Tighten This! Challenge Sentence 55 [writing/editing game]

Welcome to the concise-writing game, Tighten This! Here’s Challenge Sentence 55, courtesy of Larry Kunz, who discovered it last week while “having fun editing technical documents.” (You don’t have to be a technical writer—and you don’t have to know what the words mean—to have fun with a sentence like this. Give it a try.)

The adoption of virtualization technologies in the data center has opened the environment to a multitude of synchronization issues between the network configuration at the hypervisor layer and the physical network configuration.

Your revision: _______________________
[Scroll to the bottom and put your revision in a comment by Friday, July 8.]

Tips:

• How and Why to Play—even though it’s impossible
• Write Tight(er): Get to the Point and Save Millions
• “Write Tight(er)” Presentation

Last Week’s Challenge Sentence

In case you’re playing this game for the first time (welcome!), or in case you’ve had other things on your mind since you read the previous Challenge Sentence, here it is again. Thanks, Sherri Henkin, for sharing this with me while working through a draft of a résumé:

I thrive in environments where I interface with the public, learn new applications, develop artistic communications, and resourcefully bring projects to fruition.

Read on to hear thoughts from the game’s three judges: Larry Kunz (a seasoned technical writer and blogger who has participated in this game from the beginning), Ray (my husband), and me.

Larry’s Pick (Larry Kunz speaking)

It’s Independence Day here in the U.S., and our players got into the spirit by exercising their freedom—creatively tightening a Challenge Sentence that begged for some creative, free thinking.

Interface with the public. (Oh, how I hate interface as a verb.) Develop artistic communications. Resourcefully bring projects to fruition.

Which of this week’s entries retained the original meaning while improving clarity and readability? Practically all of them. Y’all set off some fantastic fireworks.

Joan and Danni had especially strong entries. I almost picked Jessica’s—I excel at learning, creating, and communicating until the project is complete—except that it led me to an unfortunate inference: after the project is complete, I shut down. Watch those unintended meanings, folks.

Tim Slager nails it with the last entry of the week. What else is there to say? Put this on your résumé, and you’re bound to get the job.

I like to meet people, learn, communicate well, and deliver on projects.

How did Marcia arrive at the translation formula in the spreadsheet above? See “Write Tight(er): Get to the Point and Save Millions.”

Ray’s Pick (Ray Johnston speaking)

Resumes pose problems.

First and foremost: Does resume take one accent grave or two? Or is it accent aigu? One of each?

Almost as important: The résumé itself is a cliché. Opening lines, especially, seem to have no purpose beyond making authors look like egotistical idiots. Can we do anything about that?

To tackle the accent problem, I went to Google and typed r e s. Before I got to u, Google knew what I was up to: resumes and cliches.

A fully clichéd first line goes something like this: Motivated and resourceful self-starting team player seeks employment with dynamic customer-focused yada yada. This week’s Challenge Sentence avoids the clichéd text and avoids the use of second person. What more can we ask? (I could ask that interface not be used as a verb and that resourceful not be further suffixiated into an adverb.)

*****

Another week with new players. 🙂 Yo, Rob! Welcome all!

Every entry this week improves on the original. A few stand out. Hat tips to Danni, Barbara, and Tim—nice rewrites. Elizabeth leads off with the winning rewrite, retaining the original text wherever possible and losing the verbiage.

I thrive when I work with the public, learn new applications, develop communications, and complete projects.

See you next week.

Marcia’s Pick (Marcia Johnston speaking)

I like all your responses from last week. Okay, I always do, every week. It does my heart good that so many of you play along.

I especially like Julian Cable’s note: “I would list separately some concrete examples of successfully completed projects, rather than just to make a general claim to complete them.” Sherri, I see you nodding your head. What Julian suggests is exactly the kind of editing you do with your résumé clients. (In fact, in editing this résumé, Sherri ended up not using this sentence at all.)

Since we don’t have concrete examples to work with, I’m going with Danni’s revision.

I thrive on working with others, learning new things, using my creativity, and completing projects.

Sign Up!

Want to play Tighten This! every week? Want a shot of fun while building your concise-writing skills with word-loving friends? Want to edify your inner editor? Subscribe to my blog under the heading “Sign Up!” (above right or, on a mobile device, all the way at the bottom). Then, each time I publish a post, including the newest game, you’ll receive an email.

Again, Challenge Sentence 55

The adoption of virtualization technologies in the data center has opened the environment to a multitude of synchronization issues between the network configuration at the hypervisor layer and the physical network configuration.

Your revision: _______________________
[Scroll to the bottom and put your revision in a comment by Friday, July 8.]

Go!

Index of Challenge Sentences

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