8.2 Conciseness

Successful technical writing is concise. Once you have written a solid draft, a document that has been well researched, take a step back and question whether or not you can delete half of the words. In a world where billions of instant messages and emails are sent daily, brevity is a virtue. Readers appreciate concise writing. They respect writers who can explain difficult matters simply.

Conciseness Improves Flow

Unfortunately, many writers use sentences that are too wordy. This is not to suggest that lengthy sentences can never be used (because they certainly can), but at times writers make the mistake of using more words than necessary to get their message across.

EXAMPLE:

The above sentence makes sense, though the statement could be more precise if it were phrased a little differently.  Describing the action first, followed by the reason, would improve it:

The above sentence conveys the same message and is more succinct and direct. True, the sentence omits certain parts: that Michelle “was supposed to have her car’s oil changed every 3,000 miles,” but we know this already (or can presume so) from the word “because.” The sentence also omits “she took her car to the mechanic,” because it’s obvious—mechanics typically perform oil changes. However, if it’s important for readers to know that she went to a mechanic, then it should be kept.

The first sentence example isn’t wrong; it just has some superfluous wording, which can disrupt your writing’s flow. Just as machines don’t have extra parts, sentences shouldn’t have extra words.

EXAMPLE:

The above passage is unnecessarily wordy, imprecise, and, at times, confusing. It can be distilled into a single sentence as shown below:

Redundancy Reduces Conciseness

Writing concisely also involves avoiding redundancies.  Redundancy happens when you use more words than necessary to express something, especially words and/or phrases in the same sentence that mean the same thing.  Many writers are guilty of violating this rule at times, especially in their daily conversations.  However, as you proofread your papers, try to double-check them for unnecessary phrases that you can omit or edit.

Here are some examples of redundant phrases:

• • • “small in size” or “large in size”
    • “true facts”
    • “basic fundamentals”
    • “past history”
    • “evolve over time”
    • “consensus of opinion”

If you think about what’s being said in each of the above phrases, you can catch the redundancies: if something is small, for example, it’s small—you don’t need to tack on “in size” for clarification.  If an event took place in history, then you don’t need to specify that it took place in “past history” (all history is past). If something is a “fact,” then by definition it’s true.

Here are some additional examples of words and phrases that can often be pruned for clarity:

• • • “kind of”
    • “sort of”
    • “really”
    • “basically”
    • “for all intents and purposes”
    • “actually”
    • “generally”

Eliminating Wordiness Improves Clarity

Here are a few methods to practice to help make your writing clearer and more concise:

1. 1. Eliminate unnecessary determiners and modifiers

Writers sometimes clog up their prose with one or more extra words or phrases that seem to determine narrowly or to modify the meaning of a noun but don’t actually add to the meaning of the sentence. Although such words and phrases can be meaningful in the appropriate context, they are often filler and can easily be eliminated.

EXAMPLE:

1. 2. Change phrases into single words

Convert phrases into single words when possible.

EXAMPLE:

1. 3. Change unnecessary that, who, and which clauses into phrases

Convert modifying clauses into phrases or single words when possible.

EXAMPLE:

1. 4. Avoid overusing expletives at the beginning of sentences

Expletives are phrases of the form it + be-verb or there + be-verb. Such expressions can be rhetorically effective for emphasis in some situations, but overuse or unnecessary use of expletive constructions creates wordy prose.

Take the following example: “It is imperative that we find a solution.” The same meaning could be expressed with this more succinct wording: “We must find a solution.” But using the expletive construction allows the writer to emphasize the urgency of the situation by placing the word imperative near the beginning of the sentence, so the version with the expletive may be preferable.

Still, you should generally avoid excessive or unnecessary use of expletives. The most common kind of unnecessary expletive construction involves an expletive followed by a noun and a relative clause beginning with that, which, or who. In most cases, you can create a more concise sentence by eliminating the expletive opening, making the noun the subject of the sentence, and eliminating the relative pronoun.

EXAMPLE:

1. 5. Use active rather than passive verbs (for more information, see the section on  active vs passive voice).

The active voice emphasizes the person/thing doing the action in a sentence. To make a passive sentence active, put the subject at the beginning and follow it with a verb.

EXAMPLE:

1. 6. Omit words or phrases that explain the obvious or provide excessive detail

If you find passages that explain or describe in detail what would already be obvious to readers, delete or reword them.

EXAMPLE:

Take the following short quiz to test your understanding of clear and concise writing:

Chapter 8 Exercise: Clarity & Conciseness

Additional Resources

• “Brevity, Clutter, Concision” from WritingCommons.org.

• “Writing Concisely.” from George Mason University’s Writing Center. Writingcenter.gmu.edu

• “Concision” from the Purdue OWL.

"Writing Concisely and Avoiding Redundancy." WritingCommons.org. [License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0]