revision: style and usage

Early in the revision process, correct any weaknesses of the types listed below. This step may require recasting of parts or all of a sentence or paragraph, as well as significant deletions.

• Unnecessarily long, complex sentences
• Unacceptable neologisms or jargon:
  • People who are within five years of retirement will be attritted.
• Long multiple-noun phrases
• Verbiage and redundancy (“excessive verbiage”; “countries such as Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, etc.”)
• Excessive repetition:
  • While most job seekers spend fewer than five hours a week looking for a job, job seeking is considered a full-time job in the Job Finding Club.
• Ambiguity
• Improper prepositional usage
• Misuse of a word (e.g. affect/effect, amount/number and similar problems)
• Lack of uniformity in terms used for the same concept ("eligibility for/admissibility to/right to benefits")
• Gallicisms in vocabulary and syntax (“realize a project,” “training program of nurses”)
• Wrong level of language or style, given end use of document
• Mixed metaphors (“We must put our shoulders to the wheel and take the bull by the horns.”)
• Uneuphonic effects:
  • Presentation of the new provincial prison program will be postponed pending further planning.