Wordiness Part 1

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Wordiness Part 1

Keep the good stuff that you have written, and get rid of the useless clutter that is filling up your sentences in order for you to make room for the inclusion of more good stuff.

Keep the good stuff that you have written, and get rid of the useless clutter that is filling up your sentences in order for you to make room for the inclusion of more good stuff. (35 words with 17 words of clutter)

Keep the good stuff and get rid of the useless clutter to make room for more good stuff. (18 words of good stuff)

From http://www.transaction.net/web/tutor/text/terse.html

Trim the Fat
Flabby writing is bad writing. If you trim the fat from your sentences down to the lean meat, most likely you’ll eliminate errors in grammar, structure, and punctuation.

“Language consists of (1) words that matter and (2) words that glue them together. Concise writing has as little glue as possible”.

Here is an introductory sentence that is all glue:

Choosing an ideal place to live is a decision that must be made by everyone or almost everyone at one time or another.

Choosing …is a decision—This circles like a snake eating its tail.
must be made by—passive voice
everyone or almost everyone—Which is it? Neither. Why? Read on.
an ideal place to live Few people get their dream home.
at one time or another—No. Not even once.
If we had to say anything we might tone it down to this:

Everyone gets to choose a better place to live once in a while.

That goes without saying. The sentence does not tell us anything new. It is a smaller glob of glue. Cut it.

Three ways to trim fat:

First, find the words that matter and link them as efficiently and precisely as possible, or find ‘glue’ words and cut them.

Glue alarms:

” of, is/are, there is/there are, which, that, as, as far as [x] is concerned, effect, sort of, kind(s) of, in terms of, regarding, concerning, aspect, experience, situation, proceed to, occur, create, cause, in the form of, is where, is when, in order to, due to, as a result of”.

Gobs of glue tend to accumulate at the beginnings of sentences, as we struggle to get up a head of steam:

It’s important to realize that

Remember that

One should note that

The main point here is that….

Most of these introductory gobs end with that, so always question any such construction.

Second, ask, ‘What’s new in the second sentence?’ and cut everything else:

They say he heads their list of ‘most wanted’ players. This stems from the fact that he has a .376 career batting average.

What’s new in the second sentence? Only the batting average, so add it to the first sentence as simply as possible:

They say he heads their list of ‘most wanted’ players, thanks to his .376 batting average.

The society that we live in today is filled with all sorts of crime, and for this reason more and more people have made the decision to purchase handguns in order to protect themselves, their loved ones and their home. As a matter of fact, in the year 2004 there was a significant increase of 27% of the sales of handguns over the previous year in the United States. (69 words)

Crime has become so threatening that in 2004 U.S. handgun sales increased 27%. (13 words) (statistic found in 30 seconds with search.com string: handgun sales increase)

Also watch for words or phrases repeated in consecutive sentences, and try to combine those sentences into more complete thoughts.

There are many major anthropogenetic factors that contribute to causing Global Warming. Some of the factors include electricity generation, transportation, and Industry.

Three human activities cause 69.5 % of Global Warming in the United States: electricity generation (33.9%), transportation (26.8%), and industry (18.8%) (EPA).

Third, cut redundancy in places where one word already implies the meaning of another :

“Adjectives:

grave crisis

true facts

real truth

added plus

future plans

past experience

basic necessity

general consensus

valuable asset. . .

ugly blemish

common similarities

natural instinct

unfortunate catastrophe

Compounds: words or phrases in pairs connected by ‘and’:

The point of reading is to comprehend and understand content.

Censorship is a very pertinent and important subject to all Americans.”

From http://ace.acadiau.ca/english/grammar/wordiness.htm

Cut repetitious and redundant words.

each separate incident

many different ways

dash quickly

as to whether

tall skyscraper

blue in colour

free gift

advance notice

he is a man who is

appear to be

completely finished

the reason . . . is because

Delete empty words and phrases

generally

tend to

really

apparently

in my opinion

very

basically

I think that

various

essentially

I feel

in some ways

virtually

I believe

for all intents and purposes

From http://www.utoronto.ca/writing/wordines.html

Wordiness: Danger Signals and Ways to React
One of the most efficient ways to improve your writing is to edit it for conciseness. You may have been struggling to think ideas through as you wrote, and piled up alternative wordings. Or you may have fallen into the habit of using more words than necessary just to use up space. If you can let your original draft “cool down” a while, you will find it easy to recognize unnecessary words and edit them out. Your reader will thank you! Here are some common patterns of wordiness, with sensible things to do about them.

