Help me turn 13 pages into . . . well, less!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I have written a paper for my English class that’s 13 pages long . . . 4000 words or so. And I think that’s just a bit long considering the minimum length is five pages.

Today in class I got the following feedback: “Shorten the essay” and “make it shorter.” While this is riveting criticism (one group member switched groups rather than being forced to read my beast), it doesn’t really help.

So here, for those of you who have a spare hour or whatever, is my challenge: what should I do to shorten this thing? Should I take out an example or two? Summarize a section instead of attempting a more detailed explanation? Be blunt?

Here is the paper. I’ve already deleted part of it; it was 14 pages and 4200 words, and I deleted about a page of stuff that wasn’t completely essential. But I’d like to get opinions from some educated people, as opposed to the folks in my small group, one of whose rough drafts was half a page (three paragraphs about Motley Crue), and another of whose drafts was essentially three pages about “Sex and the City”; it lacked half of the requirement for the essay (response/evaluation).

::breathes deeply:: It’s going to be an interesting week.

2

I, personally, loved it.

I can’t really offer any suggestions though, and I’m really not qualified to anyway, but, FWIW, I felt it flowed nicely and was an eay read.

I wish I could give you some advice as to how to trim it down but I don’t really see any place where you could take out parts without breaking up the general feel. Maybe not so much depth to “Revenge of the Nerds”.

Anway, very nice, enjoyable read. I don’t really think it even needs to be shortened. It works fine as is and taking away from what has been written will only serve to detract from it, at least IMHO.

3

I didn’t read your entire paper, but before you just start cutting sections out, I recommend that you rewrite what you have, in a concise, less-wordy form. You should be able to cut at least a third off the paper without losing any significant content. The downside of this, of course, is that it’s much more difficult than highlighting and pressing delete.

4

I’ve been trying to read the whole thing, but it stops loading on me. What I read was good, but I can tell that you write in the same exact manner as I do. In other words, far too much detail than required. You can make your point quite well with one statement, so don’t use three. Rather than driving your point home, you get into the “this is getting boring” thing. Yes, I would suggest doing what you already suspect. Cut down the examples. For instance, in the beginning, you could list all the shows mentioned but choose just one to really expand on, whichever one you think best sums up the thought. No need to describe each show as they are all basically the same. Summarize whenever possible.

Although lots of detail looks good, and appears to make the point, being concise is what keeps the interest up:)

Just my thoughts on the matter.

5

You have an interesting writing style. But you are going to have to lose some of it. This is for a grade. If you ramble, the teacher will think you cannot follow a thought through. One of the first thing then to go should be the asides, you know where you “talk” to the audience. I can see many of these that can go.

I don’t know what kind of writing class this is for, but remember, tell them what you are going to say, say it, then summarize. You seem to just end. No lesson to be learned. Also you need to transition better from past television treatment of geeks to todays treatment and how they have changed.

Also, as you have already suspect, cut out some of the examples. Also, cut out the parts in the example where you say you don’t remember what happened then.

I know the above sounds harsh, but really it is a good story that ya gotta work with.

6

Even if this does somewhat fall in to the “doing someone’s homework”, it is in a good forum for that and I have secret fantasies about being an English tutor. I may not be the best writer in the world, but my school papers (I am a college film student) get universally glowing evaluations, and I have teachers shake me by the shoulders and tell me that I should be a writer.

I’m going to be brutal, not because I don’t dig your paper, but because you are in a tight spot and there is really no more delicate way to do this. I know my paper writing philosphy is probably very different than yours. I am telling you what has worked for me. Just remember I love ya and you are free to take or not take my advice as you wish.

I am curious as to what sort of English class (or assignment) this is. True film analysis would require more attention to what is cinematic (what is actually seen and heard) as opposed to what the piece is about. Plot summery, beyond a sentence or two, is a major no-no. However, I am assumeing this is looking at film more in the way that one looks at a book or a cultural phenomenon, so I will cut you some slack.

I see a lot you can trim in your introduction. An intro should be attention getting, but it should move quickly and logically into your thesis. Your intro seems to be a rather exahstive autobiography. I suggest you trim it down to simply set the scene. Anything that you need to add can be added further on. Your intro should be no more than a paragraph. Any further and it seems like you are padding the paper.

Statements like “Family Matters wasn’t on Fox or TBS when I could get to it, and what I was accustomed to knowing as Channel 20 and the WB were different things in Rhode Island, where I went to high school.” are interesting, but arn’t really relevent. We don’t need to know your entire life (includeing SAT scores!). We don’t need to know that your roomate watches terminator or that you missed some parts of “Angus”. Don’t tell us any more than you need to get the reader situated and ready to move on to the real meat of the argument.

