SAT WRITING WORKBOOK

PART III

HOW TO WRITE AN ESSAY IN 1,500 SECONDS

EDITING AND PROOFREADING: THE FINAL TOUCHES

Editing for Interest

Your essay will be read by people—real people. Most of them are teachers who know that essays can be lively, scintillating, and a joy to read. Like any readers, they will be put off by writing that is dull. Therefore, one of your goals on the SAT essay is to inject life into your prose by

• Using active instead of passive verbs

• Writing active instead of passive sentences

• Omitting needless words

• Showing instead of telling

USING ACTIVE VERBS

Active verbs differ from being verbs. Because active verbs describe or show movement, they excel all other words in pumping life into your prose. What”s more, they help you write more concisely.

Being verbs, in contrast, have almost no life in them. Their lifelessness is apparent in the common forms of the verb to be:

Used in a sentence, each being verb joins a subject to a predicate. In fact, a being verb functions much like an equal sign in an equation: “Five minus two is three” (5 – 2 = 3), or “Samantha was happy” (Samantha = happy), or “Your SAT scores are going up” (That = good news!). Because being verbs (and equal signs) show little life, use them sparingly.

TIP

Whenever possible, replace being verbs with active verbs.

To check whether you rely too heavily on being verbs, check a few of your most recent essays. If more than, say, one out of four sentences uses a form of to be as the main verb, try the following revision techniques.

Substitute a new active verb for the being verb:

Extract an active verb from a noun in the sentence:

Extract an active verb from an adjective:

As you delete being verbs, you may observe that some sentences resist change. When that happens, try turning subjects into verbs and verbs into nouns. Try also to eliminate unnecessary phrases. A full-scale revision will often result in sentences that bear little resemblance to the original. At the same time, your verb-swapping efforts may root out excess words and improve your essay”s readability.

You may notice, however, that some nouns limit your options for using active verbs. For instance, you are pretty well stuck with a form of to be in any sentence that begins with The reason:

The reason that you should practice writing essays ______…

What verb other than is can be used to fill the blank? Very few. There are few verb options, too, when the subject of the sentence is thought, concept, idea, issue, way, cause, and several other abstract nouns. The same applies to sentences that begin with “There,” as in: “There is no way for you to do poorly on the SAT essay,” and often for sentences that begin with “It,” as in “It is a foregone conclusion that you”ll do well.”

In contrast, nouns that stand for specific places, people, events, and objects invite the use of active verbs. When a sentence contains a subject that can do something—a person, for example—you can never run out of verb choices.

As a bonus, concrete, easy-to-define nouns, when substituted for abstractions, tend to tighten and energize sentences:

Being verbs are not the only verbs that sap the life out of sentences. They share that distinction with several other verbs, including forms of to have, to come, to go, to make, to move, and to get—verbs with so many different uses that they creep into sentences virtually unnoticed. Webster”s International Dictionary lists sixteen different meanings for the verb get and a dozen more for make and move. It”s true that we can hardly do without these verbs, but use them only if you can swear that no other words will do. Otherwise, trade them in for more vivid verbs, as in:

Note that by using a more animated verb, you eliminate the need for “very slowly,” which has suddenly become redundant.

Note that this revision has created not just a more active sentence but one that contains fewer words—always a stylistic plus.

Practice in Using Active Verbs

Directions: Replace the weak, lifeless verbs in these sentences with stronger, active ones.

1. Shock was the feeling of most American people from the attack of 9/11.

2. In New York City, there were nearly three thousand people killed.

3. Afterwards, there was a controversy over who was to blame for America”s vulnerability to terrorism.

4. There was an effort made to strengthen homeland security.

5. Many people were willing to give up some of their rights in order to be secure.

6. The issue of how much freedom to give up for the sake of security is difficult to resolve.

7. The war in Afghanistan was a significant event that was a result of 9/11.

8. Sweatshirts and baggy pants was our manner of dress whenever we went out.

9. There was quite a lot of commotion because of there being an all-American high school basketball player playing in the game.

