Hipótesis de la cascada amiloide

2 Bioquímica del Alzheimer

2.4 Hipótesis de la cascada amiloide

A sentence which appeared in an earlier version of this chapter read as follows:

It is also important to ancipate reader reacons to the person addressing them, their enre knowledge of whom may well arise from the wording of the text.

Who is ‘them’ and ‘their’? The only preceding plural noun is ‘reacons’, and that cannot very well be the antecedent, since reacons don’t have knowledge.

Mental processing of the sentence will be made easier if ‘reader reacons’ is changed to ‘the reacons of readers’. In passing, note here the danger of the

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editor introducing an error in the opposite case, where the writer has correctly used ‘the reacons of readers’ but the editor wrongly decides to ‘ghten the sentence up’ by substung ‘reader reacons’.

(g) The correct interpretaon of noun sequences and other ambiguous structures is clear from context

Consider ‘check the translaon against customer specificaons’. Is it clear from context whether ‘customer specificaons’ means specificaons from the cus-tomer (e.g. use Brish spelling) or specificaons about the cuscus-tomer (e.g. this is a Class A customer – one who gives us a lot of work)? If not, insert the ap-propriate preposion.

This may be especially a problem in the ellipcal style which omits words like

‘the’ (as in point-form wring):

Voltage values are seen through small windows in panel. Switch ranges from 100 to 240 in six steps, and is posioned by turning...

The reader, having seen that ‘the’ has been omied in front of ‘panel’, may well assume that it has similarly been omied in front of ‘ranges’. That is, the reader will take ‘switch’ to be an imperave verb: you should switch the ranges. How-ever, upon arriving at ‘and is posioned’, the reader sees that this interpretaon is wrong, and must reinterpret with ‘ranges’ as the verb: ‘the switch ranges...

and is posioned’.

Every language has its common ambiguies that must be watched. In English, the structure exempliﬁed in ‘more structured supervision’ is oen not disam-biguated by context: more supervision that is structured, or supervision that is more structured?

4.3 Readability versus clarity

Readability must be disnguished from clarity. Clarity is a feature of the mean-ing of a text, rather than its wordmean-ing. A text may be readable in both the senses we have discussed – its language may be smooth-flowing and it may be suited to the intended readers – but it may sll be unclear. A text is unclear if its mes-sage contains some slip in logic, for example it is self-contradictory, or effects precede causes. The sentence ‘Your wait between planes will last up to an hour or more’ is unclear: at first we seem to be told that our wait will be an hour or less (‘up to’), but then we learn that it may be more than hour. The sentence is both contradictory and uninformave: the wait could be any length of me.

Perhaps the writer was trying to say that the wait will most likely be under an hour, but may be over.

Clarity should not be confused with simplicity or familiarity. A document may seem ‘clear’ because its ideas are simple or because it contains nothing but familiar noons. Notoriously, simple and familiar ideas somemes turn out to

Stylisc Eding 73

be laden with obscurity when subjected to closer inspecon. Conversely, a text which contains complex or challenging new ideas will not necessarily be unclear, in the sense of containing slips of logic. It may be perfectly clear even though it has to be read slowly, or re-read with considerable thought, as long as this need to re-read is due to the inherent complexity of the thought, not to a lack of smooth sentence structure, or to language that is unsuited to the readers, or to unnecessary terminological innovaon. A legal text may require several readings because the writer’s aim was not to lighten the reader’s task but to state things in a completely unambiguous way.

4.4 Stylisc eding during translaon

Translators oen engage in smoothing and tailoring work as they translate.

Consider the following extract from an annual report on forest pests and other sources of damage to mber; (5) gives the translaon as it might appear if the source-text phrase order were to be observed, while (6) gives the translaon as it might appear if the translator engaged in mental eding while translang:

(5) The spruce budworm and the hemlock looper were the principal insects defoliang evergreen forests in 1999. In deciduous forests, the main problem was the tent caterpillar. The pine shoot beetle became a major concern at plantaons. Several severe wind storms also caused heavy damage in the summer of 1999.

(6) In 1999, the principal insects defoliang evergreen forests were the spruce budworm and the hemlock looper. In deciduous forests, the main problem was the tent caterpillar, while at plantaons a major concern was the pine shoot beetle. In the summer, there was also heavy damage due to severe wind storms.

