Tighten This! Challenge Sentence 26 [writing/editing game]

Welcome to the concise-writing game, Tighten This! Here’s Challenge Sentence 26, courtesy of Greta Boller.

The adoption of a well-designed and well-managed continuous monitoring solution will transform the company’s static compliance-based risk-determination process into a dynamic process that will also enable essential, time-sensitive security information to reach organizational officials within a timely manner, allowing the appropriate cost-effective risk-based decisions regarding their operation.

Your revision: _______________________
[Scroll to the bottom and put your revision in a comment by Friday, Dec. 4.]

Tips:

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

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 last week’s Challenge Sentence, here it is again:

The line manager or a mentor should be allocated to each new employee to act as a guide and counsellor during the induction process so that new members of staff learn about the company and are given the necessary support and opportunity to put their learning into practice in the workplace.

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—before reading Ray’s or Marcia’s assessment) In weeks past I’ve cautioned against overtightening, of stripping essential meaning from a sentence as you work to make it less wordy. In light of that, my pick for this week might surprise you.

Sometimes, though, what appears to be meaning is actually circular logic.

This week we get to play the Circle Game. (Cue Joni Mitchell.)

Who, according to our Challenge Sentence, can be a mentor? A line manager, who’ll probably delegate the task to … whom? Well, um, to a mentor.

See the circular logic?

What does a mentor do? Acts as a guide and counsellor so that the new employee can learn the job. In other words, the mentor fulfills the dictionary definition of mentor. Another circle.

This week’s winning entry came from Richard Hamilton, who submitted it mere moments after Marcia posted the Challenge Sentence on the blog. Richard saw the circles—and he also transformed a weak, passive sentence into an imperative.

Assign each new employee a mentor.

Richard’s prize is a bronze statuette of himself standing, tensed, smartphone in hand, waiting for the next Tighten This! installment to hit his inbox so that he can spring into action.

(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—before reading Larry’s or Marcia’s assessment) In an ad aired long ago by one of the big antacid peddlers, we see a toon diner who has overindulged. He stands, he wobbles, he shudders; he turns green. If we don’t turn away, we see the letters B L O A T emerging and floating toward us from his distended abdomen.

More, even, than did that diner, this sentence needs Pepto Bismol. I happen to have some! Assign a mentor to each new hire.

Let’s see who else brought some.

Wow. Richard fired in his winning entry before Marcia’s e-ink was dry! [See the spreadsheet above.] Damian cuts it to three words! Daniel nails it in seven! And, yes, Marc, your entry kills.

Nice work, all!

Marcia’s Pick

(Marcia Johnston speaking—before reading Ray’s or Larry’s assessment) How far can we go in tightening last week’s Challenge Sentence? Since most of the words echo what mentor already tells us, most of them can go. Richard Hamilton nails this revision:

Assign each new employee a mentor.  [See the spreadsheet above.]

Daniel Lemke gets an honorable mention with this nearly identical revision: Assign a mentor to each new employee.

(But wait, you might say. The imperative mood—assign—may not fit the context. True. This game is impossible. Why not play anyway?)

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, you’ll receive an email.

Again, Challenge Sentence 26

The adoption of a well-designed and well-managed continuous monitoring solution will transform the company’s static compliance-based risk-determination process into a dynamic process that will also enable essential, time-sensitive security information to reach organizational officials within a timely manner, allowing the appropriate cost-effective risk-based decisions regarding their operation.

Your revision: _______________________
[Scroll to the bottom and put your revision in a comment by Friday, Dec. 4.]

Go!

Index of Challenge Sentences