Need help ASAP on editing this sentence

I've found that using a list helps break an unwieldy sentence into more manageable bits. It certainly is a doozy of a sentence!

Here's my first attempt:

[FONT=&quot]"I look at surgery with great respect for many reasons: the ability to use medical knowledge and surgical techniques together to successfully overcome problems and risks associated with profoundly altered physiologic and metabolic states during surgery; being able to estimate patients ability to respond to these stresses; and all other assets that contribute to the beauty of the medicine in general."[/FONT]

Honestly, cut the verbiage and I think what's being said is:

(if you don't want to cut too much verbiage and summarize...)


What makes me look at surgeries with a greater respect? Their ability to use medical knowledge and surgical techniques to overcome problems associated with altered physiologic and metabolic states, and to estimate patient's response to such stresses. That and all other assets that contribute to medicine in general.

musicalzoo said:

" [FONT=&quot]The ability to use medical knowledge and surgical techniques together to successfully overcome problems and risks associated with profoundly altered physiologic and metabolic states during surgery and anesthesia and being able to estimate patients ability to respond to these stresses, among all other assets that contribute to the beauty of the medicine in general, is something that makes me to look at the surgery with a greater respect."[/FONT]

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Subject[subject1[[FONT=&quot]The ability to use medical knowledge and surgical techniques together to successfully overcome problems and risks associated with profoundly altered physiologic and metabolic states during surgery and anesthesia] conjunction[and] subject2[being able to estimate patients ability to respond to these stresses]], Parenthetical phrase[[/FONT]among all other assets that contribute to the beauty of the medicine in general], verb[is] subject complement[something that makes me to look at the surgery with a greater respect].

Comments:

The subject is convoluted. For example, if you deleted the "being able" from subject2, you'd have a co-ordination of to-infinitives: "The ability use and to estimate". I think that's what he's saying.

Initially, I wondered whether the parenthetical phrase was part of the subject, but it isn't. You can shift it backwards:

"...something that, among all other assets..., makes me to look..." (I had to highlight the mistake...)

Once you're done with the subject and parenthetical phrase, the sentence is quite straight-forward.

Hi Fellow North Carolinian,

Use CaroGirl's revision. If your clients are like mine (Chiang Mai University's medical department) they hate to let verbiage go. While we have many good revisions here on this thread, CaroGirl's keeps all the original words and yet makes sense at the same time. It's a winner!

Best regards,
Michael

No disrespect to CaroGirl - but you must be kidding. Who is supposed to understand that lot?

Mind you, maybe the intention is to butter up the writer and to hell with the reader.

larocca said:

Hi Fellow North Carolinian,

Use CaroGirl's revision. If your clients are like mine (Chiang Mai University's medical department) they hate to let verbiage go. While we have many good revisions here on this thread, CaroGirl's keeps all the original words and yet makes sense at the same time. It's a winner!

Best regards,
Michael

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Bufty said:

No disrespect to CaroGirl - but you must be kidding. Who is supposed to understand that lot?

Mind you, maybe the intention is to butter up the writer and to hell with the reader.

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Them's fightin' words, Bufty!

To edit another person's work is a balancing act. You don't want to cut so much it no longer says what the author intended, but you want to make sure it's readable. Perhaps my revision wasn't as readable as it could be (although I think it makes more sense than the original), but I endeavoured to retain the "sense" and "voice" of the original writer.

I notice those who criticise are not inclined to offer an alternative.

ETA: I'd check with the original writer with respect to whether he means he respects "surgery" or "surgeons". The original sentence says "surgery". Thanks Bufty.

Very true. My bad. But I'm not the one being paid to lick (or is it kick?) it into shape.

Good point about finding out what they're trying to say.

CaroGirl said:

I notice those who criticise are not inclined to offer an alternative.

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I agree with CaroGirl. As an editor, you need to respect the author's style and intent, even if you think it could be written differently. As short and sweet Marlys's version was, it cut too much and became a summary of what the author tried to say, and lost the details (e.g. physiologic, metabolic, blah blah). Editing technical or trade documents is especially tricky because you really want to keep the details, the jargons, the technical mumble jumble but still make it readable.

I'll go to CaroGirl's version by using list as well. It's more readable. The problem with the original sentence is the run-on sentence with a "huge" subject. So that needs to be cleared up. Mine version broke up the sentences to be more readable, but it kind of lost the original's style.

I'd use carogirl's. However, "patients" is possessive. Maybe "the patient's ability" would be better? I was thinking whether patient's or patients' would be better, but since there is only one ability, I opted for "patient's" with "the" in front. Technical writing is often verbose. It's the nature of the beast.