I am jumping in for the next 4 weeks to give some writing tidbits that will strengthen your writing.The first tidbit: clear out the deadwood. Deadwood refers to a word or phrase that can be omitted without loss in meaning.*
Look for:
- Words or phrases that add unneeded bulk to a sentence and weaken its message (
quiteright,veryunique) - Common phrases that are bloated with redundant words (
addedbonus,currentlyunavailable) - Unimportant words at the beginning of a sentence that push the most important information farther from the start (
As a matter of fact,in the same way)
Look for these "deadwood" words and clear them out:
- actively, actually, already, always, any, appropriate(ly), associated, automatic(ally)
- currently
- easily, existing, extremely
- fairly
- much
- particular, predefined, previously
- quickly, quite
- rather, really
- several, simply, so, suitable
- totally
- very
Do you have any favorite "deadwood" phrases that drive you nutty when you read them in an article, newsletter, etc? Please post them in the comment section...
I'll start with: " As you know..."
~Cindy Blomquist, Editor
*Chris Barr, The Yahoo! Style Guide (St. Marten's Griffen: New York, 2010) 288.
3 comments:
hmmmm, you got me thinking on these...I'll get back to you
Susan
As a matter of fact, under normal circumstances, I can't think of any really useless words or phrases or tidbits that I might use fairly unknowingly or unwittingly in basic writing. I will have to watch our for any from here on out.
@Ellie...I may not be the smartest girl in the room (or on the blog), but that was brilliantly put.
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