User talk:Tony1/Advanced editing exercises

Thanks to User:Gary King for developing the "Editing exercise template" used in the exercises. Tony (talk) 04:45, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Kudos

This is an awesome job, Tony. Can I help at all? For example, I'd like to add "date linking" to one of the examples.  :) --Elonka 20:47, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Elonka; however, I'm looking for constructive criticism. Does the colour-coding system work? Is Exercise 2c too big (seven issues, plus an eighth) for a single chunk? Is the formatting and structure of the exercises OK? Tony (talk) 00:39, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Exercise 2 - final note

I hesitate to criticise, but "this" is duplicated. Also, is "just" needed? Thus far, I have found the page and exercises useful. Thanks. Finavon (talk) 20:11, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Please do criticise! Fixed. Tony (talk) 01:53, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Example 3b

Nice work. Still, something seems to have been lost from Example 3b; I can't tell exactly what was intended. Only two of the errors are colored in the "where the issues are" section, and I'm not sure from the formatting of "the solution" exactly how it addresses the issues. I'm tempted to fix it myself, but I'm sure you already know what you intended, so I'll leave it for you.

There also seems to be some dangling test below example 4—another example or two in the making?--atakdoug (talk) 00:50, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Example 3a

Isn't steam locomotive also a double adjective (defining technology), which should therefore be hyphenated? I'd say it's a similar situation to post-war. Waltham, The Duke of 19:37, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

You could hyphenate it, or you mght not: it's one of those borderline case. Certainly American writers are less likely to hyphenate a borderline case. Tony (talk) 01:54, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

True. But clarity is always to be gained from such hyphenations, isn't it? Waltham, The Duke of 04:41, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Besides, the example in question is a British one. Waltham, The Duke of 04:43, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion

For the solution of the basketball rivalry bit, perhaps one could change "His friendship and rivalry with Boston Celtics star Larry Bird—based on regular games at championship level between the Lakers and Celtics—were well-documented." to "His friendship and rivalry with Boston Celtics star Larry Bird—based on numerous championship games between the Lakers and Celtics—were well-documented."

It tightens the wording and dodges the potentially confusing "regular games at championship level" statement. I might be wrong, but would including a "the" before "numerous championship games" merely be redundant? — Deckiller 02:13, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Got rid of that exercise; a bit cumbersome. Tony (talk) 14:15, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

1c, Ima Hogg

For their home, the Hoggs chose the largest lot, 14.5 acres (5.9 ha). Ima worked closely with architect John Staub to design the house so that it would show off the art the family had already purchased.

Which you have worked down to:

For their home, the Hoggs chose the largest lot, 14.5 acres (5.9 ha). Ima worked closely with architect John Staub to design a house that would show off the art the family had purchased.

Could this be further boiled down to:

For their home, the Hoggs chose the largest lot, 14.5 acres (5.9 ha). Ima worked closely with architect John Staub to design a house that would show off the art the family had purchased.

"Display" might also be better than "show off" (it depends on whether you wish to imply ostentation). Neıl 龱 14:02, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, but I think your suggestions change the substantive meaning. Tony (talk) 14:14, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Even the final "the"? Neıl 龱 16:36, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely: "the art" refers to specific art that the reader can recover not right there but in the preceding text, or from general knowledge—or it's specific because it's the art that the family had purchased; not any old art. To remove "the" changes the possible set of meanings. Tony (talk) 16:48, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

3d

Most of the sentence under 'solution' showed up green for me, I thought it was missing a </font> tag. I did a minor tweak to the color name and it appeared fixed, but only in the show preview of the section editor; it still appears broken when you view the whole page. it must be a tag left open in some section above that one. It looks like it's affecting 3c and -e as well, but not 3b, could it be 3b or -c?

Also, in 3d there's still innovative although controversial, innovative, is this just the tag placement? Thanks for making these exercises, they're a great help! I've never seen anything else like them on Wikipedia. delldot talk 15:14, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Fixed, I hope. Tony (talk) 04:54, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Example 3e

The numbering of the phrases in the solution of example 3e is off. What happened to number five? — Bellhalla (talk) 12:57, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

The new numbering system has fixed this, I hope. Tony (talk) 04:54, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

First SR Merchant Navy Class excercise

In the first SR Merchant Navy Class excercise, I think we can remove more words.

