Rewriting Sentences

[Majyk]

I got this idea from my English professor. He's always telling my class that just because you wrote something doesn't mean you can't rip it apart or rewrite it. (He's real big on editing.) He says that when you see something in print, your brain thinks it's finished and doesn't want to revise it. So my professor was always having us rewrite sentences to get our brains thinking. It's a good exercise and really helps you take a look at your own writing after a while of fixing other people's. You guys probably know that from critiquing, but it really works. After one semester of doing this in class, I can already edit my own writing so much better, which is the real problem: editing your own stuff. It's easy to edit someone else's, but your own? Not so much.

So all you have to do for this exercise is write a sentence (or take one from your novel, your short story, your essay... anything) and post it here. If you're having trouble with a sentence, post it here. The next person will try to rewrite your sentence and make it better--though the point won't always be to make a sentence better. If a sentence is already good, the point is just to see if you can rewrite it differently. There is always another way to write something. So let's see the different way YWOers come up with writing the same sentences, and hopefully this will help you in your own writing as well.

Don't be afraid to change anything around. Take out words. Add words. Do anything that you think will make a sentence better or stronger.

Sentence: "People admit that they spend too much time on the Internet, on Facebook, watching TV, or going to parties, but if they realized how many hours are wasted on these activities, they might rethink their actions."

[SapphireSeaBird]

If people realised the shocking number of hours they waste on the Internet or watching TV each day, maybe they would think twice before signing into Facebook - again - but until they sit and count up the time, they won't really know what they've admitted to.

Usually I'm good with re-writing sentences but I strugged with that :L

[Sire Humbert Fray]

"People admit that they spend too much time on the Internet, on Facebook, watching TV, or going to parties, but if they realized how many hours are wasted on these activities, they might rethink their actions."

"People should realise that our time is limited and that too many hours are wasted on digital activity, such as facebook and watching TV, as well as going to parties. Should they be presented with how many hours they've spent, maybe the would rethink their actions."