# Examples — Editing and Proofreading House Style

# Contents

• Sentence-level pairs (pass 3)
• The hedge/intensifier cut list
• Complete worked example (four passes on one paragraph)
• Voice-preservation pairs
• Gotchas

# Sentence-level pairs (pass 3)

# The hedge/intensifier cut list

Cut on sight unless load-bearing: very, really, quite, rather, somewhat, fairly, basically, essentially, actually, arguably, it seems that, I think that (in formal prose), in order to (→ to), due to the fact that (→ because), at this point in time (→ now), each and every (→ every).

# Complete worked example — four passes on one paragraph

Original (87 words):

It is worth noting that, over the course of the past several months, our team has been engaged in the process of evaluating a number of different options with respect to our hosting infrastructure. Basically, after a really thorough analysis was conducted, it was determined by the team that a migration to the new provider would potentially be capable of delivering significant cost savings. The security implications were also looked at. It is our belief that this migration should be undertaken in Q4.

• Pass 1 (structure): recommendation last → moves first.
• Pass 2 (paragraph): one idea = "migrate in Q4 because it saves money and is secure"; evaluation history is background, compresses to a clause.
• Pass 3 (sentences): passives → active; "engaged in the process of evaluating" → "evaluated"; cut basically, really, potentially, it is our belief that.
• Pass 4 (mechanics): "significant cost savings" has no number — flag: [verify: how much?].

Edited (34 words, −61%):

We should migrate to the new hosting provider in Q4. After evaluating four options over three months, the team found it saves [verify: how much?] per year and passed our security review.

# Paragraph-level example (pass 2 — first-sentence skim test)

❌ Fails the skim test (first sentences: "There are several things to consider." / "Another point is worth mentioning." / "Finally, some context."): the skim yields nothing.

✅ Passes — first sentences alone tell the story:

Migrating in Q4 costs less than waiting. […] The security review found no blockers. […] The one real risk is the December code freeze. […]

If the skim summary and the document's argument differ, either the first sentences are weak (fix them) or the paragraphs argue something the document doesn't claim (restructure — back to pass 1).

# Voice-preservation pairs

❌ Voice flattened (over-edit):

• Author: "Look — nobody wakes up excited about expense reports."
• Editor rewrite: "Expense reporting is generally considered tedious."

✅ Voice kept, clarity edited:

• Author: "Look — nobody wakes up excited about expense reports, and that's precisely the exact reason we automated every single part of it end-to-end."
• Edit: "Look — nobody wakes up excited about expense reports. That's why we automated all of it." (rhythm kept, redundancy cut)

# Gotchas

• Editing quotes — never touch quoted speech beyond bracketed clarifications; flag suspected transcription errors instead.
• The 10–20% cut on already-tight text — if a text genuinely resists cutting, say so; the target is a heuristic, not a quota to fake.
• "Passive voice is always wrong" — no: "The suspect was arrested" beats "Officers arrested the suspect" when the actor is irrelevant. Cut passives that hide accountability, keep passives that focus correctly.
• Consistency traps for pass 4: e-mail/email, USD 5k/$5,000/5 000 $, Oxford comma on/off, capitalized job titles. Pick the file's dominant convention and enforce it; don't import your own.
• Grammar-checker artifacts — mechanical tools flag long correct sentences and miss wrong numbers. Pass 4 is human judgment plus verification, not a spell-check transcript.