Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Williams...Clarity for the serious writer.

Acceptance into the University is dependent upon meeting the admission criteria described below. Eastern Michigan University admits students at the freshmen and transfer level to the University. Added admission is required for the College of Business and the College of Education, as well as for several individual programs. Some academic programs are designed to include courses from more than one college
Theirs...

and mine!
Students are admitted to EMU both as freshmen and as transfer students from other Universities. Once accepted, students will apply for admission into one of our colleges such as the College of Business or the College of Education. In addition, EMU offers many programs of study that utilize courses taught at numerous colleges within the EMU framework. Admission at EMU is decided upon the criteria described below.

Well, this is pretty hard to come up with something better. In relating to voice, the only voice I hear is a catalog voice. So, I tried to make it clearer, more concise, yet in doing so, I actually added more words!

So, what I did was try and change this into something that was easier to read, flowed better and still was clear. I think that the first sentence that I have could be moved to the last sentence, with a few minor adjustments above it. That would satisfy the need for one sentence to lead to the next. It would also flow better as the "described below" is not actually accurate...strictly speaking, in Williams land.

Here's the thing-I am not really sure if it does read better or not. Since I wrote it (ah...back to Plato) maybe it is just better because I wrote it...I cannot correctly judge. Therefore, the idea of having an editor makes total sense to me. Rewrite, yes! I do a lot of that, perhaps too much so. In any event, it seems hard to re-write this. After all, it was written by someone who knows a hellofa lot more about grammar then I do. When Williams talks about grammar, I really have to reach and reach HARD to remember what things are. I think I know them when I see them, but don't have the knowledge to teach it. I think that may be honest knowledge...the ability to use, then explain it to others. At this point, I struggle to understand it myself.

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