Incorporating a number of new developments in British steam locomotive technology,

1. a number of is unnecessary
2. new is redundant since a development is "a new and refined product or idea"

What do you think? --Ke6jjj (talk) 03:55, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I thought yes, you're right. Then I though, no. Please see the diff and tell me whether you agree. Tony (talk) 04:51, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

2.6 Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway

The section had "Exercise 2f" in the heading, and was the only one with such a prefix. I removed it. --an odd name 08:48, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Tony (talk) 12:39, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Problem with display

Not sure if this is just my browser or what, but in at least one section (Jane Zhang) the strikeout text doesn't show up as strikeout, it's just regular (ie, I'm seeing "During Throughout" instead of "During Throughout"). Is this happening for anyone else? Any ideas what might be causing it? rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 07:20, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

It happens to me, too. The most recent version that works fine is this one. The page has a lot of opened HTML tags to begin with, so they should be closed. Gary King (talk) 07:45, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you. Rjanang, You want to have a play with it? Looks perfect to me. Are you using Internet Explorer? I do these in Safari. Gary, maybe that is the problem. Can you give me an example of what an HTML tag is? I can then fix them. Tony (talk) 07:47, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

I strongly suggest you use templates. It's a lot cleaner, easier to use, and makes it harder to break things in general. I updated the first section to show how it's done, which you can do for the rest of the sections. I'll do a few now but it's 4 am for me, so I won't be up for long. Gary King (talk) 09:08, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

This is an example of an open HTML tag: <font color=maroon>This is maroon. <font color=black>This is black. This is incorrectly done; the <font> tags should be closed with a </font>. In fact, the page uses the tag correctly most of the time, but wherever <font color=black> is used in the code, it is used incorrectly like in my example, which is causing the page to appear a bit differently depending on the browser. Gary King (talk) 09:27, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

• Oh Gary, beyond the call of duty. Thank you so much. It looks like a truckload of work, and your explanation here was very helpful. After 4 March, when my work-hell ends, I'm going through your changes to learn; then, I'll apply them to my other tutorial pages. I owe you! Tony (talk) 09:33, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay, the entire page should be converted. The page loads much faster now than before; previously, the page took longer to load because of all the open HTML tags. At the end of the page, the browser had about 80 open tags; think about it like having 80 open applications on your computer. It slows down the computer. Closing the tag is like closing an application, allowing the computer to do something else.

If you want, even code like <font color=darkgreen>'''This text is dark green AND bold.'''</font> can be converted to a template, like {{bold and colored|darkgreen|This text is dark green AND bold.}}, but that's up to you. If you check the History, you'll see that using the templates decreases the size of the page; the page size for User:Tony1/Know your Manual of Style, which I just converted, has decreased by 33%. Gary King (talk) 20:26, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Suggestions re Wind power and SR Merchant Navy Class

(1) Under Wind power, don't both the proposed solutions treat the plurality of the subject inconsistently?

Solution 1: Three-blade wind turbines are the most common design for modern windmills, as it minimises forces related to material fatigue.

Solution 2: Three blades minimise forces related to material fatigue, and are the most common design for modern wind turbines (period missing in original)

For what it's worth, my solution was along the lines of, The most common design for modern windmills is a three-blade turbine, minimising forces related to material fatigue, though I realise this changes the meaning slightly.

(2) Can we really be sure that the second "British" in the first part of "SR Merchant Navy Class" is redundant? ("Incorporating a number of new developments in British steam locomotive technology, the Packets were amongst the first British designs to utilise welding...") To me the word excludes the real possibility that the new British technology had already been used in an allied locomotive.

(3) The same exercise promises some underlining which is not yet present.

(btw I also left a comment at User_talk:Tony1/Redundancy_exercises:_removing_fluff_from_your_writing.)

Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 14:21, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Adrian, I think I've now addressed your concerns, mainly through simplification. Please see what you think.

• diff
• Wind power
• SR Merchant Navy Class (2) Tony (talk) 11:11, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Tony.

SR Merchant Navy Class (2): Yep, perfect, I think this is much safer.

Wind power: At the moment there are two solutions that are identical – I guess you meant to remove the second. It still sounds a little odd to me: I'd have thought three blades is a design, not three blades are a design. But of course "three blades" has to be treated as plural in the first part. I'm no grammar expert so I'll defer to your judgment here. One more alternative: The most common design for modern windmills is a three-blade turbine, which minimises forces related to material fatigue. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 12:02, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, another try! Tony (talk) 14:06, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

The changes look good to me, both here and at the redundancy exercises. I like the commentary on theme. Thanks for responding to my badgering :) Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 14:40, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Excercise 6

Great job, I love doing these! For excercise 6 I thought:

"A protest group, was formed to resist the proposed construction, which attracted support from botanist and environmental campaigner David Bellamy."

