Want to write more concisely? Let me warn you now: it’s not easy. However, if you put in the work and do what’s needed, you can end up turning your prose into a bundle of delight.
Expletives. There’s no shorter way to wordy prose (or boring writing, for that matter) than overusing expletives. If you don’t know the type, it’s when you write phrases that use articles like “it,” “there” and “that,” followed by a “be” verb. Saying “It is the manager’s job to watch over the team’s results,” for instance, is an example of this. You can easily write that sentence a whole other way, of course, as in “The manager watches over the team’s results.” Notice how less wordy and tighter that reads? Use expletives for extra emphasis, but avoid it as much as you can.
Nominalizations. These words are, essentially, verbs used in their noun form. In the first example above, the verb “watch” is used in noun form; in the second example, it takes the place of the main verb.
Infinitives. There is one real rule in using infinitives: use only when it’s the best fit. Otherwise, ditch the “to check,” “to watch,” and all the “to +verb” constructs with their more straightforward counterpart.
Wordy writing sucks – that’s all there really is to it. These three simple things, coupled with a grammar checking software, can get you from bad to decent without entailing much heavy work on your part.
Tags: concise writing, expletives, infinitives, nominalizations
