The ATA Chronicle - November/December 2019 - 21

breath and clear the text from pompous,
irrelevant, and second-guessing ideas.
If something unnecessary for the piece
is truly valuable to you because of its nifty
wording, explanatory value for the point
you're making, or informational value for
your readers in the future, by all means
add it to your Rolodex of ideas. Just keep
it out of this piece.
Be ruthless when it comes to getting rid
of the extra stuff in your text. It pays off.
Your readers will read effortlessly what
you so laboriously created.

The key is to split the text
into issues and inspect one
passage at a time so you have
a specific focus.

MISTAKE #3: YOU DIVE IN WITHOUT
A PLAN
Of course, you need a solid rationale for
what to keep and what to let go. Like
your closet, your text might contain
pointless, ugly, or sentimental items
that you shouldn't be keeping. To make
your selection, ask yourself these three
questions about each idea, word, or
phrase you're considering:
1. Does it have a purpose?
2. Is it meaningfully beautiful?
3. Am I using it as a security blanket or am
I infatuated with it?
A particular item has a purpose if it
moves your story forward and adds to the
point of your piece. Beware of items that
speak to the topic of your piece but deviate
from your point. The point, or purpose,
of your piece is a stance on the topic. To
separate topic-related ideas from purposespecific ones, ask yourself what you want
your readers to get out of the piece.
Meaningful beauty adds style to your
text without sacrificing clarity. You don't
want to be dry and boring, or your piece
may go unread. But an overly adorned
piece will suffer the same fate. Superfluous
items, though possibly cute, accurate, or
comforting, will also spin your text in the
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wrong direction. This doesn't mean you'll
never meander. But if you offer a detour,
have a reason for it.
Check out these passages about
a mating hat that helped reproduce
endangered peregrine falcons in captivity
and save them from extinction. In the
first passage, accurate and interesting
yet completely tangential information
clutters the text. All the text in italics is
clutter. Also notice how redistributing
the information by placing the peregrine
falcon in the subject and topic position
(with a passive voice sentence) makes the
second paragraph clearer and smoother.
A ban on DDT saved the peregrine
falcon from extinction. An Austrian
chemist first synthesized DDT in 1874.
DDT, or Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane,
was later used as an insecticide.
Unfortunately, no one looked into the
side effects that ultimately caused an
environmental debacle. An ornithologist
at Cornell University helped save the
peregrine falcon as well. He invented a
mating hat. You can confirm this story
by googling it. Female falcons had
become scarce. However, a few wistful
males maintained a sort of sexual
loitering ground. So, the ornithologist
imagined, constructed, and then wore
the mating hat. He then patrolled the
loitering ground, singing like a bird
Revision
The peregrine falcon was brought
back from the brink of extinction by
a ban on DDT, but also by a peregrine
falcon mating hat invented by an
ornithologist at Cornell University. If
you can't buy this, Google it. Female
falcons had grown dangerously scarce.
A few wistful males nevertheless
maintained a sort of sexual loitering
ground. The hat was imagined,
constructed, then forthrightly worn by
the ornithologist as he patrolled this
loitering ground, singing, Chee-up!
Chee-up!2
In addition to your content plan, you
can dive in with a schedule in mind,
especially if you're tackling a lengthy
piece. You may assign an entire afternoon
to go through every nook and cranny
of your text (or any chunk of time that
makes sense for your project). But, by

the end of your first hour, you may find
yourself exhausted, possibly with more
clutter than when you started, feeling like
you haven't made any progress.
When you're working on a long piece,
make a timed date with your text. You
may only get to tackle one issue, and that's
okay. Maybe you'll choose to revise the
imagery you used to explain something:
Are your metaphors and analogies
consistent, or did you jump from baseball
to blackhole to ballroom throughout the
piece? Or, you may choose to review your
piece looking for reference mismatches or
making sure all the names and dates are
correct. Limiting your decluttering time
will allow you to focus on a specific task.
Revising one issue at a time may seem
like a small win, but it will give you the
motivation to keep going. You'll avoid
burnout and look forward to your next
text date.
I know your text is an organic whole,
and issues overlap. Keep them apart as
much as possible. Toward the end of
your decluttering process you'll get to fix
any holes that your compartmentalized
approach may have left behind.
Approaching ideas in your piece in this
way creates a mental shift that will have
you decluttering like crazy!
NOTES
1.
Marazzato, Romina "Editing
for Clarity Checklist,"
http://bit.ly/decluttering-checklist.
2.

Duncan, David J. "Cherish this
Ectasy," The Sun (July 2008),
http://bit.ly/David-Duncan.

Romina Marazzato Sparano
is a translator and educator
specializing in medical
localization and linguistics. She
is currently pursuing research
in linguistics, plain language,
and U.S. Spanish. She has worked with Fortune
500 and top medical instruments companies. She
has taught translation and localization courses
and designed and chaired the Master of Arts in
Translation/Localization Management Program at
the Middlebury Institute of International Studies
at Monterey. She volunteers in leadership roles
in several professional organizations.
Contact: romina@languagecompass.com.
American Translators Association

21
http://www.bit.ly/decluttering-checklist http://www.bit.ly/David-Duncan http://www.atanet.org
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