Even if this essay is partially about you, it is not your life story. It is about you regard one particular thing. I would tone down the chattiness. I have had teachers that would give you and “F” if you ever said “I” in a paper. Talking about yourself in a paper can be useful, but it is easy to get carried away, as I think you have. I bet you could even write this paper without saying “I”, and it would be a stronger paper for it.

I see you have a lot to say. That is a good thing, and that is also a bad thing. The hardest part of writing is staying focused. What are you trying to say? It seems to me that you are giving a history of the geek in the media, analyzing how valid those portrayals are, and giving a personal reaction. I don’t know if that is exactly what you were trying to do with the paper because I did not see any thesis statement. Even the most chatty paper ought to have some sort of thesis statement. It does not need to be blatent, but there should be one statement, early on, that sums up what you are trying to prove and how you plan to support it. All essays are arguments. You are making a point and supporting it with examples.

So when you crystalize (and can say in a sentence) what you are trying to say, try cutting out everything that does not directly relate to that. For example, your observation that “Toshiro’s understanding of American culture was presented as being rather . . . movie-ized” is interesting, but not particularly relevent. I have the same problems with my essays…I have so many ideas that I want to include them all in one essay. Remember, analysis, no matter how insightful, does not help your cause unless it is relevent to your thesis. You could probably write five hundred pages coming up with obsevations and conclusions about any given subject. The hard part is to write seven pages that present a good, well supported argument about a subject.

Along that vein, this paper is rather unstructured. While the lack of structure does suit your writing voice, it makes it hard for the reader to follow. A creative structure can make a good essay great, and it will also help you trim. We all know the old five paragraph structure, but not all structure is boring like that. For example, you might structure this chronologically, starting with the eighties, explaining the popular preconceptions of geeks, going to the early ninties, giving your reactions to portrayals of geeks, and ending in the present, with the realities of geeks.

There are a lot of ways you can go structure wise with this. Think of a structure as a jungle gym to hang your argument on. That jungle gym should be interesting (so that it gives an interesting shape for your arguments) but it should still be good and solid and easy to understand.

And so on to the conclusion. Remember, the rules of an essay are “grab their attention, tell them what you are going to say, tell them, and then tell them what you said.” Your conclusion should sum up what you said in one nice ball. It is much like writing your thesis over again. I like how you added that there were limitations to your argument. You might go further and offer some sort of prophesy about the future of geek protrayals. Just remember, you arn’t allowed to prove anything new in your conclusion. All the proving should have happened earlier.

On a general note, there was way too much plot summery. Instead of going on about how Carols dad brought a radio and that sort of thing, I would simply say “In one episode, Carol, whom the show portrayed as an incurable geek, ended up on a romantic date atop an tower. Much to our surprise, she wore a stunning white dress to this date, revealing herself to be a beautiful young woman with definate non-geeky qualities”. Granted, that wasn’t my best sentence, but you get the idea. We only need to know what is relevent to the thesis.

I would personally focus on three or so shows to analyze. Instead of looking at every portrayal of geekdom, take the few that you can make clear points about that support your thesis. It is better to have a few damn good points than a lot of not-so-convinceing ones.

Your tone is entertaining, but you might want to look out for condenscention (spelling?). At times you seem to talk down to the reader (for example, when you talk about “For those of you who didn’t pay attention in the 80s…” and use words like “figgin”. You can’t risk alianating your readers unless you are James Joyce. Remember, you want something from them. You want them to agree, and you want them to think you are a good writer. You don’t want to come off as self-important, as I think you unfortunatly do in parts of this paper. Think of yourself at a family dinner. You can be yourself, and you can be loose, but you also want enough formality that Aunt Ida doesn’t write you out of her will.

I know this has been rather harsh and all-encopassing critism. Don’t worry, your paper is a million times better than most of the dreck that students turn out. It looks like you put some work in to it, which is more than a lot of people ever bother with. I hope that you can fine use in what I have said, and that you can polish this paper into something that really shines.

7

Consider the points you are making, and see how they look in bare-bones form. I haven’t properly read your essay, but scanning it casually I see the following points, which I express here in an offhand manner. You, who have read the thing properly, may be able to insert more meaningful points:
I watched a lot of TV. The shows I watched were…
I used to think TV geeks were dorky.
Then I found out I was a geek and so were some of my friends, but we didn’t fit the stereotypes.
I started to examine geek stereotypes.
I saw a show that had something to do with this topic.
TV portrayals of geeks have developed in some way. Some examples are…
TV stereotypes are a bad thing.
The first paragraph could be reduced to a sentence, I think, and be attached to the second.
Probably each paragraph could express its point in fewer words.
Do the different examples illustrate different points, or do they just pile up? If they mostly show the same thing in different ways, let some of them go, or at least reduce some of them to single-sentence references.

Watch the cleverness. It can take up a lot of space without doing anything useful. Keep what you need to establish the mood, no more.

