Revising an Ambiguous Newsletter Sentence
A student submits this sentence to a departmental newsletter: 'The instructor returned the report that the Delta Group submitted late because it was incomplete.' The editor marks it ambiguous and asks for a revision. The facts are fixed: the report was incomplete; the Delta Group submitted the report late; the instructor returned the report. The newsletter allows two sentences of at most 25 words each. It also requires the team name and the word 'late' to appear. A classmate proposes: 'Because it was incomplete, the instructor returned the report that the Delta Group submitted late.' The editor says this is still unclear. The student must choose a revision that removes the ambiguity without adding facts or blame.
1. Write a two-sentence revision that meets all constraints. Explain what structural problem in the original you fixed.
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Revision: 'The Delta Group submitted its report late. The instructor returned the report because it was incomplete.' Each sentence is under 25 words and both required items appear. The original problem is attachment and pronoun ambiguity: the because-clause can explain why the group submitted late or why the instructor returned the report, and 'it' has more than one possible antecedent. The revision places the cause next to 'returned' and repeats the noun 'report', so the reader no longer has to guess what 'it' means or which action the cause explains.
2. The classmate's revision still has an ambiguity. Identify it and explain why your version is preferable for a newsletter audience.
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The classmate front-loads 'Because it was incomplete', so the pronoun 'it' appears before its likely antecedent, 'the report'. Readers may briefly attach incompleteness to the instructor or the group, and the opening clause creates a garden-path effect. The revision is preferable because it gives the agent and action first, then places the cause immediately after the verb it explains. For non-specialists, repeating 'report' is clearer than relying on a pronoun, even though it adds a few words. The revision also avoids implying blame: it states the fixed facts without saying who caused the incompleteness.
3. If the editor required one sentence only, what would you write, and what would you sacrifice?
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One sentence: 'The Delta Group submitted its late, incomplete report, which the instructor returned.' This stays within the word limit and keeps the team name and 'late'. The sacrifice is emphasis and explicitness: compressing the facts into a relative clause makes the return less prominent than in the two-sentence version, and the sequence of events is packed into one statement. It still avoids the original ambiguity because 'which' clearly refers to the report and the cause of return is no longer expressed by an unclear pronoun.