the problem I am having is that the output in the script does not list the lines I am cutting, instead it places one next to the other in succession. How do I get the script to list the lines? I am new to unix so I am not sure what command to use
Input would have been the contents of the file whose name goes into $1 so people can see on what data your command operates.
Howsoever, wildly guessing, I suspect the shell's behaviour to replace all contiguous whitespace in an unquoted text by one single space to be the culprit. Try double quoting the "command substitution".
BTW, the backticks `...` in your "command substitution" are deprecated; use $(...) .