If you read the post “Journalists unite, lend extra eyes” from a couple days ago, you know I compared concision editing to trimming a plant to clean it up. Today in James L. Kilpatrick’s column in The Fort Pierce Tribune, “The Writer’s Art,” he said we should “trim our shrubbery” when revising sentences.

The following are examples he cited from The New York Times:

“There is a lot of talk that Sen. Hilary Clinton is now fated…”

“There is a lot that Senators Clinton and Obama need to be talking about…”

And this is how he showed to concisely edit sentences and get rid of the “introductory there:”

“Some observers contend that Sen. Hilary Clinton…”

“Senators Clinton and Obama need to talk about…”

He also taught me something new: “a graduate doesn’t graduate.” The school graduates, therefore:

“…She was graduated from college last year.”

“…Girls have been graduated at a higher rate.”

And he featured something I learned from studying for one of my many AP Style quizzes in my journalism classes: emigrants leave their country for another, while immigrants have come to a country from their native land.

Note previous grammar tips from “The Writer’s Art:” “Grammar tip: referent pronouns made easy.”