Page 185 - Perfect English Grammar: The Indispensable Guide to Excellent Writing and Speaking

17.20 Wordiness

A common writing weakness is wordiness, even among professionals and
educated writers.

For students, flabby writing (as it’s often called) means padding the word

count or page count to reach a goal.
For business people, wordiness might disguise the fact that they don’t really

know what they’re talking about, or, as the saying goes, it might be that it’s just
easier to write long than it is to write short.

You can clean wordiness out of your writing with a little effort.

Avoid repeating ideas. Did you just explain the mission statement of your
company in the first paragraph? Then perhaps it doesn’t need to be restated.

Avoid trying to sound too formal. This is sometimes called “cop-speak,”
because it’s how a police officer might write when making a formal report.

■ Bad: The suspect was seen at the time entering the aforementioned
premises adjacent to the location in which the suspect had dropped

what appeared to be his leather wallet for holding money.
■ Better: The suspect entered the building near where he dropped his

wallet.

Avoid saying too much. If it’s not relevant, leave it out. In this example,

neither the make of the truck nor the make of the headphones is relevant to the
story.

■ Bad: He climbed into the Ford truck and put his Beats by Dre

headphones on the seat.

■ Better: He climbed into the truck and put his headphones on the seat.

Remove or replace business jargon or crutch phrases. These are phrases
that come easily to us yet are far longer than they need to be. Some to look for:

Avoid Use Instead