Editing Lesson

One last call for clear writing before the new year

Thank you for reading Writing Hacks during this strange year. I’m grateful to all of you for subscribing, and I look forward to sharing more writing advice (and my Q&A column) in the new year.

I wasn’t planning to send a newsletter this week, but when the CDC announced their new isolation guidelines a few days ago, I clicked on a link to their press release and got caught up in some confusing prose that I wanted to share with you. The whole press release was five paragraphs, but I had trouble getting past the first paragraph.

Here’s the text of that first paragraph:

I had to read the first sentence several times, and I still wasn’t sure who was supposed to be isolating and for how long. I dashed off a tweet (“CDC needs an editor”), and I went on with my day. But I kept thinking about that confusing press release. The CDC website also contains some charts that are clearer than the press release, but many of us don’t get our information from the website. We get Covid information from the news media. And if the people who write the news rely on a confusing press release for information, then we may not get reliable information.

It’s easy to say a piece of writing is unclear (as I did with my hasty tweet), but it’s harder to identify exactly what is making the writing unclear. So I decided to break down what’s wrong with that paragraph and then try to explain the edits. You can see my edited version below. (I highlighted text I kept in yellow. I crossed out what I cut. I highlighted in green text that I moved from where it was in the original. I put words that I added in red.)

So what did I do? And more important, what strategies did I use that you can apply to your own writing?

1) I cut multiple clauses in the first sentence and got right to the point.

Original first sentence: Given what we currently know about COVID-19 and the Omicron variant, CDC is shortening the recommended time for isolation from 10 days for people with COVID-19 to 5 days, if asymptomatic, followed by 5 days of wearing a mask when around others.

It’s easy to get lost in a sentence with multiple clauses. If you are writing to communicate important information, the first sentence should get right to the point and be easy to follow.

In my version, readers get the most important information in the first sentence, and the details come later: Given what we currently know about COVID-19 and the Omicron variant, CDC is shortening the recommended time for isolation for people with COVID-19.

This isn’t the only possible edit for that sentence, but it does the job of getting us right to the information that we need to know: CDC is changing the recommended isolation time.

2) I cut the repetition. The first and third sentences of the original paragraph have a few differences, but they contain the same information about isolation and masking. We don’t need that information twice; we need one clear version of the guidance.

Original first sentence (with overlap in bold):

Given what we currently know about COVID-19 and the Omicron variant, CDC is shortening the recommended time for isolation from 10 days for people with COVID-19 to 5 days, if asymptomatic, followed by 5 days of wearing a mask when around others.

Original third sentence (with overlap in bold):

Therefore, people who test positive should isolate for 5 days and, if asymptomatic at that time, they may leave isolation if they can continue to mask for 5 days to minimize the risk of infecting others.

The third sentence offers a clearer version of the guidance than the first sentence. If you catch yourself writing two versions of the same sentence, look for the clearest version (or a combination of the two) and cut the overlap. In the green sentences above, I tried to make the point once that isolation time is cut from 10 to 5 days if people are asymptomatic at 5 days: People who test positive should isolate for 5 days. They may then leave isolation if they are asymptomatic and can continue to mask for 5 days.

3) I cut unnecessary words.

In my version, I cut “generally” since it adds no new information to the sentence. We have already been told that the “majority” of transmission occurs in those first few days. (I’ll get to why I cut “early in the course” below.)

The change is motivated by science demonstrating that the majority of SARS-CoV-2 transmission occurs early in the course of illness, generally in the 1-2 days prior to onset of symptoms and the 2-3 days after.

4) I cut words that were implied by other words.

We don’t need to know that transmission occurs “early in the course of illness” and also that it occurs “in the 1-2 days prior to onset of symptoms and the 2-3 days after.” That “early in the course of illness” is just a general version of the more specific information that follows—and the “early” is implied by the “1-2 days prior to the onset of symptoms and the 2-3 days after.”

In the original, we’re told that people can leave isolation “if they can continue to mask to minimize the risk of infecting others.” At this point in the pandemic, that reason for masking seems implied since we know you are not masking to protect yourself when you already have Covid. On the other hand, I think you could argue that it’s worth keeping “minimize the risk” in the final version to remind people of why they are masking. You don’t have to cut everything that you can possibly cut when you’re editing. But when something you’re writing is hard to read, look for words implied by other words and cut what you don’t need.

I’d love to hear your suggestions for other edits we could make to this paragraph that I didn’t make here. Here’s one more from me: I’m not a fan of “the change is motivated by science,” both because of the passive voice (the press release begins with “we,” so why not continue to take responsibility for making the change?), and the vague wording of “motivated by science.” I’d vote to replace that with something like “We have changed the guidance because…” But, as I’ve said before, passive voice allows us to distance ourselves from an action, and that may have been the goal here.

Please share your suggestions for other edits in the comments or by hitting reply on this email. In the meantime, I’m sending you my best wishes for a peaceful and healthy 2022! May we have better public health and better public health writing in the new year.