We’ll assume here, for the sake of argument, that this is not a case where rear-rangement is needed despite a well wrien source text; that is, the changes shown in the mentally edited version (6) are not a result of the normal diﬀerences between the ways the two languages organize the informaon in a sentence.

Note how sentence constuents have been posioned in (6) so that the

en-es causing damage are at the ends of sentences and clauses. Such a change is definitely necessary in the last sentence: in the unedited version (5), the last sentence does not flow on at all well from what precedes. In the first and third sentences of the unedited version, reposionings make for a minor but definite improvement because all sentences then have the same structure (place followed by cause of damage to trees), and the new informaon in each sentence (the names of the insects causing the damage) is in focus posion at the end of each sentence. Note too how the year number has been deleted in the last sentence:

placing it in a high-focus posion (at the end of a sentence) is confusing because it suggests that the year is of some special importance (perhaps as contrasted with another year), whereas in fact it is understood throughout the text that we are talking about events during 1999.

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Another important type of stylisc eding during translaon is eliminaon of verbosity. Some people appear to delight in saying simple things in a complicated way. Consider the following sentence from a translated job descripon, where (7) follows the wording of the source text but (8) is the result of mental eding while translang:

(7) Adapt technical issues and complex regulaons and informaon in order to present these issues and this informaon in a way that is at the same me simple, accurate and comprehensible.

(8) Explain technical issues, complex regulaons and other informaon in a way that is accurate but comprehensible.

Aside from reducing verbosity, the translator has also made explicit the logic of the message, by bringing out the nature of the problem which confronts the incumbent of this job: when addressing non-experts, there is a conﬂict between being accurate and being comprehensible (hence ‘but’ rather than ‘and’). ‘Simple’

does not add anything to what is already expressed by ‘comprehensible’.

4.5 Some traps to avoid

There is a great temptaon when engaged in stylisc eding to rewrite sentences, that is, to compose a completely new sentence with different vocabulary and sentence structure. You may find that such a new sentence is what comes to mind first, once you have spoed a stylisc problem. However, you should resist rewring and instead ask yourself whether the sentence can be fixed by a much smaller alteraon (change a word here, move a phrase there). At first, this may take more me than complete rewring, but once you become good at making minimal changes, you will be able to edit much faster. Consider:

The abundance of overmature black spruce stands leads to an increase in logging costs because the trees are oen small and the merchantable volumes are low.

The logical structure of this sentence is “X causes Y because Z”, which is confus-ing. You could completely rewrite the sentence:

In the many overmature black spruce stands, trees are oen small and merchantable volumes low; logging costs are consequently higher.

But the problem can be ﬁxed much more simply:

Given the abundance of overmature black spruce stands, there is an increase in logging costs because the trees are oen small and the mer-chantable volumes are low.

Stylisc Eding 75

This is perhaps not quite as good as the complete rewrite, but it does eliminate the confusion.

A second danger when eding style is paying exclusive aenon to very small bits of language and losing track of meaning. Consider this sentence fragment from a text on operaons in a port:

Original:

…the relaonship between freight unloaded and operang me…

Edited version:

…the relaonship between unloaded freight and operang me…

The editor perhaps thought that ‘unloaded freight’ is easier to read than ‘freight unloaded’. However context makes clear that the author meant ‘freight that has already been unloaded’. Unfortunately the edited version, ‘unloaded freight’, is more likely to be interpreted as ‘freight that has not yet been loaded’ – a very diﬀerent idea.

Here’s another example:

Original:

Government health inspectors must be able to explain the raonale for inspecng establishments registered under the Act and speciﬁc foods.

Edited version:

...must be able to explain the raonale for inspecng speciﬁc foods and establishments registered under the Act.

In the original, ‘speciﬁc foods’, the second of the two phrases joined by ‘and’, is hanging awkwardly at the end of the sentence. Usually if there are two con-joined phrases, one long and one short, it is best to have the short one ﬁrst.

The edited version clears up this problem but creates a worse one: the change in order means that ‘speciﬁc’ now applies to both ‘foods’ and ‘establishments’.

The edited sentence seems to suggest that inspectors need to jusfy their habit of picking on certain establishments rather than dealing even-handedly with all establishments. A further change is needed: ‘...for inspecng speciﬁc foods and for inspecng establishments...’.

