The Paramedic Method for Revising Sentences

The Paramedic Method for Revising Your Sentences

It would be absurd to propose that we ought to rid Brigham Young of ice entirely, especially in this freakish year of snow. It is reasonable and wise however, to isolate these hazards where possible to allow safe passage to our patrons. For this same reason we do not allow strange animals to roam free on campus that would endanger us such as the wild mountain lion from which we take our name.

1. Bold all prepositional phrases (as, at, in, to, for, from, over, on, to, with, etc.)

It would be absurd to propose that we ought to rid Brigham Young of ice entirely, especially in this freakish year of snow. It is reasonable and wise however, to isolate these hazards where possible to allow safe passage to our patrons. For this same reason we do not allow strange animals to roam free on campus that would endanger us such as the wild mountain lion from which we take our name.

2. Bold all “to be” forms (am, is, was, were, be, being, been)

It would be absurd to propose that we ought to rid Brigham Young of ice entirely, especially in this freakish year of snow. It is reasonable and wise however, to isolate these hazards where possible to allow safe passage to our patrons. For this same reason we do not allow strange animals to roam free on campus that would endanger us such as the wild mountain lion from which we take our name.

3. Bold all nominalizations (verbs hiding as nouns, often spotted with suffixes like –ing, –tion, -ment, -ence, etc.) and write possible actions after them

It would be absurd to propose that we ought to rid Brigham Young of ice entirely, especially in this freakish year of snow. It is reasonable (reason) and wise however, to isolate these hazards where possible to allow safe passage to our patrons. For this same reason we do not allow strange animals to roam free on campus that would endanger us such as the wild mountain lion from which we take our name.

4. 4. Find the actor and the action, & 5. Revise the sentence.

An absurd proposal is that we ought to rid Brigham Young of ice entirely, especially in this freakish year of snow. It is reasonable and wise that these hazards are isolated where possible; allowing our patrons safe passage. By reason we do not allow strange animals to roam free on campus that would endanger us like our self-named mountain lion.