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wordiness

Less is more. Jaw-breakers, jargon, and over-use of Latinate abstractions all make writing wordy. Inexperienced writers often throw these into their sentences without knowing their meaning or function, simply because they have seen them before. Here are some notorious examples:

• such that, as in "They scored and scored, such that their final victory was inevitable." Rewrite: "They scored so much that ...."
• the fact that, as in "The fact that you are leaving pleases me." Omit "the fact" unless you are speaking of facts; say "That you are going pleases me," or less stiffly, "I am pleased that you are going."
• it is interesting to note that, as in "It is interesting to note that Shakespeare wrote no sestinas." Just note it. For further examples, see the dummy head page.
• the nature of, the case of, the character of, as in "Let us speak of the case of Churchill" or "The nature of suburbs is to sprawl." Say "Let us speak of Churchill" and "Suburbs sprawl."
• intensifiers or certain other qualifiers with absolutes: when an adjective describes a state or quality that can be either present or absent but never anything in between--for instance, "dead," "unique," or "perfect" --then strictly speaking that adjective may not be intensified. Thus while you might describe Michelangelo as "unique," it would be wrong to call him "totally unique" or "more unique."
• excessive adverbs: avoid emphatic adverbs by replacing a weak adjective and its intensifier with a strong adjective; replace "very bad" with "disturbing" or "shameful." Use all adverbs conservatively.
• long-winded adverbial phrases: revise "in a cold manner" or "in an inauthentic way" to "coldly" or "inauthentically."
• long-winded verb phrases: change "makes reference to" to "refers," "is pleasing" to "pleases," "is adjacent to" to "adjoins," "is different from" to "differs from."
• somewhat of, and other weak intensifiers, as in "somewhat of a trial." Simply leave the phrase out.

Strong verbs make sentences concise. If you take care to choose a specific word in the first place, you will have no need for those tired modifiers ("almost," "quite," "rather," "very") that flesh out vague sentences. Another padding device is the construction "It is the...that" as in:

But for himself, it is the possibilities of bodily movement that excite and please him.

The writer of this sentence has managed to find two strong verbs, but is apparently uneasy with them and so buttresses the sentence with "it is," hedging on the assertiveness of the verbs. This construction can be useful ("It is the corporation that benefits, not the workers"), but in general it is weak and you should avoid it. The sentence above should be rewritten: "The possibilities of bodily movement excite and please him."

For help with wordiness emergencies, use Richard Lanham's Paramedic Method. Also see Purdue handouts 27 and 28 on conciseness.

Copyright 1996 Yale University. Revised on Monday, May 20, 1996