Please check your work

As a sort of palate cleanser, I am focusing today on the first two grafs of yesterday's New York Times editorial, headlined "Democrat or Republican, you probably love the post office." It is also likely a reflection of having a strong editing process in place (to avoid silly typos).

Last year, in the midst of a presidential election campaign and a pandemic, the U.S. Postal Service was politicized by President Donald Trump and his administration as had never been done before. Critics accused the postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, of making changes to mail delivery to increase Mr. Trump’s chances of re-election, a charge he vehemently denied.

This year, the Postal Service has returned to its traditional role of being the one thing in Washington that Democrats and Republicans can reliably agree on. It is heartening to see lawmakers from both parties lining up behind the Postal Service Reform Act of 2021 — legislation introduced in the Senate and House that would help bring the mail into the 21st century.

I will admit that leading off with "last year" is not promising -- oh, great, OLD news! -- but the rest of the graf provides needed context for what the editorial writer really wants to highlight: a proposed piece of legislation that looks promising.

Some would point out that the rhetorical structure of the two grafs that pairs "last year" and "this year" makes up for those rather listless phrases. I suppose little harm would be done by simply deleting those two-word phrases in terms of information, but that contrast is worth pointing out.

An editor might choose to delete "last year" but keep "this year," reasoning that the contrast remains. That's the thing about editing: it's all about choices. What to leave in. What to take out. What to restate. What to expand upon.

One part of this introduction ("lead" or "lede" in journalism jargon) that impressed me the most was the inclusion of a link to that proposed legislation. Arguments benefit from tighter focus, and instead of simply bemoaning the slow erosion of mailed letters in favor of electronic communication, here the writer can focus on some specifics. That focus also answers the reader question, "Why am I reading this right now?"

One thing that seems obvious is that the writer of this editorial has total command of the language and is not intimidated by complex sentences and tagging those sentences with important qualifications (like "a charge he vehemently denied"). 

One of the comments I most often seem to type on student essays is, "Slow down and re-read." We type slower than we can think and often end up with something on the screen that we can easily correct or fine-tune. But if we are in a panic to get something posted at the last moment -- or simply because we hate writing so much that our main goal is to stop writing -- those easy fixes don't get made and then become distractions for the reader.

The difference between professional writers and amateurs often boils down to a willingness to take one more look at the prose before hitting send. I know that oversimplifies a bit, but it's certainly the easiest change in our writing habits to make.