Demonstrative structures, "This," "It," "That."

[JDWhang]

Am I the only one discovering that the editors suddenly have a bone to pick with this? I use words such as "this," "it" and "that" often as a way to avoid sounding redundant. In a rejection I received this morning, one edit was a series of sentences that went

"Every workout should (blahblahblahblah). This means that..."

The comment on the sidebar said "unspecified this." I can't fathom a reader having such a poor level of reading comprehension that they can't understand that "this" refers to the instruction regarding every workout from the previous sentence. I still made the relevant edits to all of the articles as I'm not the one in charge of the content, but I think their(in which "their" refers to the articles) quality is suffering because of this sudden problem.

[stelle]

Yep, I've had three articles bounced back to me this week for using "this". While I do agree with some of the edits, I'm not sold on all of them. ("them" being the edits ) I don't mind making the changes at all - so long as I don't suddenly get banned for overuse of demonstrative structures!

I thought it was due to customer request for the high volume orders, but the last one that got sent back to me was for a different public request. Maybe it's a new editor?

[evaku]

Same issue here. Have not had a rejection for over a year and my last two articles have been rejected for precisely this reason. Like Stelle I don't mind too much as long as I don't suddenly get banned, which I don't see happening since these rejections seem to be happening to everyone all of a sudden (or at least, us three). I do like some of my sentences better when I specify what "this" is, and I think that perhaps I have been overusing it, but in most situations I can't fathom that the reader wouldn't know.

It is getting a little bit ridiculous with me - I am so scared of more rejections that I am literally getting rid of almost every instance of "this" in my articles, and while some sentences now sound better, some don't. Oh well, I'll just have to strike another balance like I did before. As long as I can change it up and keep writing here I'm okay! I love what I have going and if THIS (these new rejections ) is going to ruin it I'd be pretty upset!

*Editing just to add that I don't mind if they have new guidelines and want less use of demonstrative pronouns. If that's what they want that's what they want! I just feel that it might have been great to send out an e-mail about updated guidelines or something, as that might have saved many rejections, a lot of time on everyone's part, and a lot of worry. I've successfully edited and had both my rejections accepted, so I'm not worried about being able to keep writing here, I just know that some who didn't think to check the forums might not be as calm!

[Lysis]

OH dear. Mind if I ask what section? I try not to use "this," because another editor dinged me for it. Can't remember if it was here or somewhere else. I do use it though, but I haven't had an article kicked for it yet. I know I use "that" too much, so I try to kill that word as much as possible, but I got a couple rejections where I needed to insert it. lol

[Isabelnewth]

I don't know whether the problem is the over use of this, rather than that?!?

I believe there is a rule which says that when you are referring to a previous phrase you should use 'that' rather than 'this'

So that you should say: 'Everyone likes flattery. That can be a problem when....' but not:

'Everyone likes flattery. This can be a problem when...'

Though the latter is increasingly common.

( not sure where that example came from!)

I am too lazy to try to look it up though.

[JDWhang]

OH dear. Mind if I ask what section? I try not to use "this," because another editor dinged me for it. Can't remember if it was here or somewhere else. I do use it though, but I haven't had an article kicked for it yet. I know I use "that" too much, so I try to kill that word as much as possible, but I got a couple rejections where I needed to insert it. lol

Multiple articles in different sections. I'm also trying to avoid those words altogether now, especially since it seems like the editors have been taking much longer than usual, perhaps due to testing the new submission system.

I don't know whether the problem is the over use of this, rather than that?!?

I believe there is a rule which says that when you are referring to a previous phrase you should use 'that' rather than 'this'

So that you should say: 'Everyone likes flattery. That can be a problem when....' but not:

'Everyone likes flattery. This can be a problem when...'

Though the latter is increasingly common.

( not sure where that example came from!)

I am too lazy to try to look it up though.

I think you'd be dinged for "that" as well. Here's the pdf they've been sending with the rejections: http://www.basiccomposition.com/resourc ... ATIVES.pdf

[stelle]

isabelnewth, I don't think using "this" instead of "that" is the problem - based on what I've seen coming back to me, I think that either one of your suggestions would have been rejected. I suspect that CC is trying to tighten up the writing here. Either that, or there's a new editor.

Either way, I do agree with most of the changes proposed to my articles - my work is clearer and more concise when I eliminate at least some of the "this"es. The rejections are helping me to improve as a writer...but it's also a bit stressful to receive three rejections in a week after having had almost 100 articles accepted in the past five months with no rejections.

Like I said in other posts, I like being challenged and I want to improve my craft as a writer. I appreciate suggestions that will better my work. I just don't want to find myself excluded from writer pools!

[bhuff85]

The rejections are helping me to improve as a writer...but it's also a bit stressful to receive three rejections in a week after having had almost 100 articles accepted in the past five months with no rejections.

Like I said in other posts, I like being challenged and I want to improve my craft as a writer. I appreciate suggestions that will better my work. I just don't want to find myself excluded from writer pools!

Couldn't agree more. I never had an issues with any of my articles here. Then out of nowhere last week, I was hit with rejection after rejection (although mine were due to the vague explanation of "wordiness" rather than "this/that" usage).

Even worse, I got booted out of one of the pools. It happened to be one that I sold a serious chunk of my work to without any issues previously. Just like that, I'm out. It is what it is I guess.

Since then, I'm incredibly apprehensive on submitting any work. It's a waste of time when you write an article in the same style and manner as you did in the past, only to get rejected with what is more of an editor preference than an actual legitimate reason.

I'm planning on feeling things out over the next week or so. Until then, I'm going back to focus on my freelance writing and working directly with clients. This site was good for some extra money (and was going GREAT for awhile), but the preferential editing that has happened over the last week has been tiring.

[stelle]

Even worse, I got booted out of one of the pools. It happened to be one that I sold a serious chunk of my work to without any issues previously.

I'm very sorry to hear that. I do think that CC is tightening up their standards with regards to clarity and simplicity. It will take some getting used to, but I think we'll all be ok. Hopefully you're be reinstated to the writer's pool before too long.

For this past batch of five articles, I ran a "find" on the word "this" and eliminated almost all of them. The articles that I had flagged for wordiness often contained the words "there are", so I also eliminated those. The articles read better than they originally did, and they were all accepted on the first round this time, so that's a relief.

bhuff85, were there any sentence structures in particular that were causing you issues? Maybe running "find" on them in Word and reworking the text to remove them might help.