by Sentenceworks
Wordiness
In an attempt to sound intelligent, or to explain themselves clearly, writers sometimes use too many words. If you care to lend a formal or passive tone to your writing, wordiness may be an acceptable method of doing so; if you are trying to clearly communicate information, confusing your reader with unnecessary words may not be the best way to go. As well, too many qualifiers, determiners, modifiers, etc., may make your writing appear wishy-washy, which will not aide in supporting an argument.Determiners And Modifiers
Determiners and modifiers are required when making a specific point, but we often use them when they are not required, which makes for incoherent writing. Look for words like, “basically”, “sort of”, “actually”, and “really”.
Incorrect: At each place setting, there was an individual name card and a personalised napkin.
As it has already been stated the cards and napkins are at “each place setting”, the word “individual” is unnecessary.
Incorrect: For all intents and purposes, I kind of wanted to take the day off work.
Rephrasing this sentence as, “I wanted to take the day off work” is a more effective way of communicating.
Exceptions:
Correct: For all intents and purposes, she is a kind woman; her appearance makes people think otherwise.
Determiners and modifiers do have their uses. In this sentence, “for all intents and purposes” creates the conditional tone desired.
Circumlocutions
Commonly-used circumlocutionsin oral communication often become excessive in written communication. Such phrases like, “the reason that”, “considering the fact that”, and “due to the fact that”, are better replaced by more succinct wording such as, “because”.
Incorrect: It is highly important that the wording of the proposal convey our superior services.
The sentence might be better written, “The wording of the proposal must convey our superior services.”
Incorrect: In all cases, we should consider the possibility that the reason for a child’s behaviour may be affected by extenuating circumstances.
A large portion of this sentence is unnecessary. A succinct version might be: “Any child’s behaviour may be affected by extenuating circumstances.”
Unnecessary Infinitive Phrases
Using infinitive phrases can make your writing appear more formal, but may also clutter it unnecessarily. Consider re-writing infinitive phrases as finite verbs or short noun phrases.
Incorrect: The responsibility of a parent is to ensure the health and safety of their child, as well as to provide an environment of happiness.
This sentence could be otherwise written: A parent must ensure their child is healthy, safe, and in a happy environment.
Incorrect: In order that my house be acceptable for the pending visit of my parents, I needed to vacuum the living room, to dust the furniture, to scrub the kitchen, to disinfect the bathroom, and to launder all the linens.
While a sentence as specific as this may be in order, a simple sentence may provide more clarity to the reader: I needed to clean my house thoroughly because my parents were coming to visit.
Redundant Categories
In trying to be precise or formal, we re-state terms implied by a specific word. For instance, we do not need to say, “large in size”, as “large” already refers to size. “Large in size” is called a “redundant category”. Remove the redundant term(s).
Incorrect: My least-favourite great-aunt is round in shape, and heavy in weight.
“Round” must always refer to shape, and “heavy” must always refer to weight. The sentence would be better written, “My least-favourite great-aunt is round and heavy.”
Incorrect: E.S.L. students may often times confuse verb tenses.
The word “often” necessarily refers to time, so “times” is redundant and may be removed from the sentence.
Redundant Pairs
In common language, we often include qualifiers or quantifiers which re-state the meaning of a specific word; this is called a “redundant pair”. Some examples are, “past memories”, “future plans”, “basic fundamentals” and “many myriad”. Some other examples of redundant pairs include qualifiers for verbs, such as “racing” (e.g. “He was racing quickly up the street.”)
Incorrect: Shoppers will receive a very unique free gift with purchases of $50 or more.
“Unique” is an absolute word; something cannot be “very unique” or “slightly unique”. The word, “gift”, implies something which is given free of obligation, so the word, “free”, can be removed.
Incorrect: The teacher praised each individual student for their efforts over the year.
“Each” and “individual” both refer to one student; one of these words should be removed.
Correct: The title, “The Book of True Facts”, contains a redundant pair.
A fact cannot be untrue, so “true fact” is a redundant pair.
Wordy sentence
People have very short attention spans; if too much information is presented all at once, the brain cannot properly process it. If the sentence is very long, or if there is no punctuation to organise the words, it may be considered a Wordy Sentence. While there are no strict rules about length of a sentence, if your clauses are longer than about 20 words, or if your entire sentence is longer than about 40 words, it may be too much for your reader to clearly understand. If the reader has to go back and re-read too many sentences, they may just give up reading... and possibly fall asleep.
Incorrect: Thousands and thousands of wonderful people who have the environment’s best interests at heart have thrown themselves into the cause of protecting this beautiful Earth from the detrimental effects of those irresponsible people who inhabit its every nook and cranny.
Grammatically, this sentence is correct. However, at precisely 40 words, it boggles the mind. In order that it not have more than 20 words without punctuation, the sentence would be best re-worded as two shorter sentences: Many people have the environment’s best interests at heart. These people are dedicated to protecting the Earth from the detrimental effects of those who inhabit its every corner.