On Being Concise

I remember being told, though I can't recall by whom, that the mark of a good writer is being concise; that is, using as few words as possible.

Accordingly, I'm ending this post right here.

Okay, not really.

As a copywriter, I don't view conciseness as making your writing as short as possible per se; a 10,000-word piece can still be concise if it covers enough material. Rather, I define conciseness as making every word count.

In my line of work, conciseness is critical because clients pay by the word; doing professional-quality writing means giving them their money's worth. I'd contend that it's important for any writer, though; if you use more words than necessary, you'll obscure your point and bore your readers.

How, then, can you make your writing more concise?

Adjectives and Adverbs. A good writer uses adjectives and adverbs to make a point; a bad writer uses them as a crutch. Consider the following sentences:

I ran quickly out the door.
I sprinted out the door.

See the difference? Both say the same thing, but the second sentence paints a much more vivid picture with fewer words. Write with nouns and verbs that include the meanings of the adjectives and adverbs you'd otherwise have to use.

Thus, one of the keys to conciseness is expanding your vocabulary. It's one of the great ironies of our language: The more words you know, the fewer you need to make your point.

Needlessly Long Phrases. English is chock-full of long phrases that stand in for one or two words. Instead of "at the present time," write "at present" or simply "presently." Instead of "in the event that," write "if." Instead of "for all intents and purposes," write nothing at all; it's a meaningless phrase.

Another type of long phrasing is called "burying the verb." Consider:

He gave us an account of the disaster.
He told us about the disaster.

Again, the shorter sentence actually gives a much clearer description of what happened.

Eliminating cliches is a great way to trim your writing down. Even in very casual contexts, it's generally unwise to use phrases like "pay the piper" or "the <expletive> hit the fan." Unless you're making a clever play on one of those cliches, keep them out of your writing.

Finally, don't overuse phrases like "I believe" or "in my opinion." When you put your name on an article, you're saying that everything in it is your opinion unless specifically attributed to someone else. It's acceptable to use those phrases sparingly for emphasis, but that's it.

Oh, and don't use "in my own personal opinion" under any circumstances, because of...

Redundancy. Redundancy is unnecessary repetition; unnecessary repetition constitutes redundancy.

No matter how hard I try to stop them, I find that some repetitions slip through the cracks, as though my brain gets stuck on certain words. This sentence found its way into a first draft that I wrote some time ago:

Liberty University offers a challenging degree program that challenges students...

Granted, that error is fairly obvious, but many redundancies are subtle. Whenever a word or phrase is already implicit in another word or phrase, you have a redundancy error. For instance:

Don't forget to capitalize the first letter of each word in the title.

By definition, capitalizing a word involves making the first letter and only the first letter capital. (Making the all the letters capital is typically called writing in all caps.) Thus, the phrase "the first letter of" is redundant.

An even sneakier sort of redundancy occurs when a word or phrase is implicit in the overall context of the piece. For instance, suppose I include the following sentence in an article titled "Saving Energy at Home."

Make sure you unplug all appliances in the house before you go to bed.

See the issue? The whole article is about the reader's house; thus, the phrase "in the house" is redundant. It's assumed that I'm talking about things in and around the house unless otherwise specified.

When you proofread, watch out for errors like these. (You do proofread, right? Good.) Reading aloud helps. If you have time, have someone else read it over; a fresh set of eyes can often spot redundancies that are invisible to the original author.

Organization. So far I've talked about being concise on the micro level, in individual sentences. If you're not careful, however, you may run into macro-level redundancy: saying the same thing twice in different parts of your writing. The simplest way around this issue is to have a plan and stick with it.

This is the part of my own advice that I have the most trouble following. I'm a terrible planner and always have been; I find I can't really get going unless I just jump in and write. If you're like me in that regard, try making an outline of your writing as you go, taking note of the topics you've already covered and making sure you don't cover them again.

Whether you make an outline before you write, while you're writing or not at all, don't skip the proofreading step at the end. It's your best fail-safe measure.

One final note: Redundancy is unnecessary repetition. If you need to repeat yourself to drive home a point, go ahead, but don't ever write the same exact thing twice. Approach the repeated material from a slightly different angle, and you'll find that your writing stays fresh and interesting.