Solutions for Wordy Phrasing

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Efforts to make your writing more concise are admirable, but although some words and phrases won’t be missed or fewer or shorter words can be substituted, others may serve a useful distinction. Note, in the following examples and annotations, the differences in the suitability of various phrases.

“What the organization aims to do is produce an economically sustainable model.”
When a sentence describes a series of actions, revise to expunge the weakest among them. Start the sentence with the subject by omitting what, then delete do, and the rest falls into place: “The organization aims to produce an economically sustainable model.”

“I appreciate the fact that we can discuss this reasonably.”
A fact does not need to be identified as such. When such self-referential labeling occurs, delete it: “I appreciate that we can discuss this reasonably.”

“Due to the fact that you arrived late, we missed our flight.”
What does “due to the fact that” mean? “Because.” So use because instead: “Because you arrived late, we missed our flight.”

“We arrived early in order to get good seats.”
“In order to” can easily be reduced to to: “We arrived early to get good seats.” However, sometimes — especially in sentences in which the phrase precedes know or a similar verb — including it seems an improvement on the more concise version.

Retaining the phrase in “She reread the essay in order to understand its argument more clearly,” for example, suggests a contemplation that “She reread the essay to understand its argument more clearly” does not, and “She reread the essay so that she understood its argument more clearly” is the same length as, and no more elegant than, the original wording. “So as to” is a similar construction, as in “We studied other cultures so as to appreciate traditional customs that persist in immigrant communities.”

Also, “in order” is best retained before a negative infinitive, as in “I tiptoed across the room in order not to wake her.”

“I left the papers on my desk in order that I would not forget them.”
“In order that” is equivalent to so and can be replaced by that word: “I left the papers on my desk so I would not forget them.” (That may be retained but is optional.)

10 Classes of Careless Usage

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If you find yourself making any of the following types of errors, general or specific, brush up on your writing with grammar guides and usage handbooks and/or any or all of the other strategies mentioned at the end of this post.

1. Appending an s to words in which, in most usage, the letter should not be included (for example, regards, as in “in regards to”) or that, in American English, have dropped it altogether (backward). (Using the -st ending in such words as amidst and amongst is a similar sign of poor usage.)

2. Using the incorrect form of pronouns — writing, for example, “My friend and myself” instead of “My friend and I” or “That happened to she and I at the same time” rather than “That happened to her and me at the same time.” (If you don’t like the way that sentence looks, either, write, “That happened to both of us at the same time.”)

3. Using unnecessarily complicated words or phrases in favor of simpler, well-established terms: utilize instead of use, “prior to” in place of before, subsequently instead of later.

4. Using nonwords: irregardless, supposably, theirselves.

5. Using plural forms of words instead of singular ones: “a criteria,” “a phenomena.”

6. Using less when fewer is appropriate: “There are less boxes than I thought” instead of “There are fewer boxes than I thought.”

7. Using euphemisms: “He passed away last year” instead of “He died last year.”

8. Using badly in place of bad in such sentences as “He feels badly about the decision.”

9. Adding extraneous prepositions: “That’s too small of a shirt for you.”

10. Employing erroneous wording of idiomatic phrases: “for all intensive purposes” instead of “for all intents and purposes.”

So, how do you know if you’re making such mistakes? Printing this representative list out and tacking it up next to your computer is all well and good for reminding you about these ten pitfalls, but what about the hundreds of others that plague writers?

A combination of strategies is called for:

Do Your Homework
Determine whether the content or presentation style is appropriate for you, then, a few pages at a time, work your way through the ones that work for you.

Read Role Models
Seek out high-quality prose: leading magazines and newspapers and great literature. You don’t have to give up reading your favorite blogs or pulp fiction (some of which is/are very well written), but divide your leisure reading between the exemplary and the acceptable so that you can distinguish between the two and recognize well-constructed prose.

Go Back to School
Take a writing or editing class, whether offered as part of a university’s regular curriculum or as a continuing-education course. Whether you earned an MA in literature is irrelevant. You probably didn’t focus on the mechanics of writing during your college years, but now it’s time to do so.

Ask for Backup
Get a friend or a colleague whose writing or editing skills you respect to look over shorter pieces for you and flag grammar and usage errors. (Emphasize that you’d like them to merely call out the problems; you’ll solve them.) This strategy doesn’t work if you’ve completed a novel or a thick report, unless you can pay or trade for services, but when applied to short stories or modest work projects, it will help you develop your skills.