Revising with Williams

After reading Joseph Williams' Style: Toward Clarity and Grave, there are a lot of helpful tips for a Style of writing. I found a passage from the 'Admissions' link in the EMU Catalogs. This passage states, "Eastern Michigan University is open to students who have the potential to succeed academically as determined by a review of official high school records and/or college records. Admission to the University is based on a combination of factors including, but not limited to, the review of high school or college grade point average, high school or college curriculum and scores on standardized tests.

I revised this passage to state, "Eastern Michigan University is open to students who have the potential to succeed academically. This is determined by a review of official high school and/or college records. Admission to the University is based on the review of high school or college grade point average, high school or college curriculum and scores on standardized tests.

I found that the passage I chose to revise was unclear, it wasn't easy for me to read and understand. After I read it, I had to read the passage again because I couldn't comprehend the direct message. I used Chapter 2, titled Clarity, to help revise this passage.

I felt like this passage was making the reader work too hard, because we have to re-assemble and sort out the actions in our minds. This is discussed on page 18. I tried to fix this by separating the first sentence into two. I eliminated a few words, and felt like this was easier to read. I also eliminated words from the last sentence. I felt like there were unnecessary words in this sentence that only took the reader away from the topic. I made the sentence shorter, causing the passage to flow and easier for the reader to understand.