Composing with AI

Step Three: Revising for Cohesion, Coherence, Emphasis, Concision, and Shape

The diagnostics and revision of individual sentences to this point in the Williams curriculum depends upon the following layers of understanding:

In the next steps of the curriculum, the conceptual complexity increases, calling on students to understand and apply:

Taken in turn, the curriculum next asks students to graduate from revising sentences to revsising passages and paragraphs, to diagnose and revise for cohesion and coherence. Williams definitions of these concepts amount to:

Cohesion—the reader’s recognition of a topical connection between any two sentences, particularly in how one sentence ends and the next begins
Coherence—the reader’s recognition of topical connection across an entire passage/paragraph, particularly in how sentence subjects are consistent or related topics

Attention to these topics requires attention to the syntax of sentences beyond previous diagnostics. To describe sentences in terms of sentence topics and comments, students must identify not only subject and verb but think also in terms of subject and predicate. To think in terms of given/old and new information, students have to think outside the individual sentence, either to context or to the previous sentence(s). In all of these tasks, the work is decreasingly grammatical, but remains syntactic and is increasingly context/invention dependent.

The Williams curriculum teaches managing cohesion and coherence by managing what information is given and new, encouraging given (familiar) information to appear in the subject/topic of the sentence and new information to appear in the prediate/comment of the sentence. In the exercises, Williams asks students to revise to so that “old information comes first in the sentence” and to revise “to give sentences more consistent topic strings.” Chat GPT improved all passages on that guidance, but did not succeed in every sentence, and returned for the first time in these exercises a non-sensical sentence. Further, CGPT did not simultaneously revise for subject/verb as character/action, which we would hope students would carry forward with them from previous lessons.

When prompted to start sentences with given information, CGPT sometimes identified appropriate topics to use as the beginnings and subjects of a sentence to improve given—new information flow, but not consistently. In one revision—a metadiscursive passage, CGPT started by appropriately supplying an implied authorial “we” as the subject/character/topic: “In our report, we will highlight the components of Abco's profitability, with a particular emphasis on its advantages versus competitors, especially the growth in Asian markets.” However, that subject/topic was lost in subsequent sentences. When prompted to revise to begin with consistent topic strings, CGPT did not show evidence of being able to identify what a consistent topic was unless prompted. For example, the following revision:

Vegetation covers the earth, except for those areas continuously covered with ice or utterly scorched by continual heat. Richly fertilized plains and river valleys are situated in regions where plants grow most abundantly, as well as at the edge of perpetual snow in high mountains. The ocean and its edges, along with lakes and swamps, exhibit dense vegetation. Even in the cracks of busy city sidewalks and seemingly barren cliffs, plants thrive. Before humans existed, the earth was cloaked in vegetation, and it will continue to be so long after evolutionary history has passed us by.

Here, the revised subjects alternate from vegetation to earth and topographical settings, which does not demonstrate Williams’ objective of controlling for consistent topics. Interestingly, when I marked each instance of vegetation/plants with parentheses, and asked CGPT to revise to make those the topics, it attempted to do so, and succeeded in three sentences, but also provided the problematic: “In regions where (plants) grow most abundantly, richly fertilized plains and river valleys are situated, as well as at the edge of perpetual snow in high mountains.” This would seem to suggest that CGPT was unable to categorize topics as necessarily connected to the subject and verb of the root, independent clause of the sentences. It also was one of two, nearly non-sensical revisions in these exercises that CGPT provided, which students would be unlikely to provide as workable revisions.

Emphasis

The Williams curriculum shifts focus from the subjects/topics of sentences to their predicates/comments when creating emphasis. The principle of emphasis pairs with coherence. There must be consistent topics for a passage or paragraph to cohere. Where we have variation is in the comments or predicates of sentences, conveying new information. Further, in each new comment/predicate, there is often a most important or main new idea. Positioning that idea at the end of the sentence gives it the best emphasis. Exercises on emphasis ask students to control topics (find “appropriate” topics where only single sentences are available) and to emphasize the most important information by positioning it at the end of the predicate.

