Conciseness

Conciseness
Conciseness
v The goal of concise writing is to use the most effective words. Concise writing
does not always have the fewest words, but it always uses the strongest ones.
Writers often fill sentences with weak or unnecessary words that can be deleted
or replaced. Words and phrases should be deliberately chosen for the work they
are doing. Like bad employees, words that don't accomplish enough should be
fired. When only the most effective words remain, writing will be far more
concise and readable.
v A vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words,

a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should
have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not
that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his
subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.
Replace several vague words with more powerful and
specific words.
v When drafting a paper, writers sometimes include ambiguous words in their

sentences, when the point could be expressed in fewer, more direct words.
ü Wordy: The politician talked about several of the merits of after-school
programs in his speech (14 words)
ü Concise: The politician touted after-school programs in his speech. (8
words)
ü Wordy: Suzie believed but could not confirm that Billy had feelings of
affection for her. (14 words)
ü Concise: Suzie assumed that Billy adored her. (6 words)
Replace several vague words with more powerful and
specific words.
ü Wordy: Our website has made available many of the things you can use
for making a decision on the best dentist. (20 words)
ü Concise: Our website presents criteria for determining the best dentist. (9
words)
ü Wordy: Working as a pupil under someone who develops photos was an
experience that really helped me learn a lot. (20 words)
ü Concise: Working as a photo technician's apprentice was an educational
experience. (10 words
Interrogate every word in a sentence to omit the
unnecessary ones
v Check every word to make sure that it is providing something important and unique
to a sentence. If words are dead weight, they can be deleted or replaced.
ü Wordy: The teacher demonstrated some of the various ways and methods for cutting words
from my essay that I had written for class. (22 words)
ü Concise: The teacher demonstrated methods for cutting words from my essay. (10 words)
ü Wordy: Many have made the wise observation that when a stone is in motion rolling down a
hill or incline that that moving stone is not as likely to be covered all over with the kind of
thick green moss that grows on stationary unmoving things and becomes a nuisance and
suggests that those things haven’t moved in a long time and probably won’t move any time
soon. (67 words)
ü Concise: A rolling stone gathers no moss. (6 words)
Combine Sentences
v Some information does not require a full sentence, and can easily be inserted into another
sentence without losing any of its value.
ü Wordy: Ludwig's castles are an astounding marriage of beauty and madness. By his death, he
had commissioned three castles. (18 words)
ü Concise: Ludwig's three castles are an astounding marriage of beauty and madness. (11 words)
ü Wordy: The supposed crash of a UFO in Roswell, New Mexico aroused interest in
extraterrestrial life. This crash is rumored to have occurred in 1947. (24 words)
ü Concise: The supposed 1947 crash of a UFO in Roswell, New Mexico aroused interest in
extraterrestrial life. (16 words)
Conciseness
v Make sentences and paragraphs more concise by omitting:
Ø unnecessary prepositions and prepositional phrases
Ø redundancies and expletive constructions
Ø meaningless announcements about forthcoming text and authorial perspective
Conciseness
v Redundancy- the unnecessary repetition of words or ideas.
Ø Avoid saying the same thing twice:
ü As a community service project, I decided to be a reading tutor to illiterate adults
who could not read.
Ø Avoid repetitious phrases:
ü The car circled around the block at 3am in the morning.
Ø Avoid redundancy in abbreviations:
ü ATM machine; CPU unit; PIN number
Conciseness
v Intensifiers- words intended to amplify adjectives: use them only sparingly, as

they add little meaning
ü really, very, quite, severely, highly, greatly, incredibly, truly, extraordinarily, etc.
v Expletive Constructions- phrases beginning with there is/are or it is: these weaken
the impact of the sentence.
ü There are twelve children who would like ice cream.
ü Twelve children would like ice cream.
ü It is he who stole the car.
ü He stole the car.
Conciseness
v Clichés- phrases that were once original, but have been so over-used that they are
now trite and even annoying.
ü better late than never, easier said than done, meaningful experience, ripe old age, sad
but true, take the bull by the horns, to make a long story short, crushing blow, crack
of dawn, white as a sheet, climbing the ladder of success, planting the seed, etc.

Conciseness

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Conciseness

v A vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words,

v When drafting a paper, writers sometimes include ambiguous words in their

v Intensifiers- words intended to amplify adjectives: use them only sparingly, as

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