8

Here’s the easiest and quickest solution. Print it using a smaller font.

9

I loved it. :slight_smile:

10

Punha, you’ve already received some good advice here, particularly from even sven and Peregrine. This essay would definitely benefit from additional structure and brevity. You should also consider to create an outline to ensure that your thoughts flow as you intend. Then make sure that each paragraph concisely conveys your meaning, in much the same way your writing usually does on the SDMB. You may also review some of the writing that you admire here and in other venues and compare this to what you have written (Scylla, for example has a writing style that can convey a ton in a relatively short space). Finally, if you have the time, once you have finished your rewrite I would recommend to take your paper, throw it in a drawer for a few days, then re-read it to see if there are any areas with which you are not particularly satisfied.

I would echo what others have already said, in that you have many good ideas here, and that your writing has an interesting and original voice, but that it could benefit from reduction and polish. Good luck!

11

You have gotten a lot of good advice, and I’ll try to add only a couple of things.

I echo the earlier comments that you should put your conclusions early. From reading the paper, it seems that the point was to discuss stereotypes in audiovisual media and describe how those stereotypes affect the watchers. If those were not two of your points, you should take note.

I liked your first paragraph because it established your expertise to comment on the subject and explained your perspective. I got a little lost afterwards, though.

A useful structure for an analytical paper is to start with an introductory paragraph that explains why you are writing–what is the question you are answering. Then, answer it in a sentence or two. Summarize your reasons for the answer in a few sentences. Then give examples that illustrate the reasons. These can be a paragraph or longer and can be grouped in whatever way seems logical–for example, chronologically to show the development you see in the way the media portrays the archetypal geek.

It may seem stifling to be bound to a particular structure, but following a structure allows the reader to really see the creativity not only in the words you choose and the style of writing, but also in your thought process.

12

For all the reasons above were I your teacher I’d rip you a new one over this paper. Unfocused. Too anecdotal. Way, way too cute. You got the cute stuff out of your system so you can start over fresh.

I had a teacher who would send back a paper containing any personal pronouns and he was known to grade down if you used ANY modifiers. Successful papers were a little dry. :wink:

13

Read it three times. While I concur with dropzone that you shouldn’t use personal pronouns, that can make it too dry. Also concur that it’s too anecdotal. Is this supposed to be an opinion or position paper, or are we talking something with cites?

On the whole, I liked it, and it contrasted personal experiences with images in popular media well. You’re also probably one of the few other people who actually liked “Angus”, BTW. Last half hour is just such a great response to all the ugly-duckling stuff like 16 Candles-showing that geeks are the norm, not the exception.

My advice would be to go through, cut most of the personal pronouns, and definitely make it less cute. This reads like a discussion set down on paper rather than an opinion paper. Definitely cut at least one of your examples-I’m just not feelin’ the Carol Seaver stuff. In fact, that detracted so much from the overall paper that I had a hard time going back and reading it again.

14

Okay . . . addressing all the comments made here would take up all the time I set aside to revising the paper. SO, to be brief:

  1. Yup, I’m allowed to use first person. The model essays we read in class each used first person. So I’m not going to get my ass kicked for saying “I.”

  2. I don’t know how to shut up. Luckily I realized this a while ago, but it’s still hard to shut myself up when I get going. And my style is very . . . winding? My father’s the same way. I pad because I used to have difficulty meeting word length requirements (which can be a detriment to writing, if you think about it).

  3. I changed the font to Times New Roman 10. That “shortened” it by four pages, though I don’t know if my professor is going to appreciate that:-)

  4. This is for an “Advanced Comp” class. What this means is that this is the last class anyone HAS to take for English if they aren’t an English major. So teachers have to make sure people can write different kinds of papers (experience, analytical, and research) and read well. Were it for a film class I wouldn’t turn this in to be used as toilet paper. But in terms of (trying to) summarizing(e), I don’t think it was a bad initial try, and I’ve already taken out a page of summary (“Angus”'s summary got bitten in half).

  5. As for bringing aspects of my life into the paper, we’re told to do that. Part of the paper is introduction (I’ve been specifically told by my teacher to involve some of my own experience in the paper, for example) and part is evaluation.

  6. My thesis is in the last paragraph. “Now, I would be remiss if I stopped here, because there are some counter-examples to my point, which is that in audiovisual media (TV/film), geek characters have often been badly stereotyped and downright mistreated.”

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions, many of which I’ll use (and the ones I don’t use? Mostly because I’ll be lucky to be half-awake tomorrow.).

15

It looks like you’ve gotten lots of responses, so I’ll just stick to the technical ways to make it less. On long papers, things like this can add or take away a whole page.

  • Font size changes are too obvious most of the time, especially when a teacher is reading a whole stack of papers.