Chat GPT demonstrated several of Williams’ strategies in these revisions for emphasis:

Using the principles of Williams' book Style, please revise each of the following sentences for clarity and to emphasize the most important words: The president's tendency to rewrite the Constitution is the biggest danger to America, in my opinion, at least. A new political philosophy that could affect our society well into the twenty-first century may emerge from these studies. There are limited opportunities for faculty to work with individual students in large colleges and universities. Building suburban housing developments in floodplains has led to the existence of extensive and widespread flooding and economic disaster in parts of our country in recent years, it is now clear. The teacher who makes an assignment of a long final term paper at the end of the semester and who then gives only a grade and nothing else such as a critical comment is a common object of complaint among students at the college level. Renting textbooks rather than buying them for basic required courses such as mathematics, foreign languages, and English, whose textbooks do not go through yearly changes, is feasible, however, economically speaking.

ChatGPT
Applying the principles from Williams' book "Style," I've revised the sentences to enhance clarity and emphasize key points:

1. **In my opinion, the most significant danger to America is the president's inclination to continually amend the Constitution.
2. From these studies, a new political philosophy may emerge, shaping our society well into the twenty-first century.
3. In large colleges and universities, there are few opportunities for faculty to engage individually with students.
4. It is now evident that constructing suburban housing developments in floodplains has caused extensive, widespread flooding, and economic disasters in recent years.
5. Among college-level students, a common source of complaint is the teacher who assigns a lengthy final term paper at the end of the semester, offering only a grade without any critical feedback.
6. Economically speaking, it is feasible to rent textbooks for fundamental required courses such as mathematics, foreign languages, and English, as these textbooks do not undergo yearly revisions.

Focused on the emphasis position at the ends of predicates, we see that most sentences end with ideas that are arguably the main point to be emphasized. Exceptions are probably sentences 4 and 6, where 4 ends with contextual/timeframe information (in recent years) and 6 ends with a qualifying phrase rather than the main point. All sentences demonstrate revisions that employ the syntactic strategies Williams suggests for managing sentence position, such as the pre-core or contextual phrases before the subject in 1, 2, 5, and 6, and the “there are” and “it is” shifts in sentences 3 and 4.

CGPT’s revisions to whole passages were somewhat more problematic, but also point at the challenge of choosing what is a main idea to be emphasized, a challenge Williams repeatedly acknowledges in the curriculum. For example, CGPT provided the following revision:

CE: Please revise the following passage so that sentences begin with appropriate topics and end with appropriate emphasis: Athen's catastrophic Sicilian Invasion is the most important event in Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War. Three quarters of the history is devoted to setting up the invasion because of this. Through the step-by-step decline in Athenian society that Thucydides describes, we can see how he chose to anticipate the Sicilian Invasion. The inevitability that we associate with the tragic drama is the basic reason for the need to anticipate the invasion.

ChatGPT
Certainly, here's the passage with sentences starting with the appropriate topics and ending with appropriate emphasis:

Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War begins with the most significant event, Athens' catastrophic Sicilian Invasion.

Setting up the invasion occupies three quarters of the history.

Through Thucydides' detailed portrayal of the step-by-step decline in Athenian society, we gain insight into why he chose to anticipate the Sicilian Invasion.

The need to anticipate the invasion is rooted in the inevitability we associate with a tragic drama, which serves as its fundamental reason.

CGPT mistakenly places the Sicilian Invasion at the beginning of the text in the first sentence and also confuses the relationship of anticipation and tragedy in the final sentence. However, the larger problem with the revision is that CGPT never makes Thucydides the character and the topic of the revised sentences. By not having consistent topic strings, sentences are not coherence enough to have an opportunity at creating appropriate emphasis. It appears that CGPT is unable to successfully read the awkward original and draw from it correct revisions or grammar and syntax choices that correspond with Williams’ guidance on coherence and emphasis across whole passages.

