Editing a Magazine Paragraph under a Word Limit
A student drafts this paragraph for the school magazine's environment page. The magazine allows 70 words and asks for a formal but lively tone. Draft: 'The principal reason for the new recycling scheme is economical: it will effect the amount of waste sent to landfill. The council's principle is to reduce plastic. Students should bring there own bottles. The scheme will have a positive affect on the school's image.' The editor underlines four choices: economical, effect, there, and affect. She will accept only two corrections because the paragraph must stay within 70 words, and she asks you to decide which two errors most damage meaning. She also wants one replacement that improves precision without adding words. The deadline is Friday, and the page has space for only this one paragraph.
1. Which two of the four underlined choices should be corrected first? Give the correction and explain the meaning problem each one creates.
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Correct effect → affect and affect → effect. 'It will effect the amount of waste' means it will bring the amount about or produce it; the intended meaning is that it will influence or reduce the amount, so 'affect' is needed. 'A positive affect on the school's image' uses 'affect' as a noun; the noun is 'effect', meaning result or impression. These two errors matter most because they change the direction of the claim: the first can imply the scheme creates waste rather than reduces it, and the second makes the final judgement ungrammatical. 'There → their' is also an error, but a reader can still recover the meaning; 'economical' is imprecise rather than clearly wrong, because a scheme can be economical (money-saving), though 'economic' or 'cost-saving' may fit better.
2. The editor can accept only two corrections, but the paragraph still contains 'there'. Argue for or against fixing 'there' instead of one of your two choices. What does your decision show about editing priorities?
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I would keep the two meaning-changing corrections and leave 'there' for the next draft if space is truly fixed. 'There' is a spelling error that most readers will read past, while effect/affect errors can make the argument say the opposite of what is intended. Editing priorities should follow the size of the reader's misunderstanding, not the number of rules broken. However, if the magazine is judged on accuracy, 'there → their' is cheap to fix and should be made if any word can be cut elsewhere; the 70-word limit is a constraint, not a reason to leave a known error. The defensible judgement is: fix meaning first, then credibility, then polish.
3. Replace 'economical' with a more precise word or phrase without increasing the word count. Explain your choice.
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Replace 'economical' with 'cost-saving' (same word count). 'Cost-saving' makes clear that the reason is financial saving, whereas 'economical' can describe a person or device that uses money carefully and is slightly awkward with 'reason'. 'Economic' would mean 'related to the economy', which is too broad for a school recycling scheme. If the intended point is waste reduction rather than money, 'practical' or 'environmental' might be better; the choice depends on what the scheme actually promises. The edit shows that precision is about matching the word to the intended claim, not simply choosing a longer synonym.