10. It is obvious that there should be more emphasis on math and science for the average college-bound student.

ACTIVE AND PASSIVE SENTENCES

Active sentences strengthen prose; passive sentences weaken it. In an active sentence the person or thing performing an action is usually mentioned early in a sentence so that readers know right away who or what you are talking about. In some contexts, though, the actor is unknown or irrelevant. That”s when a passive sentence—a sentence structured in the passive voice—is more appropriate. For example:

In the passive version, curtain time is the important fact. Who pulled the rope or pushed the button is beside the point.

Other occasions when a passive-voice sentence may be appropriate, or even preferable, include:

• When the point of the sentence is to reveal the identity of the actor:

• When you want to conceal the actor.

• When you want to avoid using gender-based pronouns.

Transforming a passive sentence to an active one may take a bit of doing:

Six weeks were spent preparing for the spring carnival.

This sentence needs revision because it fails to tell who performed the action—that is, who prepared for the carnival. The following revision clears up the uncertainty:

Six weeks were spent preparing for the spring carnival by the cheerleaders.

This version contains more information than the original, but it still emphasizes the action instead of who performed the action. To make the transformation complete, say something like

The cheerleaders prepared for the spring carnival for six weeks.

In the active voice, this sentence gives the performers of the action top billing.

Why is the active voice better than the passive voice? Mainly because most events in life don”t just occur by themselves. Somebody does something; a person or thing acts. After all, burgers don”t just get eaten; people cook and devour them. Marriages don”t just happen; couples deliberately go out and marry each other. Goals don”t score, salmon don”t get caught, and wallets don”t get lost all by themselves. People do these things.

Good essay writers, taking advantage of readers” natural curiosity about others, strive to make the performer of the action the grammatical subject of their sentences:

As you prepare for the SAT, review your essays for passive sentences. Change them to active sentences unless you have a good reason not to.

Practice in Revising Passive Sentences

Directions: Please rewrite the following sentences, putting each in active voice.

1. The backyard was covered by dead leaves.

2. The crisis in the Middle East was discussed by us.

3. Friday”s quiz was failed because I had been at a play rehearsal every night that week.

4. Portland was flown to at the start of our weeklong vacation in Oregon.

5. The great white whale was pursued by Captain Ahab and his crew.

6. The newspaper is fetched by Fido every morning.

7. The decision to go to war was made by the president and his advisors.

8. Dinner was taken out by more than twenty customers on Friday night.

9. Five of Shakespeare”s plays were seen by our group in three days.

10. Normally, the brain is called on by the body before you do something physical.

OMITTING NEEDLESS WORDS

Never use two words when one will do. Tell your readers quickly and directly what you have to say. Brevity works best. Cut out needless words. Readers value economy.

Stop! Have you noticed that the previous paragraph disregards the very advice it dispenses? Do you see repetition and redundancy? Couldn”t the point have been made more briefly and succinctly?

TIP

Sentences should be firm and tight. Omit needless words!

Hold it, again! Look at that last phrase, briefly and succinctly. Aha! Another redundancy. The author should have used one, but not both, adverbs.

Here”s a word to the wise:

You should work through all of the sentences you write by examining each one and crossing out all the words you don”t definitely need.

In truth, that”s twenty-four words to the wise—probably more than are needed.

Go through every sentence you write and cross out unnecessary words.

That”s better—eleven words of free advice, but still too many. The sentence could be trimmed still further:

Cut unnecessary words out of every sentence.

This seven-word model is less than a third of the original twenty-four word clunker. But it can be pared even more:

Omit needless words.

Your sentences, like muscles, should be firm and tight. In lean writing, every word counts. To trim fat, wring your sentences through this four-step word trimmer:

1. Look for repetition. Then combine sentences.

Granted, cutting ten words to eight may not seem like much. But consider that it”s a 20 percent reduction, and in a 500-word essay, a 20 percent reduction amounts to 100 words, the equivalent of a whole paragraph.

2. Look for telltale words like which, who, that, thing, all. They often signify the presence of fat.

Changing the grammatical subject and replacing was with an active verb halved the word count.

3. Hunt for phrases that add words but no meaning, such as the fact that, due to the fact that, at this point in time, at the present time, and comparable usages.

A rich vocabulary can also help turn flabby sentences into tight ones:

4. Search for redundancies. Innumerable words are wasted on reiteration of what has already been stated, on repeating the obvious, on restating ideas, on saying the same thing again and again and over and over, driving readers to the brink of madness.

