Please help me with the following paragraph?

Question

"The following is a list of some of the greatest writers in the western canon. Many of them made contributions to field of writing that forever changed it. One criterion of greatness is that the works live on long after the writer has departed because their themes and subjects are timeless, another is that they created something new—a new way of seeing or expressing—that subsequent writers strived to emulate."

I am creating a web site and this is the introduction to a list of great writers. I'm sure it can be improved.

Answer 1

Well, here's another take on it. Not because it really needed a rewrite, but because you asked ;). You only had one typo ("to field of writing" should be "to THE field of writing"). Other than that, I just found it a bit wordy, so rewrote to be more direct.


"The following is a list of some of the greatest writers in the western canon, men and women who forever changed the field of writing. Some are great simply because their work has long outlived them--because their themes are timeless. Others are on the list because they created something entirely new—a new way of seeing or expressing—that subsequent writers have strived to emulate."