Style: Wordiness

Cluttered prose, or prose that is excessively wordy, can be as much fun to read as a set of tax instructions or a legal brief. Technical writing should not be complicated; in fact, it should be easy to read while still being fluid in style.  Your goal is to strive for simplicity while avoiding choppiness.

Here’s that advice put another way, taken from Professor Jay’s Rules for Funny Writers (which, alas, no longer exists):

Do not use more words, phrases, sentences, or other linguistic elements than you, yourself, actually really and definitely need to use or employ when expressing yourself or otherwise giving voice to what you may or may not be thinking when you are trying to say how many words you should use or not use when using words.

Dr. Jay beautifully shows you how wordiness can make the simplest idea convoluted and virtually indecipherable.  In other words, keep it short and to the point.

The following problems can make your writing wordy, so avoid them: 

Jargon

Also known as bureaucratic language and “officialese,” jargon relies on abstractions, convoluted constructions, and evasive language.   Because it is difficult to decipher, it is unfriendly.   It also suggests the writer is smarter than the reader.

Jargon-filled: The committee must implement the operationalizing of those mechanisms and modes of activity and strategies necessary to maintain the viability of the institution’s fiscal management operations.

Jargon-free: The committee must take measures to ensure the institution’s financial security. 

Common Jargon Terms

It is impossible to share with you all of the possible jargon terms you might run into as a student or writer, but the table below provides some of the most popular ones.

Instead of Saying This	Say This
initiate	begin
utilize	use
summarization	summary
cognizant of	aware of
conversant with	familiar with
at this point in time	now
subsequent to	after
due to the fact that	because
for the purpose of	for

 

Surplus or Redundant Words 

Surplus or redundant words also can make your prose wordy because they unnecessarily restate obvious facts or relationships. Avoid terms that state the obvious. 

Redundant:
Our future plans are to add workshops in the areas of accounting, the method of maintaining automobiles, and the process of organic gardening. Instructors will begin with the basic fundamentals and then advance forward at a rate acceptable to individual persons enrolled. The end result will be a kind of class-directed learning technique.

Sleeker:
We plan to add workshops in accounting, automobile maintenance, and organic gardening. Instructors will begin with the fundamentals and advance at a rate acceptable to the individuals enrolled. The result will be class-directed learning. 

Common Redundancies

In conversation, redundancies are far more acceptable. In writing, however, particularly formal writing, they have no place. Here are a few of the more common redundancies, plus the words you can use instead of them.

 

Instead of Saying This	Say This
past history	history; the past
any and all	all
different individuals	individuals
each and every	each; every; all
end result	result
final outcome	outcome
future plans	plans
important essentials	essentials
personal friend	friend
reduce down	reduce
true facts	facts; truth
in today's world	today