Soot, by definition, is black, and rising clouds can only go up.

Where else but on a face would a smile appear?

Scrutinize means “to study carefully,” and engrossed means “to think fully.” Also, her own train of thought is nonsensical because no one can think others” thoughts.

After you have pared your sentences to the bone, re-read what remains and discard still more by tracking down little words like the, a, an, up, down, its, and and. Even though it may hurt to take out what you worked hard to put in, don”t whine. Just grit your teeth and do it!

Practice in Trimming Needless Words

PART A

Directions: Tighten these sentences, but preserve their meaning.

1. The author, a man named Peter Jenkins, wrote a book with the title A Walk Across America, about walking across America, which he accomplished after walking twenty-five miles a day in order to prepare for his walk across America.

2. There is no reason for the chairperson of the committee, who is Carolyn Welles, to take offense at my suggestion, which is aimed at trying to make the meetings more productive and useful to the entire student body at large.

3. Molly was elected to be the editor of the yearbook in spite of the fact that her grades in writing in English courses are really not very good at all.

4. Some kinds of criticism are good, but other kinds of criticism do more harm than good. Harmful criticism is criticism that tears a person down instead of helping the person overcome or deal with a problem.

5. Every American should have a good knowledge of our country, and the best way to gain a good knowledge and familiarity with the United States is to visit and see places of historic interest and significance to our country.

PART B

Directions: This wordy paragraph appeared in an essay that advocated gaining weight. Please trim its fat.

Such weight-gaining ideas can be used to good advantage by each and every man, woman, and child who is interested in adding pounds of weight to his or her body. They are the latest, most up-to-date set of procedures available anywhere. Owing to the fact that health experts and authorities believe that it is better to be underweight than it is to be overweight, ideas for putting on weight are generally thought to be jokes not taken seriously, which is the reason why such ideas are kept under wraps and not publicized very widely or broadly. Yet, there are many people of all kinds who need to gain weight for a variety of diverse reasons. Here is a quotation that Slim Snyder, who is a graduate of Stanford University, stated during a speech he gave at a meeting of people gathered together at a health conference recently: “Lean people are victims of discrimination, just as obese people are.”

For additional practice in eliminating wordiness, turn to Part V.

SHOWING VS. TELLING

Remember the principle that a picture is worth a thousand words? Whether that”s true is arguable, but the point is not. Words help readers see. Therefore, show more than you tell ! Instead of describing your uncle as “absent-minded,” show him stepping into his morning shower dressed in his pj”s. Rather than telling the reader that your room is “a mess,” show the pile of wrinkled clothes in the corner and the books and Snickers wrappers scattered on the floor next to your unmade futon. The same principle applies to smells: “Her breath was foul with the stench of stale whiskey.” To sounds: “the growl of a chain saw in the distance.” To touch: “the feel of cool linen bed sheets.” And to tastes: “a cold, sweet drink of spring water on a scorching summer day.” In short, showing recreates experience for the reader, ultimately making the prose more interesting.

No one expects you to load all your essays with a profusion of striking images that show instead of tell. The fact is that writers struggle for years to perfect the technique. Moreover, too much detail can be as unproductive as too little. A balance is best. No one can tell you exactly how to achieve that balance. You need time to get the feel of it, like riding a bike or doing a back flip. The context, as well as your judgment of a reader”s need to know, should determine how detailed you need to be. To develop the knack, study a written passage that you admire. Pick out both details and broad statements. For practice, use the passage as a model for writing a paragraph of your own.

Practice in Showing Instead of Telling

Directions: Revise the prose of the telling samples into showing examples.

1. Telling: Mike is very tall.

2. Telling: After she won, she experienced a wonderful and unique feeling that made her want to win again.

3. Telling: The store was a quaint old place.

4. Telling: It smelled just the way a beach is supposed to smell.

5. Telling: The class is out of control.

6. Telling: Pioneers had a hard time.

7. Telling: The cabin was really run down.

8. Telling: The air pollution was sickening.

9. Telling: The speech stirred the crowd.

10. Telling: Mary Jane”s mother is obsessed by cleanliness.