Lesson video

Hi everyone, and welcome to our lesson today.

My name is Ms. Mullins, and today we're going to be doing an editing lesson.

So let's get started.

In today's lesson, you'll be editing the recount paragraph from your journalistic report.

Here are some key words we're going to use.

Editing.

Grammar.

Punctuation.

Sentence structure.

Vocabulary.

Well done.

Editing is the process of improving writing to improve text flow and overall quality.

Grammar is the set of rules that govern a language.

Punctuation is a set of standardised symbols and marks used in written language to structure sentences.

Sentence structure is the way that words are arranged within sentences to convey meaning.

Vocabulary is the language choices made by the writer.

In our lesson today, we are going to be editing the first recount paragraph of a journalistic report about the Titanic.

Firstly, we're going to be editing our punctuation, then we'll edit sentence structure, and finally we'll be editing our vocabulary and our spelling.

Editing is the process of making changes to improve writing, to ensure text flow and overall quality.

When you edit, you decide what you'll change and what you'll keep the same.

Even really successful writers need to edit their work, and this is just another part of the writing process.

Editing does not mean rewriting everything again.

It's about being very selective with what you want to improve.

The job of an editor is to do all of these things.

We check for mistakes in punctuation, we make improvements to our sentence structure, and then we make improvements in our language choices.

In this lesson, we are going to be editors.

Pause the video while you tick which of these involves the editing process.

Well done if you spotted that editing is the process of making improvements in language choices, and making improvements to sentence structure.

It does not involve rewriting a whole piece of text or only correcting our mistakes, because we can always build on extra ideas to develop our writing further.

When we edit punctuation, we check from missing or incorrectly used capital letters, full stops, commas, brackets.

There are some punctuation mistakes in my sentence below, and I wonder whether you can spot them.

Let's begin by reading this sentence together.

You'll probably notice that there is no punctuation in it whatsoever.

"Titanic, which was constructed by White Star Line at the Harland and Wolff Shipyard in Belfast, was designed by Thomas Anderson, a leading marine engineer." Okay, so first of all, we've gotta fix our missing capital letters.

There are a lot of capital letters in this sentence.

Firstly, we always use a capital letter to start a sentence, but there also are loads of proper nouns in this sentence that require capital letters.

So White Star Line, Harland and Wolff Shipyard, Belfast, Thomas Anderson, and Titanic.

All of these words need capitals.

We also need a full stop.

This is all one sentence, so we just need a full stop at the end.

Now, I wonder whether you can spot the missing commas.

"Titanic, which was constructed by White Star Line at the Harland and Wolff Shipyard in Belfast, was designed by Thomas Anderson, a leading marine engineer." In this sentence, I've added in commas to go around my relative clause.

Remember, when we use a relative clause, we can use a pair of commas to separate the relative clause from the main clause in the rest of the sentence.

And finally, brackets.

Now, we know that brackets can be used to demarcate parenthesis or additional information.

I wonder whether you can spot the parenthesis in this sentence.

Well done if you spotted that "A leading marine engineer" is the parenthesis in this sentence.

It's extra information we can give our reader to tell our reader who Thomas Andrews is, and we demarcate that extra information using a pair of brackets.

Well done, and thank you for your help with that.

Correct the punctuation mistakes in this sentence.

Let's read it through together.

"The vast steam-powered ship, which accommodates approximately 2000 people on board, including passengers and crew, took three years to complete." Pause the video now while you correct the punctuation mistakes in this sentence.

Well done, everybody, if you rewrote the sentence like this.

So we need a capital letter for the start of the sentence.

There's no other proper nouns in this sentence, so we don't need any other capitals.

We obviously need a full stop at the end.

We needed a pair of commas around our "which" relative clause.

So comma, "Which accommodates approximately 2000 people on board, including passengers and crew" comma.

And we also needed the parenthesis, the brackets around the parenthesis for "including passengers and crew." Well done if you spotted that that relative clause also involved some parenthesis there.

Now, let's talk a little bit more about commas.

Commas have several functions.

Let's read this sentence together.

"Although the majority of people on board will be passengers, up to 900 crew with roles including cleaning, entertainment and post will also travel on the ship.

The staff, who have reportedly been trained to the highest standards, will live in accommodation on the bottom deck." Now, if we count it up here, we have got one, two, three, four different commas.

Here we've got a comma to separate the common nouns in a list.

Here we have a comma after an adverbial subordinate clause.

And here we have a pair of commas around a relative clause.

So we can see in these two sentences, we've got commas for three different functions.

We only use a comma when we know the rule.

That helps us to use them correctly.

Pause the video now while you decide when are commas used.

