Man writing a letter (1662–65), oil on canvas, by Flemish painter Gabriel Metsu; National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin
Skilled editing is central to achieving high-quality Wikipedia articles. This is a set of exercises in which you are presented with a portion of faulty text. It may contain problems of grammar, logic, cohesion, tone, lexical choice, punctuation or redundant wording. In some cases, there are breaches of Wikipedia's Manual of style. What is difficult about these exercises is that they do not concentrate on one specific aspect of writing or editing, as do our exercises in eliminating redundant wording. Here, you need to be aware of all of the things that can go wrong in constructing English text.
Feedback on how to improve these exercises is welcome on the talk page.
First, click on [Show] to the right of "THE PROBLEM TEXT" and read the passage carefully. Try to determine where and how it can be improved. You're told at the end of the text how many problems there are.
Below this, click on [Show] to discover what the generic issues are; these will not necessarily be listed in the order in which they occur in the passage. Reread the faulty text to see if you can now identify the specific problems.
Click on [Show] below this to discover where the problems are in the text; try to match each of the coloured parts of the text with one of the problems listed above. In some cases, an issue involves two separate areas of the text that are coded with the same colour. Again, try to determine the solution for each problem.
Finally, click on [Show] to display our suggested solution and accompanying explanations. The changes in the text are colour-coded to match the explanations underneath. Where there are MOS breaches, links are provided to the relevant section in the MOS or its subpages.
The examples are all taken from featured article candidates. We've removed reference numbers to prevent clutter. Links appear only in the initial text of each exercise, because subsequently we use specific colour coding that would be cluttered by the blue colouring of links.
This comes from the lead, which provides a sequence of summary statements about the subsequent text in the article.
THE PROBLEM TEXT
Agriculture continues to be a major part of the economy of Somerset. Apple orchards were once plentiful, and to this day the county is linked to the production of strong cider. The unemployment rate in the county is lower than the surrounding counties. The largest employment sectors are retail, manufacturing, leisure/tourism and health/social care.
[There are four issues.]
WHAT THE ISSUES ARE
A wrong word.
A problem of logic and of vagueness.
A MOS breach.
A false comparison.
WHERE THE ISSUES ARE
Agriculture continues to be a major part of the economy of Somerset. Apple orchards were once plentiful, and to this day the county is linked to the production of strong cider. The unemployment rate in the county is lower than the surrounding counties. The largest employment sectors are retail, manufacturing, leisure/tourism and health/social care.
THE SOLUTION
Agriculture continues to be a major part of the economy of Somerset. Apple orchards were once plentiful have been plentiful for more than [?five] centuries, and to this day the county is linked to known for the production of strong cider. The unemployment rate in the county is lower than that of the surrounding counties. The largest employment sectors are retail, manufacturing, leisure/tourism leisure and tourism, and health/social care health and social care.
Notes
The problem of logic and of vagueness: "Once" suggests that the orchards were plentiful at some time in the past and are no longer so; but the subsequent clause implies that plentiful orchards have ever since been and still are plentiful, since the county is known for its apple cider. An indication is required of when "in the past" this was, even if as vague as "for at least five centuries". We have guessed a solution; the author would need to be asked to check this.
The wrong lexical item: "Linked to" is ambiguous; "known for" is presumably what the author intended.
The false comparison: The unemployment rate in Somerset is being compared with the unemployment rate in the surrounding counties, not with the counties themselves; "that of" can be inserted to stand for "the unemployment rate of" those other counties; then the comparison is valid.
Jane Zhang (born 11 October 1984) also known as Zhang Liangying is a Chinese pop singer who came to prominence when she placed third in the 2005 season of the Super Girl contest a national all female singing competition held in the People's Republic of China. Throughout the competition, she sang in English, Spanish and Cantonese in addition to Mandarin Chinese.
[There are seven issues.]
WHAT THE ISSUES ARE
A word that is probably redundant.
Insufficient commas (three could be added).
A word that is inconsistently applied in one place but not another.
A potentially misleading lexical item.
A verb that is used wrongly in active voice.
A missing hyphen.
A character that may need to be changed in case (upper to lower, or lower to upper).
WHERE THE ISSUES ARE [commas not shown]
Jane Zhang (born 11 October 1984) also known as Zhang Liangying is a Chinese pop singer who came to prominence when she placed third in the 2005 season of the Super Girl contest a national all female singing competition held in the People's Republic of China. Throughout the competition, she sang in English, Spanish and Cantonese in addition to Mandarin Chinese.
