Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell. --William Strunk quoted in E.B White’s introduction to Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style Macmillan, 1959 (first printed in 1935).

Steps 1 through 5 of Richard Lanham’s Paramedic Method from Revising Prose Macmillan, 1992.

  1. Circle the prepositions (aboard, about, above, across, against, along, around, amid, among, after, at, except, for, during, down, behind, below, beneath, beside, between, before, beyond, by, in, from, off, on, over, of, until, unto, upon, under, underneath, since, up, like, near, past, throughout, through, with, within, without, instead, toward, inside, into, to)
  2. Circle the “is” forms
  3. Ask, “Where is the action?” “Who is kicking who?”
  4. Put this “kicking” action in a simple (not compound) active verb
  5. Start fast—no slow windups

“Lard Factor”= the percentage of words eliminated from original sentence. Divide total number of words in the original sentence into number of words removed.

Examples:

Original sentence from the conclusion of an essay on Anne Frank:
Where’s the action?
Original sentence from an autobiographical essay
Original sentence from the same essay
Original sentence from a research paper / So all in all I would say that Anne is a nice girl with good and bad qualities.
This sentence suffers from a slow start. Watch what happens when you cut it:
Anne is a nice girl with good and bad qualities. Better—more concise. Eight words eliminated, so… 8 18 = .44 LF =44%
Answer: nowhere! Give your subject an action:
Anne holds grudges, but shines overall. Sentence makes a valuable point, referring to specifics and stating a stronger opinion. 1218=.67 LF =67%
I then looked back at the bush and stared closely at it and noticed that there were huge thorns covering the whole bush!
Huge thorns covered the whole bush! LF=74% I know this happened after the event described earlier, so “then” can go. I know this is the writer’s observation, so “I” and “looked back…stared closely…and noticed that there were” can go. The action, “…were…covering,” is compound (more than one word) and passive—make it active: “covered.”
So I took a bite out of it and it literally exploded in my mouth, releasing temperatures that seemed to soar over 10,000 degrees.
The 10,000 degree berry filling exploded in my mouth.. LF=63% Think carefully about the action; the berries burning his mouth grabs attention and makes the point better than “So I took a bite…” The berries rule this sentence, not the writer and his bite!
Stowe would not stop now until she had completed her task of convincing as many as possible that slavery was a terrible and malignant truth, and Americans were listening.
Americans heard Stowe’s convincing argument against slavery. LF 76% The important action, Americans influenced by Stowe’s work, is emphasized.