Doubling of Words (choose one):

mutual agreement (agreement)

future prospects (prospects)

consensus of opinion (consensus)

reconsider again (reconsider)

whether or not (whether)

inadvertent error (error)

Intensifiers, Qualifiers (omit or give specific details):

very

really

extremely

definitely

a considerable amount of

to a certain extent

Formulaic Phrases (use a one-word form or omit):

for the purpose of (to)

due to the fact that (because)

at this point in time (now)

in the near future (soon)

with regard to (about)

in view of the fact that (because)

as the case may be (—)

Basically, . . . (—)

Catch-all Terms (can sometimes omit):

aspect

field

quality

case

kind

situation

fact

matter

sort

factor

nature

thing

feature

problem

type

weak

A surprising aspect of most labour negotiations is their friendly quality.

improved

Most labour negotiations are surprisingly friendly.

weak

The fact of the war had the effect of causing many changes.

improved

The war caused many changes.

Padded Verbs (use a one-word form):

to have an expectation, hope, wish, understanding, etc.

(to expect, hope, wish understand, etc.)

to make an arrangement, plan, decision, inquiry, acquisition, etc.

(to arrange, plan, decide, inquire, acquire, etc.)

Unnecessary “to be” and “being” (omit):

weak

The program is considered to be effective.

improved

The program is considered effective OR The program is effective.

weak

because of the terrain being rough

improved

because of the rough terrain

Passive Verbs (change to active voice, if possible with a personal subject):

weak

It is felt that an exercise program should be attempted by this patient before any surgery is performed.

improved

The patient should attempt an exercise program before surgery.

improved

I recommend that the patient attempt an exercise program before surgery.

improved

Mr. Lee, please do these exercises every day for six weeks to strengthen your leg muscles before we try any more surgery.

weak

The bevelling jig is said by most users to be faulty.

improved

Most users say the bevelling jig is faulty.

Overuse of Relative Structures (“Who,” “Which,” “That”) (omit when possible ):

weak

The novel, which is entitled Ulysses, takes place . . .

improved

The novel Ulysses takes place . . .

weak

It was Confucius who said . . .

improved

Confucius said . . .

weak

I think that capital punishment is wrong. . .

improved

Capital punishment is wrong: . . .

weak

There is a tendency among many writers who may be seen to display certain signs of lack of confidence to write sentences that are overloaded with relative clauses and other words which are generally useless in function.

improved

Many insecure writers overload their sentences with relative clauses and other useless words.

Written by Dr. Margaret Procter, Coordinator, Writing Support, University of Toronto.
Copyright 2005. All rights reserved.

In his book The I-Search Paper, author Ken Macrorie lists what he calls “the really bad words” which add wordiness to sentences without adding content. Cutting these words can help streamline your writing.

Diminishers:

little rather sort of kind of slightly somewhat

Intensifiers:

real (-ly) actual (-ly) quite very

deep (-ly) total (-ly) too even

big a lot absolute (-ly)

Words from the Vague Swamp :

thing area situation process

problem aspect concerned with destination

phrase predicament involved with

A Few Final Notes on Conciseness

In the The Complete Stylist and Handbook, Sheridan Baker suggests improving prose by:

-Cutting “there is” and “it is” constructions except when “it” refers to a specific object or animal or is used in idiomatic expressions such as “It is raining.”

-Cutting back on “which,” “that,” and “who/whom.”

Cutting back on the articles a and an after a verb:

Examples:

Kayaking in the ocean was a frustrating experience.

Kayaking in the ocean was frustrating.

My daughter’s decision to quit college was a heartbreaking one for me.

My daughter’s decision to quit college broke my heart.

Making a will is an essential thing to do.

Making a will is essential.

Graduating from college with any kind of diploma is one of the most valuable things that you can do to achieve your future success.

A college diploma is a ticket to success.

There are many farmers in the area who are planning to attend the meeting which is scheduled for next Friday.

Many area farmers plan to attend next Friday’s meeting.

[There are] many women [who] never marry.

Many women never marry.

[It is] his last book [that] shows his genius best.

His last book shows his genius best.

Unforgiven is an example of a movie that breaks all the rules of the Western genre.

Unforgiven breaks all the rules of the Western.

The fact of the matter is that machines are merely amplifiers of the abilities of workers and exist only as they are able to do the bidding of workers effectively. 30 words

Machines merely amplify the abilities of workers and exist only to do their bidding effectively. 15 words

In the next thirty-five years, it is the expectation of a great number of authorities that there will be a lot more engineering work done than has been done in all of recorded history. 34 words

Many authorities expect more engineering work will be done in the next thirty-five years than in all of recorded history. 20 words

According to statistics revealed by the census, it is a fact that 72.4 percent of the nonwhite component of the population lives in areas that are classified as urban. 29 words

According to the census, 72.4 percent of nonwhites live in urban areas. 12 words

Last updated 9/18/06