THE SOLUTION
Jane Zhang (born 11 October 1984), also known as Zhang Liangying, is a Chinese pop singer who came to prominence when she was placed third in the 2005 season of the Super Girl contest Contest, a national all-female singing competition held in the People's Republic of China. Throughout During the competition, she sang in English, Spanish and Cantonese in addition to Mandarin Chinese.
Notes
Three commas are required: the first two are boundaries for a nested phrase ("also known as Zhang Liangying"); the third is an "equative" comma, used to mean "that is".
"Placed" can't refer to what she does, but what is done to her; the passive voice must be used ("was placed").
A hyphen is required for "all-female", which is a double adjective. This is the case even in AmEng. See MOS on hyphens.
An upper-case "C" is required, for "Contest", since it's part of the title of the competition; this can be confirmed at the linked article and the link re-piped.
"Held" is hardly necessary, since all competitions are held, and we're told its country of ___location.
"Throughout" may imply that she sang from start to finish in a mixture of all four languages; while this is an unlikely meaning, it is clearer to use "during", which doesn't convey the start-to-finish meaning.
"Chinese" is used to qualify "Mandarin", but not "Cantonese"; however, both are Chinese languages. It's probably acceptable to remove "Chinese" altogether, since China is central to the topic and both languages were linked. Re-pipe the link.
There's one more issue: the list of languages at the end finishes with "in addition to"; just why this this marked form of "and" is used is unclear. Is Mandarin somehow different from the rest of the list? Perhaps it's her native language, but it's all a mystery to the poor reader.
Exercise 3 is broken into three portions of text (3a, 3b and 3c), which in the original follow each other in sequence.
THE PROBLEM TEXT
Incorporating a number of new developments in British steam locomotive technology, the Packets were amongst the first British designs to utilise welding in the construction process, which meant that components could be more easily constructed during the wartime austerity and post war economy.
[There are four issues.]
WHAT THE ISSUES ARE
Two unnecessary repetitions.
A missing hyphen.
An ugly word that has a coomon, shorter equivalent.
An old-fashioned word.
Opportunities for neater expression in two places (position underlined in "Where the issues are").
An opportunity to split an over-long sentence (position underlined in "Where the issues are").
WHERE THE ISSUES ARE
Incorporating a number of new developments in British steam locomotive technology, the Packets were amongst the first British designs to utilise welding in the construction process, which meant that components could be more easily constructed during the wartime austerity and post war economy.
THE SOLUTION
Incorporating a number of new developments in British steam locomotive technology, the Packets were amongst among the first British designs to utilise use welding in the construction process, which meant that components could be more easily constructed; this enabled the easier construction fabrication of components during the wartime austerity and post war economyausterity of the war and the post-war economy.
Notes
"Amongst" is better as the plainer and shorter "among".
The second occurrence of "British" can be simply removed, because we already know that the technology is British.
'Utilise is a very ugly word for use.
The second occurrence of "construction/ed" is avoided by substituting it with fabrication".
"Post-war" is a double adjective before "economy", and should therefore be hyphenated.
The locomotives also featured Bulleid's innovative, though controversial chain-driven valve gear and the inclusion of thermic syphons. The class members were named after the Merchant Navy shipping lines involved in the Battle of the Atlantic, and latterly those which used Southampton Docks, an astute publicity masterstroke by the Southern Railway, who operated Southampton Docks during the period.
[There are five issues.]
WHAT THE ISSUES ARE
Two separate redundant words (only one is colour coded below).
A clash between person and non-person entities.
A false contrast (a problem of logical flow).
The use of two expressions of very similar meaning, where a common expression would make the text more cohesive.
An opportunity to split an over-long sentence (position underlined in "Where the issues are").
WHERE THE ISSUES ARE
The locomotives alsofeatured Bulleid's innovative, though controversial chain-driven valve gear and the inclusion of thermic syphons. The class members were named after the Merchant Navy shipping lines involved in the Battle of the Atlantic, and latterly those which used Southampton Docks, an astute publicity masterstroke by the Southern Railway, who operated Southampton Docks during the period.
THE SOLUTION
The locomotives featured thermic syphons and Bulleid's controversial, innovative chain-driven valve gear The class members were named after the Merchant Navy shipping lines involved in the Battle of the Atlantic, and latterly those which used Southampton Docks, an astute publicity masterstroke by the Southern Railway, which operated Southampton Docks during the period.
Notes
A word that has a slightly more formal form, appropriate for this register."Amongst" is better as the plainer and shorter "among".
The second occurrence of "British" can be simply removed, because we already know that the technology is British.
'Utilise is a very ugly word for use.
The second occurrence of "construction/ed" is avoided by substituting it with fabrication".
"Post-war" is a double adjective before "economy", and should therefore be hyphenated.
