Local Revision: Wordiness

This is the blog post where I will tear apart one of my paragraphs in the first draft of my QRG.

McPhee, Nic.  "2008-01-26 (Editing a paper)-31".  01/26/08 via Flicker.
Creative Commons Generic Public License. 

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BEFORE:

"Well, the answer to that question is not simple.  There are parents that are opposed to the required immunizations.  These parents think that the government is taking away their right to free and public education which is something that California highly supports. There are parents that do not agree with the part of the bill that no longer allows for religious exemptions.  There are people that oppose the bill because the personal belief opt-out is no longer available so they think that their individual rights are being violated.  Others just oppose the bill because they believe that vaccinations only lead to other medical issues. "(Moskowitz 3)

AFTER:

"The answer to that question is not a simple one. There are parents who oppose required immunizations. They think the government is taking away their right to a free, public education (1879 law). There are parents who disagree with the removal of religious exemptions for vaccines. Others protest SB277 because they believe their personal freedoms are being violated with the removal of the personal-belief exemption. However, some people do not support the bill because they think vaccines lead to medical issues." (Moskowitz 3)

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1. How is the rewritten section different from the original, from the perspective of my audience? Is it better? In what way? Is it worse? In what way?

I tried to be more specific with my choice of words as well as my syntax. So, from the perspective of the audience, I think that I'm more straight to the point with the information instead of rambling on about something that doesn't need to be so dragged out. I also included a link that brings the reader to the article about the free education law in California so it doesn't seem like I am just making up some information. Since there are so many different reasons why people oppose the law, it is necessary that the audience clearly understands the many different reasons. It should be easy to comprehend and remember the different reasons. The topics will be discussed more in depth once the reader gets farther into the document. I want to intrigue the audience without giving away too much information in the intro paragraph, so that they want to continue reading about the controversy and learn more in depth about everything.

I think that this rewritten paragraph is a much better version of the original paragraph. As I said above, I think it is much more clear and I was able to say the words that I think I was trying to get out in the original paragraph. I don't think that it is any worse. I would like to think that my editing only helped get the information across, and not confuse the reader more.