Suburbanization Paragraph Revision

There are different ways to revise these paragraphs, but you should concentrate on the most important revision strategies—using active voice, getting to the point, avoiding nominalizations, limiting “to be” verbs, and making phrases and sentences parallel. Oh yeah, and the revisions should make sense. These types of revisions will be on your midterm and final exams.

Suburbanization Paragraph

Below I have the suburbanization paragraph broken down into its individual sentences. As a class, let's figure out what the paragraph is trying to show and how each sentence contributes to the overall paragraph's meaning. Additionally, which sentences do you think could be combined?

• Since 1945, suburbanization has been the most significant fact of American social and political life.

• The people responsible for the compiling of the 1970 census caught its magnitude with the observation that for the first time more people in metropolitan areas resided outside the boundaries of cities than within them.

• The 1980 figures represent a confirmation of this trend and a measurement of its acceleration.

• Moreover, the explosion of the population of the suburban areas has been accompanied by a marked decline in the population of cities.

• The result has been a steady growth of suburban power in American politics.

• The changing numbers have made its dominance inevitable, but the fact that the participation of suburbanites in registration and voting produced a much larger percentage than did the participation of city dwellers has resulted in an acceleration of the shift.

Remember, you can never completely get rid of "to be" verbs and prepositions, but this style exercise asks you to limit prose that seems to overuse "to be" verbs and prepositions.

Revision Suggestion

1.   Since 1945, suburbanization has been the most significant fact of American social and political life.

• Revision:  [Good sentence, but some may scoff at suburbanization.]

2.   The people responsible for the compiling of the 1970 census caught its magnitude with the observation that for the first time more people in metropolitan areas resided outside the boundaries of cities than within them.

• Revision #1:  The 1970 census caught suburbanization’s magnitude when it observed that for the first time more people in metropolitan areas resided outside city boundaries.

• Revision #2:  The 1970 census observed for the first time that more people in metropolitan areas resided outside city boundaries.

3.   The 1980 figures represent a confirmation of this trend and a measurement of its acceleration.

• Revision: The 1980 figures confirm this trend and measure its acceleration.

4.   Moreover, the explosion of the population of the suburban areas has been accompanied by a marked decline in the population of cities.

• Revision #1:  Moreover, suburban area population growth has occurred while city populations have declined,

• suburban area population growth: this phrase is called a noun stack, and noun stacks are often considered too clunky.  Also, having noun stacks makes your sentences noun driven as opposed to verb driven.

• Revision #2: Moreover, population in suburban areas has grown while populations in cities have declined,

• Better Revision #1: Moreover, suburban areas grew while city populations declined,

• Better Revision #2: Moreover, suburban populations grew while city populations declined, 

5.      The result has been a steady growth of suburban power in American politics.

• Revision #1: which caused suburban power to grow steadily.

• Revision #2: causing suburban power in American politics to grow steadily.

• Revision #3: steadily increasing suburban power in American politics.

6.      The changing numbers have made its dominance inevitable, but the fact that the participation of suburbanites in registration and voting produced a much larger percentage than did the participation of city dwellers has resulted in an acceleration of the shift.

• Revision #1: The change has made suburban dominance inevitable, but the fact that suburbanites vote in much larger percentages than city dwellers has accelerated the shift.
  
• Revision #2: The change made suburban dominance inevitable, but the fact that suburbanites vote in much larger percentages than city dwellers accelerated the shift.

Entire paragraph

Since 1945, suburbanization has been the most significant fact of American social and political life. The 1970 census caught suburbanization’s magnitude when it observed that for the first time more people in metropolitan areas resided outside city boundaries. The 1980 figures confirm this trend and measure its acceleration. Moreover, suburban areas grew while city populations declined, which caused suburban power to grow steadily. The change made suburban dominance inevitable, but the fact that suburbanites vote in much larger percentages than city dwellers accelerated the shift.

Word count: 87

Let's go over to the Guglielmo Marconi Paragraph.