I would refer to that it is logical that the group was founded after/because of the proposal, so "was" would be redundant, and with an extra comma, but fewer words the message still stands clear. (PS: you've written "font colour", with a u so the corrected text is black, not red) --Regards, Mottenen (talk) 20:23, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Mottenan, they're too hard for me, some of them. Seriously, I forget the mechanics of each after a while; perhaps I need to brush up on my editing skills by revisiting. Thanks for your comment and for picking up my engvar glitch. Retroactive inhibition, I think the psychologists call it. Tony (talk) 12:43, 17 March 2011 (UTC) PS I do think the meaning is different if "was" is removed. Without "was", the group seems to have self-formed; with it, there's some kind of agent that/who formed the group. Tony (talk) 12:48, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, maybe. It doesn't quite sound like that to me, but maybe I'm just not used to go that much into details when writing English. Anyway, it doesn't really matter, I just wanted to know if there was a specific reason you'd phrased it in that way, and yes there was :) --Mottenen (talk) 19:03, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

On: Ms Ima Hogg

With the sentence out of context as it is, it almost seems that it would be alright to say "to design the house" as the reader of the exercise might not know that this particular house "is one of a class of houses that could be designed for that purpose, not the only one." You could then come up with a solution such as:

• "Ima worked closely with architect John Staub to design the house to show off the art the family had purchased."

Which brings me to another point, in the solution given, I found two other words that could possibly be omitted: the "the" before "art", and "had" after "family", and came up with:

• "Ima worked closely with architect John Staub to design a house that would show off art the family purchased."

L1ght5h0w (talk) 18:50, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

HMS Agincourt

The (revised) sentence reads:

Since Brazil's relations with Argentina were warming and the country's economic boom was losing steam, the government negotiated with Armstrong to remove the third dreadnought from the contract.

Out of context, it's unclear to me whether 'the county' and 'the government' refer to Brazil or Argentina.

I wonder if something like this would be more clear:

While Brazil's economy was losing steam, its relations with Argentina were warming. This led the Brazilian government to request that Armstrong remove the third dreadnought from the contract.

I'm sure you can improve on what I've written, but I hope my point is clear. :) SashaMarievskaya (talk) 04:27, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

You're an expert! Thanks for picking this up. I'll change it now. Tony (talk) 13:50, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Exercise 6, again (David Bellamy)

Somehow the word "the" has crept into the current version of this example, as in "attracted support from the botanist and environmental campaigner". Is this intentional? I think it is unnecessary. Ke6jjj (talk) 21:42, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Ke6, thanks for raising this. I think the omission of the deictic "the" started in the US in journalistic and other registers, but that it's frowned on by US copy-editors in more formal text. I use it myself, and like it, but I'm wary in formal situations. Tony (talk) 09:57, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Quibbles

• "Montgomery's feat is often described as the most famous save of all time in an FA Cup final". I often see this sort of over-inflated wording. The meaning is no different if the sentence is changed to: "Montgomery's feat is often described as the most famous save in an FA Cup final".
• "Sunderland, a Second Division club at the time, won the game; this was mostly due to the efforts of their goalkeeper Jimmy Montgomery, who saved in quick succession two of Peter Lorimer's shots at the goal." There's redundancy here, too. All shots are at goal. So "Sunderland, a Second Division club at the time, won the game; this was mostly due to the efforts of their goalkeeper Jimmy Montgomery, who saved in quick succession two of Peter Lorimer's shots", or "Sunderland, a Second Division club at the time, won the game; this was mostly due to the efforts of their goalkeeper Jimmy Montgomery, who saved two of Peter Lorimer's shots in quick succession". The latter has better flow, in my view.

Given that the non-advanced exercises include work on avoiding redundancy... EddieHugh (talk) 14:12, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

And doesn't "In 2009, he finished the season with a career total of 215 goals, breaking Peter Lee's OHL record by two" contradict MOS:NUMNOTES? Maybe there's been a change since you wrote that one. They're interesting exercises – thanks! EddieHugh (talk) 14:25, 12 June 2019 (UTC)