Sorry for the three days of postlessness, but school is so demanding sometimes. I only had two one-paged papers to turn in, but found myself overwhelmingly critical of what I wrote. Did it sound scholarly? Are there minor errors I missed? Does the thesis exist? So many damn questions to answer in under one hour of editing. Note to all: don’t major in English if you don’t want to write essays.

As tired as I am, all this work has led me to an interesting idea for a post. Since I’m in editing mode, I’d like to share some advice when it comes to creating an entire article or paper on, what else, comics. Though I don’t claim to be an expert editor (I have made some mistakes here and there), I know a few techniques that could help others with their writing. I’m not going to go over how to brainstorm ideas for a topic or the five paragraph rule. I’ll assume you know this already and if not Google.

It would be rude to edit someone else’s work, so I took an essay I wrote a year ago on manga as a force to be reckoned with… okay, I didn’t say it like that. You know what, just read the first part of the essay:

The popularity of comics may not have originated in the U.S., but the American comics have greatly influenced other nations into creating a similar style of their own version. Japan, for example, was greatly influenced through the importation of overseas comics and animation after the period of modernization in the late 19th century (Onouchi). With great interest, Japanese artists started to take certain parts of these art forms and adapting it to fit the Japanese culture. Soon Japan would form their very own comics known as manga.

Damn I suck! I can already see a problem with the first sentence in the intro. The dependent clause has nothing to do with the independent clause. The first part of the sentence describes the popularity of comics not originating from the U.S. (though I don’t remember what point I was trying to make), but the second is about American comics being an influence towards other nations. American comics and comics in general are two different things. Be very careful when it comes to generalizing. Be as specific as possible.

The first part of the same sentence still needs revising, so I’ll have to fix that up as well. Here’s what the revised sentence should look like:

The popularity of American comics has been a great influence to foreign nations and has led those nations to create an imitation of this mysterious medium.

Sounds better, even though I can’t really confirm if this is true. A thesaurus helps a lot. On to the next sentence:

Japan, for example, was greatly influenced through the importation of overseas comics and animation after the period of modernization in the late 19th century (Onouchi).

This sentence just needs to be re-arranged. I think it’s better to set the era in the beginning than leave it at the end, but it can still work there. The main idea of the sentence is present, but a bit of re-arranging may help get it some light. Let’s see if this sounds better:

After the modernization period in the late 19th century, Japan, for example, was greatly influenced by comics and animation imported overseas from the U.S. (Onouchi).

If you are wondering why I added the U.S. part, it’s to connect the first revised sentence with the second. The first sentence dealt with the U.S. as an influence, so the second sentence is an example of who the influenced nations were. Remember we are writing an essay here. Next sentence:

With great interest, Japanese artists started to take certain parts of these art forms and adapting it to fit the Japanese culture.

The introductory phrase at the beginning is not needed since the second sentence says “Japan was greatly influenced…”. Plus I used great three times. “These” is pretty vague; it could mean the comics or the animation, so I’ll have to be more specific. “Adapting” doesn’t sound like the right tense to use in that sentence, so change that or change the style of the sentence. Other than those, let’s see what we have:

Japanese artists took certain parts of both comic and animation structures while adapting the forms to fit the Japanese culture.

I decided to take out “started to take” since “took” was shorter and explained the action just as well. “While” was a better replacement for “and”, especially when dealing with verbs ending in “-ing”. And the sentence connects with the second sentence. Yay! Okay, last sentence:

Soon Japan would form their very own comics known as manga.

Before you start sending me emails please note I didn’t fully understand the term “manga” when I wrote the essay. I know it’s a translation of the word “comic” in Japanese and not a separate medium. Though to be fair, manga has come to be known as a separate medium from American comics. But even so, this is a good place to advise everyone to do the research carefully. Since my professor was new to manga, he was unaware of the whole definition as well. It helps to know whether your teacher or professor are well aware of the topic, because you can get away with a lot of gibberish shined in good rhetoric if they don’t know.

But since I have to correct the error, let’s get to it:

These artist would then form their very own comics exclusively for Japanese audience under the word “manga” (“comics” translated in Japanese).

I know a said “these” was a vague word in the third sentence, but it is also one of those connecting words that help connect a sentence with the previous one. Since “artist” was after “these”, and also in the third sentence, the vague word led to the previous sentence’s word “Japanese”. “These” = “Japanese”. It is also best to define foreign terms, since your audience (like my professor) may not know the definition from memory.

So if we put the revised sentences together, it would look like this:

The popularity of American comics has been a great influence to foreign nations and has led those nations to create an imitation of this mysterious medium. After the modernization period in the late 19th century, Japan, for example, was greatly influenced by comics and animation imported overseas from the U.S. (Onouchi). Japanese artists took certain parts of both comic and animation structures while adapting the forms to fit the Japanese culture. These artist would then form their very own comics exclusively for Japanese audience under the word “manga” (“comics” translated in Japanese).

Compared to the first draft, it’s much better. It makes sense. I like it. If you have any advice, or better corrections, I’d love to hear it.