Eliminating unnecessary words

Page contents:

  • Meaningless modifiers

  • Wordy phrases

Sometimes writers say that something is large in size or red in color or that two ingredients should be combined together. The italicized words are unnecessarily repetitive; delete such redundant words.

image

Meaningless modifiers

Many modifiers are so overused that they have little meaning.

MEANINGLESS MODIFIERS

absolutely, awfully, definitely, fine, great, interesting, quite, really, very

Wordy phrases

Wordy phrases can be reduced to a word or two with no loss in meaning.

WORDY CONCISE
at all times always
at that point in time then
at the present time now, today
due to the fact that because
for the purpose of for
in order to to
in spite of the fact that although
in the event that if

Quick Help: Editing for conciseness