five ways to unclutter your writing

Avoid the following . . .

1. Big words

Why use a dollar word when a twenty-five cent one will do?

Examples:

a) Prefer use to utilize.

Utilize is a needlessly long variant of use (In general, avoid ize affixes) Why utilize “utilize” when you can use “use?”

b) Prefer do to achieve, perform or accomplish.

c) Prefer tell or inform to apprise, advise, or acquaint?

2. Passive voice

Prefer the active to the passive; it’s clearer and more emphatic. When your sentences are in the active voice, the verb represents the actor as the subject. Consider the difference between “the message was sent” and “John sent the message”: the former is passive; the latter is active.

Examples:

a) Compare The Calculus course was taught by professor Hoffman to Professor Hoffman taught Calculus.

b) Compare The report was completed by Jill to Jill completed the report.

c) Compare Work had been done on the aircraft by John to John worked on the aircraft.

3. Words with Latin Roots

Diction—word choice—is the heart of good writing. One of many ways to pick a more concrete and effective word is to prefer the Anglo-Saxon to the Romance. Latin speaks mostly to the intellect, Anglo-Saxon to the heart. Come to my home (from Old English) is warmer than Come to my residence (from Latin).

Examples:

a) Compare A considerable element of the unpredictable must inevitably be taken into account to Time and chance happens to them all.

b) Compare The availability of this material is diminishing to This material is getting scarcer.

c) Compare Are you cognizant of the complex solution? to Do you know the answer?

4. Needless words

Here it is best that we lift a quote from William Strunk Jr. in his The Elements of Style: “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.”

Examples:

a) Compare John was aware of the fact that fast food was bad for his health to John knew that fast food was unhealthy.

b) Compare The field of economics is a complicated area of study to Economics is a difficult subject.

c) Compare The purpose of the printing device is the capability of performing the print service function to It prints reports.

5. Nominalizations

Life is full of action. Rooms light up. Machinery turns on. Robots wield huge tools with pinpoint precision. People live and move and do things to other people. To express this life in action and motion, we must use verbs—action verbs. And the purest verb form is the base verb, like go, stop, pay, build, and decide.

A base verb turned into a noun is called a “nominalization.” You nominalize a verb by adding affixes to a base verb, like ence, ancy, ity, ment, and ance. For example, when you say Consideration was given for a construction project by Josephine instead of Josephine considered the construction project; you have nominalized the base verb “consider.”

Examples:

a) Compare Authorization was given by Jack to purchase a new computer to Jack authorized the purchase of a new computer.

b) Compare Cooperation with you is our sincere desire, and we hope you’re willing to undertake serious reconsideration of your position to We want to cooperate with you, and we hope you’ll reconsider your position.

c) Compare The configuration of this design needs to be changed to We need to reconfigure your design.