And a ﬁnal example: perhaps you think that ‘obtain documents required for clearance’ can be shortened to ‘obtain clearance documents’, but is the mean-ing the same? In one text it may be, but in another text it may not; perhaps one needs certain documents (which are not themselves clearance documents) in order to apply for a clearance document.

Pracce

Since stylisc eding is not as cut and dried as copyeding, there is a danger of making too many changes. Do not make a change simply because you would

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have expressed an idea differently had you been the author. You are not the au-thor. You are eding someone else’s work, and you must respect their individual style of wring. So whenever you make a change, be sure you can jusfy it. “It sounds beer” does not count as a jusficaon. You must be specific: this word is too informal; there is a confusing ambiguity in the structure of this sentence.

Exercise 1 is explicitly an exercise in jusﬁcaon, but you should always be able to jusfy your changes.

Exercises can be speeded up if you simply underline places in the text where a change is needed, without actually making the change. Remember that the diﬃcult thing in eding is ﬁnding the problems. Correcng stylisc problems, once you have found them, can be quite me-consuming.

Exercise 1.

Jusfying changes

Your instructor will give you a printed text, with a variety of handwrien stylisc changes. For each change, say whether you think it is jusﬁed, and if so, why.

If the editor has completely rewrien a sentence that needed changing, try to think of a smaller change that would suﬃce.

Exercise 2. Verbosity

Reduce the verbosity of two samples of bureaucrac prose which you have found or which your instructor has given you. The ﬁrst sample should be addressed to a reader outside the bureaucracy, the second to a reader inside. See how few words you can use to express the ideas, bearing in mind the needs of the two types of reader.

Exercise 3. Smoothing

Newspaper arcles are oen insuﬃciently edited for smoothness. Find some examples of unsmooth sentences or paragraphs in a newspaper and smooth them, paying special aenon to pronouns and intersentence connecng words (this, they, also, but etc).

Exercise 4. Tailoring

Your instructor will give you a text and a descripon of the intended readers (in terms of their knowledge, educaon etc). Tailor the text to the readers.

5. Structural Eding

Texts have two types of structure: conceptual structure and physical structure.

An example of the former would be an argument structure: presentaon of problem, tentave soluon, arguments for, arguments against, conclusion. An example of physical structure would be the parts of an arcle: tle, summary, secon head, sequence of paragraphs, inserted table, next secon head, and so on. The structural editor’s job is to help the reader follow the conceptual structure by making adjustments in the physical structure. This may involve large-scale work rearranging paragraphs, secons and chapters. However, in this chapter we will be concerned with smaller scale changes, because that is the kind of work translators most oen need to do.

5.1 Physical structure of a text

Documents typically have several physically disnct structural parts:

• Prose: a connuous sequence of sentences and paragraphs. Words in e-texts may be clickable, that is, linked electronically to other parts of the text or to other texts.

• Headings, oen hierarchical and somemes numbered: chapter tles, secons heads, subsecon heads, and so on.

• Lists: the main types are point-form lists, which may be numbered or let-tered (or bulleted like the list you are reading now), and tables (a table is a series of parallel lists, usually called columns). The boxes of which tables are composed may themselves contain prose sequences. There may also be locator lists to help readers move to speciﬁc places within the document: the table of contents at the front, and one or more al-phabecal indexes at the back lisng topics dealt with in the document, names of people menoned, and the like. Finally there may be linking lists to help readers move outward toward other relevant works: a list of references (works referred to in the document); somemes a separate list of readings (works of interest on the subject of the document).

• Graphics: diagrams, photographs, drawings, maps, embedded videos and other such enes, usually referred to in the consecuve prose.

These are oen intermixed with the consecuve prose but somemes they are located in a separate part of the document devoted speciﬁcally to graphics.

• Isolated items: footnotes, endnotes, capons of graphics and tables, la-bels on diagrams, column or row tles on tables, etc.

In the remainder of the chapter, we’ll look at several problems that may arise with the prose and with the headings.

78 Brian Mossop

5.2 Problems with prose

In document Radiofármacos en uso y en exploración para el diagnóstico de Alzheimer por tomografía de emisión de positrones (PET) (página 33-37)