March 3, 2009

10 Tips for Concise Writing that Tutors can Share

In the first edition of The Elements of Style, American English professor William Strunk Jr. urged his students at Cornell University to "Omit needless words":

"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."

In support of this goal, the Purdue University Online Writing Lab offers advice in the following 10 areas:

  1. Eliminate unnecessary determiners and modifiers
  2. Change phrases into single words
  3. Change unnecessary that, who, and which clauses into phrases
  4. Avoid overusing expletives at the beginning of sentences
  5. Use active rather than passive verbs
  6. Avoid overusing noun forms of verbs
  7. Reword unnecessary infinitive phrases
  8. Replace circumlocutions with direct expressions
  9. Omit words that explain the obvious or provide excessive detail
  10. Omit repetitive wording

For details on each point in printer-friendly or pdf formats, as well as practice exercizes, click here.

Filed under: Academic Learning Centers,Training/Education

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