Re: Editing Plan?
1) Alexander Bomoi Indikoi: We'll begin by taking a look at the first sentence in this item description.Originally Posted by The Wizard
When Alexandros' men refused to go any farther into the east, on the banks of the Hyphasis River in India, and he realized that he would be forced to finally halt his conquests, he set up twelve pillars to honor the Olympian gods for what they had brought to him so far.
Unless absolutely necessary, you don't want a sentence chopped up by so many commas. But the real problem is the section after the 3rd comma. Why? Let's read the 2nd and 3rd sentences:
Arrian states that, "Then he divided the army into twelve parts and gave orders to build twelve altars, as high as the biggest towers and broader even than towers would be. These were meant as thank offerings to the gods for having brought him victorious so far, and memorials of his labors."
What we have here is redundancy. The first sentence included some of the same information, and the endings of sentences 1 & 3 use almost identical phraseology. Sentence number four is grammatically correct, and the next paragraph is only partially visible, so we'll omit them from the analysis.
How do we fix this? Since sentences 2-4 are quotes (and thus immune), an editor would address the problem by slimming down the first sentence. For example:
When Alexandros reached the banks of the Hyphasis River in India, his men refused to go any farther into the east. Realizing this marked the end of his conquests, Alexandros ordered the construction of a monument.
(Note: It takes longer to talk about this than to do it, but I want you to follow the thought process.)
One other benefit of having a single editorial team is to ensure commonality in the spelling of names. In this case, both Alexandros and Hyphasis have alternate spellings, and the team could ensure that you stick with one. Case in point is the name of this monument. Should it be " Alexander Bomoi Indikoi" or "Alexandros Bomoi Indikoi"?
2) The Royal Makedonian Tombs at Aigai: As before, we'll begin with the first sentence in this item description.
The most important single location, in terms of their history and ceremony, to the Makedonians was the ancient city of Aigai, the first capital of the kingdom of Makedonia and the home to the burials of its kings.
A "run-on" sentence, as indicated by the three commas.
An important regional city from the Early Bronze Age, the akropolis there was the home of the first Makedonian royal palaces and below the city the royal tombs of Philip II and Alexander IV have been found, in addition to others.
Another painfully long sentence, also featuring redundancy (tombs/burials), and a name consistency issue (Alexander/Alexandros).
How do we fix them? Two possibilities. The first is to simply wordsmith a bit, retaining most of the existing info. The second would be to consult the original author to determine his desired "reader takeaway", and rewrite on that basis. Absent the second option, I'll take a shot at simple smoothing:
An important city since the Early Bronze Age, Aigai was the first capital of the Makedonians and the center of their history and ceremonies. The akropolis was the home of the first Makedonian royal palaces while below the city lay the burial ground of her kings, including the royal tombs of Philip II and Alexander IV.
3) Ruins of Babylon: We'll continue to utilize the sentence-by-sentence review approach.
Babylon was an extremely ancient and influential city, built upon the Euphrates, divided in equal parts among its left and right banks with steep embankments built to contain the river's seasonal floods.
This has nice structure, but could use some minor tweaking:
Babylon was an extremely ancient and influential city, built upon the Euphrates, divided in equal parts between its left and right banks and protected from seasonal flooding by steep embankments (levees?)
Sentence number two is fine just the way it is:
Destroyed and rebuilt several times, it was controlled by multiple rising empires and became one herself more than once.
Sentence number three has issues:
The city was built before the 24th Century and was the Hammurabi's Empire Capital that controlled vast kingdoms around it.
Would need to establish just what the author intended before touching this. On to number four:
But eventually it fell under the control of the Assyrian Empire, one of its former dependent states, from which it rebelled frequently.
Although it shares the word "control" with the previous two sentences, we'll let that go for now. On to number five:
As a result of yet another revolt, king Sennacherib sieged and destroyed the city in 689 B.C., its walls, temples, and palaces were razed to the ground and the rubbish thrown into the Arakhtu, the canal which bordered the earlier Babylon on the south.
Our old friend, the "run-on" sentence. The easy fix is to turn this into two sentences. Number six:
Its sucessor promptly rebuilt the city fearing the clergy, crowned itself there and made it its residence for part of the year.
Almost seems to have been written by a different person. I assume that "it" is a reference to Sennacherib's successor, in which case his name should be used. There's also a typo, and the structure is muddy. Number seven isn't complete, but:
Although it was sacked again later, it recovered independance after the fall of the Assyrian Empire and became once again major power......
Needs work - there's a typo, two uses of the word "again", and a missing word ("a" or "the") between "again" and "major".
Hopefully these examples serve to illustrate the benefits a dedicated editorial team can bring to the EB process.
On a side note - and this has nothing to do with grammar - using direct quotes from the ancients is a wonderful idea, and absolutely resonates with the entire ethos of the EB Project - i.e. painstaking historical research and accuracy in all you do. Therefore I would humbly suggest the use of direct quotes in descriptions as a running theme, to be used wherever possible. It's undoubtedly too late in the game to go back and alter everything that's already been created, but consider this a suggestion for team members who are currently working up new descriptions. One other plus from this approach - grammar and sentence structure is not a problem when you are quoting the work of others (i.e. "this is easier")
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