You hear that publishers can no longer afford the rigorous editing that used to be common, and perhaps that's true. Here is a sentence from a new Simon & Schuster book, big name publisher, written by Doris Kearns Goodwin, big name writer whose manuscript would ordinarily be treated to a serious edit before being sent out into the world:

• It is my greatest hope that the story that follows will guide readers through their own process of discovery toward a better understanding of what it takes to summon the public to demand the action necessary to bringing our country closer to its ancient ideals. (45 words)

I'll try a new version here--acknowledging that many versions and several good versions are easily within reach:

• It is my greatest I sincerely hope that the this story that follows will guide help readers see how to persuade through their own process of discovery toward a better understanding of what it takes to summon the public to demand that the action necessary to bringing our country move closer to its ancient ideals. (26 words)

Almost half the words have been cut in this version, but I'm not sure any important nuance has suffered--you can judge that for yourself. The method comes from Revising Prose by Richard Lanham and Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace by Joseph Williams, primarily. The heart of revising weak academic prose is cutting through the wordiness and high formality to see the actions and actors, then focusing on them in the revision. If you do, words almost always fall away:

• I hope the story ... will help readers see ... how to persuade the public ... to demand that the country ... move closer to its ancient ideals.

Something like that--to my eye those seem like the actions that the author really wants us to understand, and the rest can be saved for another day. Or better, pitched. And usually the writer sounds smarter and the reader likes the writer more because of the clarity. Just saying.

PS. The New Yorker quoted the Goodwin sentence in full in the new issue, in an article by Nicholas Lehmann. Wouldn't a well-edited magazine find a way to paraphrase or quote just the best part, rather than bring a section of a big article to rest on a badly written, poorly edited sentence? (11/18/13 issue, page 78. Book title: The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism)

PPS. Ancient?