User:Scartol/tmmnotes
Tokyo Mew Mew copyediting commentary
[edit]G.A.S and Collectonian: Here are some notes I've made after reviewing some of GAS' copyedits. I hope they're useful – I can tell you're both dedicated to the article, and I foresee great things in its future. =)
Let me say first of all that in some ways I feel that copyediting is a craft that requires practice more than anything else. I've always found it very difficult to explain how to review prose for clarity and simplicity – but I do recommend lots of reading (novels, comics, whatever you enjoy reading), and lots of writing (again, not necessarily essays and scholarly stuff, but journals, stories, poems, or other things you'll write because you enjoy them). The more you see the words put together well (and the more you practice composing them), the more skill you'll acquire in making them dance.
Also: If you haven't read Tony1's page How to satisfy Criterion 1a, please do. Many editors have found it very useful in writing and revising prose on Wikipedia.
I'm happy to do a full copyedit of Tokyo Mew Mew, as I believe it needs a bit of work (as evidenced by the template at the top of that page). First, however, let me review some of the changes made by G.A.S and hopefully offer some guidance about the process itself.
- Splitting the overly-long first sentence is good. I would point out, however, that the first sentence still has four back-to-back wikilinks. I get nervous when I see two, and I believe that four is silly. I recommend: Choose the two least essential (hopefully one will be immediately obvious) and delink them.
- It was originally serialized in Nakayoshi from September 2000 to February 2003 and subsequently published in seven collected volumes by Kodansha from April 2003 to May 2004. You're right to wonder if "subsequently" is unnecessary here. The reader will be able to tell from the dates which happened first. However, a transition of that sort is useful, so as to avoid making the reader do extra work. (One of the cardinal rules for the writer is to make the reader's job as easy as possible.)
- Still, "subsequently" is four syllables, and feels overly formal – "later" is two syllables and much more natural. (In general, ten-dollar words should be used only when they're really necessary. For the most part, use language that is unobtrusive and will allow the reader to absorb meaning, rather than the writer's grandiose vocabulary.)
- It focuses on five girls who are infused with the DNA of rare animals. This allows them to transform into Mew Mews by changing their appearances and giving them special powers. These sentences would be best combined somehow – you'll probably need to rephrase something, and/or break the phrases apart to recombine them.
- It debuted in Japan on April 6, 2002, on both TV Aichi and TV Tokyo and the final episode aired on March 29, 2003. This is a good combination.
- The manga series is licensed for English language release by Tokyopop, which has released all seven volumes of the original series and both volumes of the sequel. Changing the first "released" to "release" is good, but notice that the word still appears twice in the sentence. With the exception of certain words (like "the", "and", "he", etc), it's best whenever possible to avoid using the same word twice in a sentence. Notice that I used "word" twice in the previous sentence, so it's not an ironclad rule. But here we can surely find something different for one of the instances. (I suggest "distribution" for the first.)
- Using the infinitive ("started to work") is generally poor form, unless it's necessary. If the original phrase "first began working" looked odd to you, good – you almost never need "first" before "began working". The reader will assume it was the first time the person began working on it, right? Notice, though, that "working" is a very generic word which can be used in a thousand contexts. How about a more active verb here: designing? planning?
- I'd also rather see the sentence phrased as follows: "Mia Ikumi spent a year designing the Tokyo Mew Mew manga before the release of the first volume." Note that we have an implication of ongoing work, and we've removed the awkward extended possessive ("first volume's").
- She original presented a story called Tokyo Black Cat Girl to her editors. Tokyo Black Cat Girl featured a girl, named Princess Azumi, as the story's heroine. While your edit here tries to correct an awkward sentence, it resulted in another awkward pair of sentences. =) Hopefully you notice that we lost the needed -ly on "original", but that's minor. Let's see if we can't find a way to rephrase these entirely.
- What info do we need to include in the sentence? Here's a list:
- The story was called Tokyo Black Cat Girl.
- She presented it to her editors.
- The heroine was a girl named Princess Azumi.
- Try writing one sentence to convey this information as simply as possible – I suggest starting with the phrase "The story she originally presented..."
- The phrase "as they worked out the details" is not very useful at all. I suggest keeping the focus on the story: "As the story evolved..." perhaps?
- ...the series should be a female superhero story with five characters and Ikumi was asked to draw a different lead. You want to combine independent clauses (with a combinatory conjunction like "and") into a sentence only when they're related in some way. Otherwise, you'll want to construct the sentence in a different way. Here I would suggest something like: "After the group decided to focus on five female superheroes, Ikumi was asked to reconstruct the lead." Notice that we now have a chronological construction, which will help the reader make it through more easily.
- the original character was designed to be more dramatic <!-- than... (complete comparison) --> It's good that you noticed this missing component. I'd say it's best here to avoid the comparison altogether, and instead write something like: "the character was originally designed to be dramatic and realistic". (I don't know how accurate that is, but hopefully you see what I mean in terms of sentence structure.)
Hopefully this has been helpful. I can't provide this kind of commentary about all of your edits, obviously, since it would take forever. =) But as I said, I will be happy to do a copyedit of my own if you like – if the article is in a stable state, let me know and I'll jump in.