Wordiness

Signs: Excessive use of little words.

Remember that floor-cleaning ad of years ago? The one with an announcer informing homemakers everywhere that their floors were suffering from dull, waxy buildup? As businesspeople, you must confront a similar problem: unsightly little-word buildup, which collects on the page and dulls the smooth, sparkling finish of your message. Worse, it confuses your readers and makes a potentially interesting message boring. And nothing distracts today’s impatient readers as much as that. The solution: cut the little-word buildup.

Four Simple Steps to Wipe Away Little-Word Buildup

Use this approach and after only a few weeks, cutting extra words should become a tidy, one-minute process for your average letter:

1. Look for clusters of two-, three-, and four-letter words and boring, unnecessary words. Basically, think small. Sometimes these little words may hide between substantive words. Sometimes not. Here’s an example:

The team planned to go to the meeting that will be held on Friday at a little before 10:00.

2. Circle or highlight these words. This will heighten your awareness of little-word buildup, and help you revise quickly.

The team planned to go to the meeting that will be held on Friday at a little before 10:00.

3. Cut and create tighter sentences. Now, simply lift the wordiness off the page. Occasionally you may add one strong word to replace several weak ones. No, you shouldn’t use seventeensyllable replacements, which intimidate and bore the average reader. Go for ordinary, clean words, which your reader can glide across like a skater over ice. The revision:

The team planned to attend Friday’s meeting just before 10:00.

4. Compare the number of words in your first and second versions. This will help you identify little-word buildup and, eventually, cut little words before you write them. In the last example, we moved from 19 words to 12 words — a 36 percent savings in readers’ time.What constitutes an unsightly little word? Prepositions, articles, conjunctions, and other small words that hide between larger ones, in cracks between sentences, and in spaces between thoughts like verbal fleas. Also, those two- and three-letter words that cluster together throughout a document. Longer, flat, and equally unnecessary words may join them. Look at this example from an in-house memo:

In today’s meeting, we were happy to have the opportunity to welcome John Spaulding. He reviewed some of the newest types of evaluations. If you have any questions about these evaluations, feel free to call him at the education center. (42 words)

Some of the extra words are:
were happy to have the opportunity to
some of the
any
about these evaluations
feel free to

Now, look at the improved version:

In today’s meeting, we welcomed John Spaulding, who reviewed new types of evaluations. If you have questions, call him at the education center. (23 words)

Some people take an instinctive approach to repairing their message once the extra words are gone, juggling around the pieces until the sentence sounds right. This method has a creative quality, much like a jazz player who can’t read music and doesn’t understand music theory, but finds the melody by feel. The trick is to make sure your revisions are improvements, not merely changes.