Do you find yourself writing sentences that are far too long?
Have you ever re-read a sentence and struggled to finish it in one breath?
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If so, you may be suffering from something called prolixity, or in layman’s terms, wordiness. Wordiness is one of the most common writing mistakes and happens when you, either intentionally or unintentionally, use far too many words or unnecessarily complex or abstract words.
Wordiness is taking more words than necessary to make your point. It may take the form of redundant expressions or phrases. While it’s true that longer expressions may be appropriate at times as a matter of style or to avoid ambiguity, some business writers clutter their sentences and paragraphs with words, phrases, and expressions that needlessly distract the reader.
Here’s an example of too many words being used to deliver a simple message.
Welcome to the new [company name] website. We have worked on improving the design and overall user experience, so you can navigate the site much easier and get quick access to what you are looking for. We welcome your feedback, so please email us at xxxx if you see a broken link, or feel that something should be reviewed or enhanced. We will do our best to refine your user experience.
How about…?
We have improved our website design so it’s easier and quicker for you to discover what you need. If you find any errors, or have any suggestions for our site, please email us.
Consistent elimination of wordiness results in a stronger, more concise writing style that is easier to read and provides fewer opportunities for misinterpretation. In contrast, a wordy style makes reading laborious and will encourage skimming which will lead to inattention. Do you want the reader to carefully consider your message? If so, reduce wordiness to a minimum.
Tips to help you avoid wordiness in your writing
Fillers
One way to control wordiness is to limit (or eliminate) the use of filler words. These words sneak in between relevant words and though they may sound good, they serve no purpose.
If you took out the word commonly in the phrase “It is commonly believed that…,” the meaning would not change, and it would actually improve the sentence.
Redundancies
This tends to happen when writers try to describe something and overuse synonyms.
Take this sentence: “Mark is a funny, hilarious, and comical person.” Here, three words that basically mean the same thing are used to describe Mark.
The second form of redundancy is where writers say the same thing many times, but in different ways.
Qualifiers
Qualifiers come directly before an adjective or adverb and are used to either increase or decrease the quality of the modified word. When every adjective or adverb is preceded by very, extremely, barely, or hardly, the qualifiers begin to lose their meaning. The use of one good word rather than two or three mediocre ones will instantly improve your writing.
For example, in the phrase “David is very cool,” very is the qualifier. The overuse of such qualifiers can distract readers.
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Qualified words can often be replaced by a single, more potent word. For example, “Kim is extremely angry” could be shortened to “Kim is furious”.
Logorrhoea
This form of wordiness can be the most frustrating. Logorrhoea is the intentional use of long sentences or overly abstract wording. A little like verbal diarrhoea (it even sounds the same)!
“Prior to my becoming a writer, I knew wordiness was an issue in writing, but it was only during the course of writing my articles that I realised the extent of the problem. At that point in time I began to see examples everywhere. In due course I noticed certain patterns, and subsequent to my realising this I compiled a list.”
Could become…
“Before I became a writer, I knew wordiness was an issue, but only when I started writing did I realise how bad it was. I started to see examples everywhere and noticed patterns, and it helped me to write a list of these patterns.”
If you are guilty of this, you may want to put down the thesaurus and remember that writing is about conveying a message.
If your readers can’t understand what you’re saying, you should consider making your writing more reader friendly.
Total Word Count: 716
Could I have written this article with fewer words?
You tell me… Or, better still, please do not hesitate to make use of my services to assist you in eliminating the scourge of prolixity in business writing. (Only kidding!)
Source: https://t-tees.com
Category: WHY