Well done if you spotted that commas are used to separate a subordinate clause from a main clause, they're used after a fronted adverbial, and they can also be used to separate the items in a list.

When you take a pause in a sentence is not a rule specifically for commas.

Other punctuation could be used here instead, so this is not a comma rule.

Now you're going to edit the punctuation in the recount section of your journalistic report.

We've written the first paragraph of our recount section already.

That's what we're going to edit today.

When we're editing for punctuation, we should check from missing or incorrectly used capital letters, full stops, commas, and brackets.

Now you're going to complete your task.

You've either got a choice, you can edit the punctuation in your recount section, or you can edit my writing instead.

Use the checklist on the right hand side of the screen to help you though.

So have you checked for missing or incorrectly used capital letters, missing or incorrectly, useful stops, missing or incorrectly used commas, or missing or incorrectly used brackets? Pause the video now while you complete your task.

Great work, everyone.

Thank you for all of your help.

And if you corrected my writing, here are the punctuation mistakes.

So remember, you are only looking at punctuation.

So Thomas Andrews is a proper noun, so it needed a capital.

We needed the second bracket in the parenthesis.

We also needed the second comma around the "which" relative clause.

And White Star Line and Belfast also needed proper, they're also proper nouns, so they needed capital letters.

And "whilst" was the start of a new sentence, so it needed a capital W.

And again, I'd made the same mistake where I'd only use one bracket around the parenthesis for the Commodore of White Star Lines.

Thank you for adding that in.

And "Whilst Andrew's innovative engineering has received much praise on the global stage" comma.

This is because we needed that comma there to separate that adverbial subordinate clause from the rest of the sentence.

And of course, we needed a full stop at the end for the final sentence.

Thank you so much for your help with that.

Now this brings us on to the second part of our lesson where we're editing our sentence structure.

When we edit sentence structure, we make changes to the way sentences are constructed, so that we can improve text flow.

When editing sentence structure, we should check for missing words, that our writing makes sense, and that our writing is cohesive.

True or false? Text cohesion refers to the flow of a text.

It helps to keep the reader engaged and achieve the text's purpose.

Pause the video while you decide.

Well done if you spotted that this is true.

Now, read the two possible justifications and pause the video while you decide how to justify your answer.

Brilliant work, everyone.

Well done if you spotted that.

We achieve text cohesion through using fronted adverbials, subject specific vocabulary, and a range of sentence types.

When we're editing sentence structure, we check for all of these things, missing words, that our writing makes sense, and that our writing is cohesive.

Let's start by reading my opening paragraph from my journalistic report.

Let's read it through together.

"RMS Titanic Departs Southampton Docks.

At precisely 12 noon on 10th of April, Titanic departed from Southampton docks.

As the vessel was boarded passengers and crew, hundreds of excited onlookers gathered at the quayside to wave the ship off.

Hysteria filled the air as the crowd revelled in this momentous occasion.

The Titanic is on route to Cobh, Ireland.

It will collect additional passengers before proceeding to its final destination, New York City, USA." You might have spotted that that didn't sound completely cohesive, and there were a few things or words missing.

I have a missing word between boarded and passengers, and poor cohesion between my third and my fourth sentence, and another missing word between "Ireland" and "it." Now let's reread this piece of writing now that I've made some edits.

"At precisely 12 noon on the 10th of April, Titanic departed from Southampton docks.

As the vessel was boarded by passengers and crew, hundreds of excited onlookers gathered at the quayside to wave the ship off." There's my passive voice in that sentence.

"Hysteria filled the air as the crowd revelled in this momentous occasion.

Currently, the Titanic is on route to Cobh, Ireland, where it will collect additional passengers before proceeding to its final destination, New York City, USA." By adding that fronted adverbial of time "currently," I've made my writing much more cohesive.

Now, you are going to edit the sentence structure in the recount section of your journalistic report.

When you're editing your sentence structure, you should check for missing words, that your writing makes sense, and that your writing is cohesive.

And also, as I just showed in my example, that you have used passive voice correctly.

So making sure that you've not missed out those words like "by," where these are really, really important to help your passive voice sentence structures make sense.

So now it's time for your task where you are going to either edit the sentence structure of your recount section in your own writing, or you can use my writing to edit instead.

Use the checklist on the right hand side to help you, and pause the video while you do that.

Well done everyone, and thank you so much for all of your hard work.

If you corrected or edited my sentence structure in my recount, here are my examples, or here are the areas that you will have spotted.

So, "The vast ocean liner is allegedly the largest, safest, and most luxurious ship of all time.

She was built by White Star Line." So again, that word "by" is really essential for getting that passive voice correctly into your sentences.

