English 105 (Smart)

Grammar & Flow 2: Concision

Taken from J. Williams (2000) Style, 6th Ed.

On the last handout we talked about making Characters the Subjects and Actions the Verbs in all the sentences we revise.

The following author has done so, but there are still other problems with the sentence:

In my personal opinion, it is necessary that all of us not ignore the opportunity to think over in a careful manner each and every suggestion that others offer us.

Revising that sentence, we can come up with:

We must consider each suggestion carefully.

This revision is perhaps not very elegant, but it fulfills the first principle of graceful writing: compression. To achieve concise writing, there are five rules to follow:

  1. Delete meaningless words:

Kind of / Actually / Particular / Really / Certain / Various
Virtually / Individual / Basically / Generally / Given / Practically
  1. Delete Doubled Words:

Full and complete / Hope and trust / Any and all
True and accurate / Each and every / Basic and fundamental
Hopes and desires / First and foremost / Various and sundry
  1. Delete what readers can infer:

Redundant modifiers (some common redundancies):

Completely finish / Past history / Various different
Basic fundamentals / Future plans / Personal beliefs
Final outcome / True facts / Consensus of opinion
Terrible tragedy / Free gift / Each individual

Other redundancies include prepositions already implied by their preceding verbs:

Continue on, return back to, penetrate into, circle around

Nouns often used redundantly:

Large in size / Round in shape / Honest in character
Unusual in nature / Of a strange type / Area of mathematics
Of a bright color / At an early time / In a confused state

General implications: Harder to spot b/c can be so diffuse:

Imagine someone trying to learn the rules for playing the game of chess.

Learning implies someone trying, playing a game implies rules, chess is a kind of game. So, more concisely:

Imagine learning the rules of chess.

  1. Replace a phrase with a word

Carefully read what you have written /  / Edit
The thing to do before anything else /  / First
See whether /  / Find
Use X instead of Y /  / Replace
Sequences of Subjects and Verbs /  / Clauses
Nouns instead of verbs /  / Nominalizations

Some of the most common phrases to watch for include the following:

The reason for
Due to the fact that
Owing to the fact that /
In light of the fact that /  / Because, since, why
Considering the fact that
On the grounds that
This is why

5. Change negatives to affirmatives: when you express and idea in its negative form, you have to add a word same = not different. But more important, you force your readers to infer your meaning through a kind of algebraic factoring. These two sentences, for example mean much the same thing, but the affirmative is more direct:

Do no write in the negative. = Write in the affirmative.

Do not rewrite all negatives (some you may want to emphasize the negative), but most can be rewritten, almost formulaically:

Not different /  / Similar / Not many /  / Few
Not the same /  / Different / Not often /  / Rarely
Not allow /  / Prevent / Not admit /  / Deny
Not notice /  / Overlook / Not include /  / Omit
Not remember /  / Forget / Not consider /  / ignore

Some conjunctions, verbs, and prepositions are inherently negative: VERBS: preclude, lack, fail, doubt, reject, prohibit, bar. CONJUNCTIONS: except, unless PREPOSITIONS: without, against, but, for, lacking.

Multiple negatives can be confusing:

Except when applicants have failed to submit applications without complete documentation, benefits will not be denied.

Revised: You will receive benefits only if you submit all your documents

To receive benefits, submit all your documents.