Revised Paragraph

https://flic.kr/p/bxUYqm

If you want to be able to master a skill, you need to be able to learn the basics of talent; for instance, most people learn to ride a bike with training wheels before they learn to ride with just two wheels (if you skipped the training wheels- kudos to you). The same concept follows for editing a paper, or in this case, the Quick Reference Guide. Our first round of revisions consisted of mastering the topics and ideas that need to be addressed in the QRG. (I.e. What needs more development? Should there be more examples?) However, as the deadline for this assignment begins to loom over us, we must transition our focus into making our papers coherent. By that I mean we must focus on the three things we discussed in class on Monday- passive versus active voice, nominalizations, and writing paragraphs in which the subject of the sentences match the topic of the paragraph. To illustrate the change that should be made, I will first share a paragraph of my QRG before this in-class discussion:

"As with any controversy, there are individuals that have conflicting opinions on the subject; for example, while athletes feel these treatments are beneficial, physicians are torn on that same point, and on whether or not they are even safe. To illustrate, in a YouTube video presented by Dr. Lox [who is an expert physician in sports and regenerative medicine- see his website here], the topic of stem cell therapies are discussed. This video is a hybrid as it is both informational and commercial; he states, “There are case examples of athletes who aren’t able to return to their sports and after using stem cell therapy for failed knee surgery have returned to their sports” 5 and at the bottom of the description of the video, there is a phone number with a statement that encourages individuals to call and inquire about treatment for their therapies. So in a sense, his rhetorical situation is a mixture of two situations. While he provides the general public information on this treatment- he is also advertising his business, so he does not necessarily address any potential negative information on the subject."

My revised paragraph is as follows:

"Where there is a controversy, there are individuals that have conflicting opinions on the subject; for example, while athletes feel these treatments are beneficial, physicians are torn on that same point, and on whether or not they are even ethical. To illustrate, in a YouTube video, Dr. Lox [who is an expert physician in sports and regenerative medicine- see his website here], discusses stem cell therapies. This video is a hybrid in the sense that is both informational and commercial; he states, “There are case examples of athletes who aren’t able to return to their sports and after using stem cell therapy for failed knee surgery have returned to their sports” and at the bottom of the description of the video, there is a phone number with a statement that encourages individuals to call and inquire about treatment options. While his information is very useful for an individual looking into the procedure and suggests that these treatments are indeed beneficial, it also slightly diminishes his credibility as a person might end up wondering whether his true purpose was to persuade or inform. So, his rhetorical situation is a mixture of two situations, because while he provides the general public information on this treatment, he is also advertising his business."

The revised paragraph is an improvement as I removed the passive voice from sentences like:

• OLD: To illustrate, in a YouTube video presented by Dr. Lox [who is an expert physician in sports and regenerative medicine- see his website here], the topic of stem cell therapies are discussed.
• REVISED: To illustrate, in a YouTube video, Dr. Lox [who is an expert physician in sports and regenerative medicine- see his website here], discusses stem cell therapies.

Furthermore, I added a link to the actual video so that people may verify the rhetoric and our information that was presented within the source. The removing of nominalizations and passive voice, improves the clarity and coherence of the paragraph, as using an active voice allowed me to remove some of the wordiness from my statement and clearly present the information I needed to. Thus there is no "fluff" or unnecessary/unclear information.