  • If you are using Microsoft word, go to Format/Font/Character Spacing and condense it by .1, maybe .2. This will save you whole lines in cases where there were only a few words on the line.

  • Bring the margins out just a bit. .05 or .1 here or there isn’t terribly obvious, but gives you a few more lines.

And when you use devious tricks like this, you aren’t forced to eliminate any of the writing you spent so much time on. :slight_smile:

16

I just wanted to say that that is alot of padding:)

That and you can remove all the things between ()

17

Sterra - just what I was going to say. 'Punha - try reading your essay without any off the stuff in paranthesis. Not only is it shorter, it’s also better. You way overuse them.

In an essay, if a point is worth making then it is worth making properly. If the point is tagential then scrap it.

An acronym that always works well for any written work: RAT FACE DR:

Read
Ask
Think

Filter
Arrange
Check
Expand

Draft
Review.

Read refers to reading the question to get an overview of the situation. Admittedly you have no question as such here, but you still need that overview of what your essay is about.

Ask refers to two fundamental questions: “who am I writing to?” and “what is my objective in writing”. Your essay particularly lacks focus on the second of those questions. This step should not be rushed.

Think is where you brainstorm to generate ideas. Your essay indicates that this is where you spent most of your time - it’s clearly a vital step but it’s only one of many.

Filter - Remove any ideas that are not relevant to this particular document by reference to the needs of the reader and the objective. Very few people give this step much attention. They are tempted to tell the reader everything they know about a suject, but if you do this the key issues may be obscured by irrelevant detail.

Arrange - Put your ideas into logical order. Skeleton plan, number your points in your notes, anything to help you arrange them.

I’ve always noted that Scylla is particularly good at these last two steps. This shouldn’t be taken lightly - it contributes greatly to his success as a writer.

Expand - having filtered and arranged the ideas, now you can start to develop the points by deciding what to write for each one. Start by concentrating on the points rather than the words. Make bullets that you will later turn into coherant sentences. Groups of related bullets will form paragraphs.

In other words, you should determine the point or related points that you wish to cover in each paragraph now. Your final plan will be an ordered list of paragraphs and their contents. By doing this you can avoid making two very common mistakes:[ul][li]writing strings of unrelated, single-sentence paragraphs[/li][li]writing about unrelated subjects in the same paragraph[/ul]Now you have a comprehensive plan for your essay.[/li]
Draft Write out full text. Remember to consider the reader’s needs in choice of style, tone and language. For heaven’s sake, don’t be rude, officious or condescending!

Note that this is the first time that we have started to write draft sentences. Discipline! How can you write before you know what you are intending to say?

Review - there are three reviews:[list=1][li]Review from perspective of reader. Does it meet their requirements? Is it written in terms they will understand? Is the language emotionally neutral and will the reader’s reaction detract from or further your objective?[/li]
[li]Facts. Make sure they are correct.[/li]
[li]Proof-read. Grammar, spellings etc.[/list=1]It is very hard to do all three reviews at once. Do them separately.[/li]
Here’s some other random advice, some of which isn’t necessarily pertinent to this particular essay:[ul][li]Signpost your paragraphs. Finish each paragraph in such a way that the reader knows what to expect in the next one. Start a new one for each new theme or idea. Use the opening sentence of the paragraph to introduce the idea. Don’t write too many single sentence paragraphs.[/li]
[li]Keep your sentences short, but mix up the lengths. Don’t write paragraphs that are too long. By hell, but Scylla is good at this.[/li]
[li]Keep the number of subordinate clauses to a minimum. Ditto passive tense.[/li]
[li]Start the sentence with the subject wherever possible. This is part of the signposting process.[/li]
[li]Do not waffle. Ever. Do not use ridiculous phrases when simple, clear words will do.[/li]
[li]Hit the nail on the head. Make your points precisely and accurately without being dogmatic.[/li]
[li]Bullet points can be very useful for relating several items. Do not overdo it though. Know what you’re producing, who it’s for and why. They may well, of course, be inappropriate in your essays but for many documents they make a helluva difference. Same goes for subject sub-headings.[/li]
[li]Use lots of space. Research shows that dense text is significantly more difficult to read and hence mark. [/ul]Finally, a conclusion or summary is key. Analyse, synthesise, conclude. Your reader needs to recognise the point of the essay. If you see them turn the page to look for more then you know that you have definitely not got it.[/li]
My interest in this: actuaries have to explain a lot of very technical information to people who have no qualification to understand it. As such, one of the professional exams is purely a communication paper - write a 500 word letter/document/report on a simple technical problem. Doing that exam was a real eye opener for me - I realised that I didn’t do most of what I’ve outlined above. Believe me, it’s well worth adapting your writing style to accomodate this approach. You don’t write for you, you write for the reader.

Hope this helps.

pan