Lesson #189 (Part 2): Edits to the exercise.

Our edited version. We hope you enjoyed testing your editing skills! Here’s our revised version: Marcus Doyle moves to extend the pretrial-filing deadline and respectfully states: On August 4, 2014, this Court ordered Doyle, under Rule 16(b), to submit a pretrial order before January 30, 2015. Although Doyle has diligently prepared for trial, he needs more time to assemble exhibits, examine the plaintiff’s exhibits, and prepare properly supported objections. Because the case is not set for trial until March 30, 2015, extending the pretrial-filing deadline would not delay the trial. Doyle asks the Court to extend the deadline to March 2, 2015. A proposed order is attached for the Court’s convenience. [96 words] A few notes about our edits. As we said, there is no one right answer. Some of our edits were made to illustrate various tips discussed in our earlier lessons and to give you the chance to put them into practice. We recognize that there are many ways to edit this passage—some, no doubt, better than this version. You can certainly further reduce the word count (but be careful not to lose or alter any of the original meaning). Here are the edits that we wanted to highlight:

• Removed legalese (COMES NOW; in support thereof).
• Cut wordy phrases (pursuant to; prior to; at this point in time).
• Replaced zombie nouns (preparation [two places]; extension).
• Hyphenated phrasal adjectives correctly (properly supported objections [no hyphen with –ly]; pretrial-filing deadline).
• Replaced sentence-starting However with Although clause.
• Removed flabby be-verbs and passive voice where appropriate (is required; to be delayed; but kept is attached because focus is on the proposed order).
• Removed unnecessary prepositional phrases (with his preparation; for preparation of; granting of the extension of; convenience of the Court).
• Cut throat-clearing phrase (It should be noted that).
• Made series elements parallel (assemble, examine, prepare).
• Fixed typos and other errors (August 4, 2014; plaintiff’s exhibits; convenience).

Below is the hand-edited page showing standard proofreaders’ marks. As you can see, neatness is essential. You want to be sure others can follow your edits.