"And is designed to transport passengers and cargo across the Atlantic." So using that coordinating conjunction "and," I've been able to link those two sentences together and make my writing a bit more cohesive.

"The vessel, which was designed by Thomas Andrews," so I've reframed that sentence to turn it into a which relative clause, "has been described by many as 'a miracle of modern marine engineering.

' Before his retirement," so I've added that adverbial subordinate clause in, "the ship will be commanded by Captain E.

Smith." So by varying my sentence structures, adding in some missing words, and also opening my sentences in different ways, I've made my writing flow much more clearly, and it also makes much more sense.

Now this brings us onto the final stage of our lesson today where we'll be editing our vocabulary and our spelling.

When we edit vocabulary and spelling, we check for all of these: a variety of words and phrases to describe the subject.

So we don't want to repeat the same language choices over and over again, otherwise it gets a bit boring for our reader.

An appropriate tone.

We know that our journalistic report is very formal, so we need to maintain that formality the whole way through our report.

Spelling accuracy.

And appropriate relative pronouns.

Let's read through my sentences here together.

"Titanic is a gigantic steam-powered vessel, who was constructed in Belfast, and is designed to transport passengers and cargo across the Atlantic.

Titanic's maiden voyage began at Southampton docks and it is destined for New York City." You might already have spotted some vocabulary and spelling mistakes in these sentences.

Firstly, the word "gigantic" is way too informal for a journalistic report.

That's a word we might see in a narrative, but definitely not a journalistic report.

So we need to probably find a more appropriate synonym here.

"Who was constructed in Belfast." Remember, we only used the relative pronoun "who" if the relative clause is about a person, but this relative clause is about the Titanic, so that's definitely not the right choice.

We've also repeated the word Titanic twice across two sentences, and we know there are lots of ways we could refer to the Titanic instead of just by Titanic.

So we probably will need to change that language choice.

And finally, the word "passengers" is spelled incorrectly.

So, here's my edited version.

"Titanic is a vast," this means gigantic, but it's much more formal, "steam-powered vessel, which was constructed in Belfast, and is designed to transport passengers," passengers has a double S in it, "and cargo across the Atlantic.

The ship's," rather than saying Titanic's, I can just refer to it as the ship instead.

"The ship's maiden voyage began at Southampton docks and it is destined for New York City." True or false, the tone of a journalistic report should be formal? Pause the video while you decide.

Well done if you spotted that this is true.

Now read A and B and decide how to justify your answer, and pause the video while you do that.

Great work, everyone.

Well done if you spotted if the correct justification was A.

Journalistic reports should use formal fronted adverbials, journalistic language, and subject-specific vocabulary, which makes their tone formal.

They should definitely not include lots of descriptive language and punctuation, such as exclamation marks and contractions, because these linguistic features actually contribute to a much more informal or conversational tone.

Now you're going to edit the vocabulary and spelling in the recount section of your journalistic report.

When you're editing vocabulary and spelling, we checked for using a variety of words and phrases to describe the subject, appropriate tone, and spelling accuracy.

You also gotta check that you have used appropriate relative pronouns.

Now it's time for your task.

Either you can edit the vocabulary and spelling of your recount section, or you can edit my writing instead, and use the checklist to help you.

Pause the video while you do that.

Well done, everyone, and thank you so much for your help if you edited my writing.

So firstly, the word allegedly was spelled incorrectly.

Rather than referring to the Titanic as its name twice in a row, I changed the word Titanic to "This powerful vessel." You might have found another way to refer to the Titanic.

Again, that "who" relative pronoun should have been "which," because the relative clause was about the Titanic, not a person.

I've actually completely changed the structure of that third sentence.

So instead of writing, "Whilst lots of people have praised Andrews for his work." It's a bit informal, so I've edited it to, "Whilst Andrew's work has received much praise." This is also a bit of a double benefit because now I can also show off that I can use an apostrophe for singular possession in that word "Andrew's." "It is believed that the Titanic's interiors are even more breathtaking." So believed has got that IE to make the E sound.

It's not EI.

And Titanic's interiors, I had written our as a homophone of the word are, so I needed to make that edit.

Thank you so much for your help with that.

Well done, everyone.

That now brings us to the end of our lesson, where today we've been editing the first recount paragraph of a journalistic report about the Titanic.

Editing is the process of improving writing to ensure text flow and overall quality.

Editing involves making improvements to a piece of writing without completely rewriting it.

Editing is a vital part of the writing process.

I hope you enjoyed editing your writing today, and you feel like you've really upleveled and improved your writing outcomes.

Well done, everyone, and I'm looking forward to seeing you again soon.