Alexandra D. answered • 04/26/19
Published writer of articles & curriculum with 10+ years experience
Hi there,
This sounds like it’s been really frustrating. Let’s get it figured out so you can feel confident (and move on!).
Recasting a sentence means rearranging it so it’s as clear and compelling as possible. Sometimes it means making it sound less awkward. Other times it means making sure the reader gets the information in the most useful order to help them understand it, or to make them care about what is being said. Some ways of doing that are putting the information the reader is familiar with at the beginning, so they pay attention and can understand the new concepts you introduce later; putting the biggest idea first and then adding the information that supports it; or doing the opposite and providing necessary information first to lead into the big, concluding idea. You don’t want to change the sentence too much by adding or removing ideas or information, just make it as clear and helpful as possible. There are often multiple correct ways of recasting a sentence; you can play around until you find the one you like best.
Let’s take the examples you gave:
1.
Education encompasses our lives; it is the foundation of our society.
Which you recast as:
Education is the foundation of our society it encompasses our lives.
In this case the problem with your sentence is the grammar and lack of speech (aka quotation) marks. The problem with the initial sentence is that it gives the information in an unhelpful order. It tells us what education does (encompass our lives) and what education is (the foundation of our society). It makes more sense to tell us what education is first, so we understand more clearly why it encompasses our lives. (Though I think using encompass here is pretty strange; it’s like saying education contains or envelops our lives, which is strange thing to say. However, I think any other word that could go there would change the meaning of the sentence, which goes beyond recasting.)
Two decent recasts are:
“Education is the foundation of our society and encompasses our lives.”
“Education is the foundation of our society; it encompasses our lives.”
Or, if you really wanted:
“Education encompasses our lives as the foundation of our society.”
The final one is less straightforward, but it at least tells us more clearly why education encompasses our lives.
2.
Those who have amassed enough education, steer the path of development and progress for their country. It is these individuals who go ahead and become teachers, scientists, inventors, welfare activists, soldiers, and politicians who work together to form the very backbone of the society.
Which you recast as:
An individual is able to steer a path of career development when they have progressed far enough academically. They create the backbone of the society by becoming teachers, scientists, inventors, welfare activists, soldiers, and politicians.
The problem here was that you paraphrased instead of recast- recasting is making the original sentence better, not turning it into a different sentence. You also left out the idea that those people steer the development of their country. (And, again, the lack of quotation marks.)
That said, this one is definitely more complicated. Before we look at rearranging the information, let’s look at anything that’s grammatically incorrect. The first sentence, for instance, shouldn’t have a comma. I’m unsure about the word ‘amass’, which usually refers to gathering an amount of something quantifiable or specific (“He amassed a huge fortune,” “She amassed a lot of evidence,”). If you’re being strict about recasting I suppose you could leave it, though I think there are other ways of wording it that don’t change the meaning.
Next, we can think about the information. I’m going to break this down into the main subjects and ideas, which makes it easier to think about. (And remember, we can’t add or remove ideas.)
”Well-educated people steer the growth of their country. Well-educated people become teachers, scientists, inventors, welfare activists, soldiers, and politicians. [Teachers, scientists, etc.] work together to form the backbone of society.”
If we order this from smallest to largest, we get: individual educated people; teachers, scientists, etc.; society; the country.
Recasting the sentence in that order could look like:
“People with enough education become the teachers, scientists, inventors, welfare activists, soldiers, and politicians who work together to form the backbone of society and steer the development and progress of their country.”
Another option is putting the biggest concept first, then explaining how we got there. This is similar to the original version, but we’re connecting the ideas to show how they steer their country.
“Well-educated people steer the development and progress of their country by becoming teachers, scientists, inventors, welfare activists, soldiers, and politicians who work together to form the very backbone of society.”
There are other ways you could play around with this, and you can decide if you want to use “those who have amassed enough education,” “people with enough education, “well-educated people,’ or something else entirely.
I don’t think you need to come up with the best possible recasting to pass this assignment. As long as you remember to use quotation marks and rearrange the parts of the sentence so they are still grammatically correct you should be okay.
Good luck!
