Newsletter Editing: Three Sentences, Three Different Faults
Marcus is editing a paragraph for a staff newsletter and has three problem sentences:
A. "Walking past the new science lab, the equipment impressed the visiting parents." B. "Each of the committee members have submitted their report, which was due Friday." C. "The district adopted a policy it was controversial last spring, and parents opposed it quickly."
His editor wants formal, concise prose and has capped the paragraph at 90 words. Marcus is tempted to rewrite all three from scratch, but he has only a few minutes and the paragraph's meaning must not shift. The newsletter goes to families as well as staff, so tone matters as much as correctness.
1. Identify the fault in sentence A, explain why the original meaning is impossible, and revise.
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Fault: dangling modifier. The introductory phrase "Walking past the new science lab" describes whoever is walking, but the nearest noun is "equipment," so the sentence literally says the equipment was walking.
Why it matters: this isn't a style quibble - the sentence asserts something physically impossible, and readers stumble before they reach the point.
Revision: "Walking past the new science lab, the visiting parents were impressed by the equipment."
Test to apply: name the person or thing performing the -ing action, then make sure that same noun comes immediately after the comma. If it doesn't, either move the noun up or convert the phrase to a clause: "When the visiting parents walked past the new science lab, the equipment impressed them."
2. Fix sentence B. Decide whether "their" must be changed, and justify your choice on grounds of both grammar and the newsletter's audience.
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Fault: "Each" is singular, so the verb should be "has." The pronoun "their" points back to "each" as well.
Options and judgment:
- "Each of the committee members has submitted his or her report..." - grammatically airtight, but clunky for a family audience.
- "All of the committee members have submitted their reports..." - recasts the subject as plural so verb and pronoun agree naturally.
Recommendation: option 2. The meaning is identical, the agreement problem disappears rather than being patched, and it reads better to the wider audience. Option 1 trades one awkwardness for another.
Also flag: "which was due Friday" attaches to "report," but the writer may mean the submission was due. If so, write "the reports, due Friday" to remove the ambiguity.
3. Sentence C has both a grammar error and a wordiness problem. Produce one revision that fixes both within the 90-word cap, and state the rule you applied to the second clause.
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Errors: "a policy it was controversial" doubles the subject ("it" plus "policy") - remove "it." Then "and parents opposed it quickly" spends eight words on an idea that can ride along in a modifier.
Revision: "The district adopted a controversial policy last spring, which parents quickly opposed."
Rule applied: convert a vague predicate ("opposed it quickly") into a relative clause that attaches to the thing opposed, and let the adjective "controversial" carry what a whole clause was doing. Twelve words saved.
Check: meaning preserved, formality preserved, error gone. If Marcus has room left under the 90-word cap, this is the sentence to split in two for readability - but the split is optional, and the correction is not.