Concision

Williams’ curriculum on concision targets sentence features such as metadiscourse, repetitions, and negation for students to diagnose and excise. Further, Williams demonstrates that sentences written in active voice (again, characters/subject and actions/verbs) tend to be more efficient than their nominalized or passive alternatives. Most of the concision curriculum then practices the basic revision steps paired with new diagnoses for non-essential phrasing.

Overall, CGPT does very well revising for concision. In most but not all exercises, CGPT eliminated redundant phrases. It fares perhaps less well identifying what might be unnecessary phrases, such as metadiscursives, and hedging and stance markers (e.g. the first is, the second is; or I believe, we can assume). Further, CGPT demonstrated the ability to revise negatives to positives successfully, and in one exercise correctly diagnosed a double-negative as the reason one sentence was more clear than another. Notably, even when prompted to employ Williams’ principles in revision, CGPT does not consistently provide the concision revisions with as active a revision in character/subject and action/verb as would be possible.

Sentence Shape

Shape is both Williams’ most summative concept for style and also that which is least concretely defined. He does provide prescriptions that we can take as adding up to a description (paraphrased). A shapely sentence:

1. Gets quickly to the subject, and then quickly to the verb and its object. It positions the subject and verb close together.
2. Gets to the point at the start in a short, main clause that states the claim.
3. After the main clause, it avoids adding a string of additional subordinate clauses.

Presumably, a shapely sentence also employs the efficiency and concision found in active sentences that are again written with subjects as characters and actions as verbs, and the diagnostics in the lesson employ that diagnostic and revision step. While these descriptions are developed in grammatical and syntactic terms, we can note that the challenges of identifying characters and actions, main ideas, and old and new information for emphasis still remain.

The following revisions from CGPT illustrate the challenges. Note, CGPT had already been instructed to follow Williams’ curriculum on shape earlier in this chat:

Please revise the following sentences for concision by eliminating wordiness and correcting interruptions: 1. TV "reality" shows, because they have an appeal to our fascination with real-life conflict because of our voyeuristic impulses, are about the most popular shows that are regularly scheduled to appear on TV. 2. Insistence that there is no proof by scientific means of a causal link between tobacco consumption and various disease entities such as cardiac heart diseases and malignant growth, despite the fact that there is a strong statistical correlation between smoking behavior and such diseases, is no longer the officially stated position of cigarette companies. 3. The continued and unabated emission of carbon dioxide gas into the atmosphere, unless there is a marked reduction, will eventually result in serious changes in the climate of the world as we know it today.

ChatGPT
Certainly, here are the revised sentences with wordiness eliminated and interruptions corrected:

1. TV "reality" shows, because they tap into our fascination with real-life conflicts and voyeuristic impulses, rank among the most popular scheduled TV programs.
2. Cigarette companies no longer officially maintain that there is no scientific proof of a causal link between tobacco consumption and diseases like cardiac heart diseases and malignant growth, despite a strong statistical correlation between smoking behavior and such conditions.
3. Unless there is a significant reduction, the continued and unmitigated emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere will inevitably lead to significant changes in today's world climate.

In 1, CGPT appears to fail to diagnose the subordinate clause mid-subject as an interruption, as Williams would have students do. The interruption further confuses the new information about reality shows, (reads as if we are fascinated with conflicts and impulses, rather than our fascination and our impulses). The subject remains far and densely divided from the verb. In 2, the subject and verb are immediate and active; however, the double-negative that confounds concision in the original remains in CGPT’s revision. Further, CGPT has confused the effect of a strong statistical correlation in this revision. Sentence 3, however, is a significant improvement over the original, with a helpful pre-core phrase and an appropriate emphasis in the predicate. There was perhaps an opportunity for a more active version that we would like to see from students, (“Unless we reduce our emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, it will lead to…”). Still, in CGPT’s 3. we do see revisions improving shape along the lines Williams proposes. On balance, however, the decisions required for shape appear too many and too complex for CGPT to deliver consistently, correctly, and sensibly.