open a new can of worms by separating the verb from "over"? "Ensue" here has two prepositions, so it can't be next to both, and I guess I just like seeing the verb earlier in the sentence. Not a big deal though. Question C: Cool =). --[[User:Spangineer|Spangineer]]^{[[:es:Usuario:Spangineer|es]]}&nbsp;<small><font color="brown">[[User talk:Spangineer|<span style="font-size:smaller; color:brown;">(háblame)]]</font></smallspan>]] 13:07, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

"Over" was the word I was looking for yesterday (Question B). I think I'll use your suggestion. Thanks muchly. [[User:Tony1|Tony]] 14:49, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

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What's the point of having an image of the sun? You're editing the copy, not the image, which is incongruous when every other image illustrates the art of editing. [[User:Peirigill|Peirigill]] 23:08, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

:Most FAs ''do'' have an image at the top, so it's in keeping with the WP editing experience. But maybe you're right. [[User:Tony1|Tony]] 01:10, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

== Exercise 2 ==

As I understand the MoS centuries always use numerals, so it should be 9th century and 10th century.

Thank you for all of your helpful essays. I found the one on hyphens and dashes to be the most helpful; I'm going to have to go back to reread it.

Again, thank you. [[User:Bettymnz4|Bettymnz4]] ([[User talk:Bettymnz4|talk]]) 22:59, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

:I'll change it now. Thanks for your kind words. [[User:Tony1|<span style="color:darkgreen;">'''Tony'''</span>]] [[User talk:Tony1|<span style="color:darkgreen;">(talk)</span>]] 00:32, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

==Commas and Solutions==

The fourth excercise is not clear enough to be of general use. Please clarify it. I suggest a short note at the start and a indication of what is going in each drill.

Also the putpose of the text following solution #1 is unclear. [[User:OrenBochman|BO]] &#124; [[User talk:OrenBochman|Talk]] 10:12, 3 July 2012 (UTC)