Welcome to another edition of the Writing Clinic. This time we have an essay about a trip that one of our readers sent us. If you want to submit a piece for this column, please email it to [email protected].
Before
This trip was anticipated but when it really happened it seemed more sudden then planned. I picked a small college bag, small as compare to the bigger bags that we usually carry to a place out of one’s state. The stay was planned for one night and 2 full days. So eight of us pack with plans not sure, with hotels not booked and no clue where we would go.
Well, some of the best trips are the ones unplanned. Our bus takes us to Panjam. From here we board another bus that drops us to Calangut, one of the most famous beaches in Goa. We land in the morning and with help from friends who spent a week here, we got in touch with Vincy, a name most commonly found in Goa. We rent a descent place for a modest 600 a night. 4 housed in each. We settle for a while, and then run to the beach which is only a quick walk away.
The beach is beautiful, I have loved the beauty a beach showcases, absolute power, gigantic in nature, yet so earnestly and repeatedly doing its job. We get wet, jump, catch some, drop many, push and pull, fight, run and hardly swim. We are tempted to try the water sports but delay the proceedings.
After
This trip was anticipated. When it really took place though, it seemed more sudden than planned. I chose a small college bag to carry with me (small compared to the bags I usually carry out of state). The stay was planned for one night and two full days. Eight of us packed our belongings with no hotel accommodations and no plans. We were completely clueless as to where we would go.
To our benefit, however, was the well-known fact that many of the best trips are often unplanned.
Our bus took us to Panjim. We boarded another bus that took us to Calangute, one of the most famous beaches in Goa. We arrived in the morning. With help from friends who had already spent a week there, we got in touch with Vincy who helped us rent two decent rooms for a modest 600 rupees per room per night. Each room housed four people.
After we settled in, we ran to the beach, which was only a quick walk away.Â
The beach was beautiful! I love the beauty it showcases – absolute power, gigantic and limitless, yet earnestly and repeatedly doing its job. We got wet, played, pushed and pulled, and fought. We were tempted to try the water sports the beach offered but decided to put those off for later.
Comments from the Editor
The original had numerous run-on sentences. We broke many apart into two or more sentences, improving the flow of the piece.
Secondly, we also spotted some tense confusion (i.e., sentences combining both the past and present tense). We standardized those.
Finally, the names of the cities and other small details (e.g., 4 instead of four) were corrected.
The Writing Clinic column is a collaboration between our blog and Gramlee.com, a company that provides grammar checks, proofreading and copy editing services.
This is one of the most enlightening series. I had been subscribed to your feed for, well, perhaps years now. But to be honest rarely engage the content fully. I continue to subscribe so that I do not miss any nuggets of wisdom. This is one.
In my opinion, if you published articles such as this your website would be far more useful. At least to me.
The clinics rock!
“…who helped us rent two descent rooms for a modest 600 rupees per room per night.”
Surely the after should have corrected ‘descent’ rooms to ‘decent’ rooms?
Unless of course they rented some sort of drop room or a room at a low altitude.
Surprised this wasn’t picked up in the after version.
“…compared to the bags…”
Should this not be “compared with” as we are comparing attributes of similar objects?
“I chose a small college bag to carry with me (small compared to the bags I usually carry out of state).”
As we are stressing a difference (in size), should it not be “compared with”. Is it not the convention that “compared to” is for when stressing similarities, and “compared with” is for when stressing similarities and differences.
“Bridget’s monster zit was, by her boyfriend, compared to Mount Vesuvius.” <–Similarity
"His faux pas was minute when compared with the many gaffes of George W. Bush." <–Difference