How to Reduce Wordy Sentences

Email, text messaging, Twitter, Facebook, Zoom, and other forms of internet communities are the way people interact with each other.

Am I against using these new ways to communicate? Absolutely not. I use them, too, and find it quite enjoyable to interact with friends both old and new.

Am I tempted to shorten my messages and tweets with letters and numerals such as, "I want 2 C U 2 day?" Not really.

Because I am a writer and a grammar teacher, I try to condense my words into succinct phrases, clauses, and sentences that convey my exact meaning while using fewer words.

With practice, anyone can become a better writer. One of the best ways to improve one’s writing is to cut extraneous words from essays, emails, texts, or manuscripts.

It takes work to say what you mean, but anyone can do it well with practice.

Learn to:

• repeat a word or phrase only when necessary.
• avoid a careless or needless repetition of a thought in different words.
• avoid clumsy, roundabout expressions.
• eliminate needless words and choppy sentences.
• avoid the double negative.
• use adverbs sparingly.
• choose the precise word to convey your meaning.
• avoid clichés.

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It is quality, not quantity that counts in writing. Most good writing is not cluttered with superfluous words.

Here are three ways to improve your writing:

(1) Eliminate extra words and the unnecessary repetition of ideas. 

For example:

Wordy: The dog played with a small, little, round ball, which was made of rubber.

Better: The dog played with a little rubber ball.

(2) Reduce clauses to phrases and phrases to single words.

For example:

Wordy:  We decided that we would leave the meeting early.

Better: We decided to leave the meeting early.

Wordy: The illegal immigrants who had been captured were deported to Mexico.

Better: The captured illegal immigrants were deported to Mexico.

(3) Avoid trying to sound like Shakespeare. Write naturally. 

For example:

Wordy:  Illumination is required when the sun has sunk into the west and left the premises in darkness.

Better: Turn on the lights at dark.

What about you? Do you sometimes use more words that you really need? I know I do, so when I go back and proofread what I have written, I often find myself tapping the delete key.

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Twitter is a great place for people to learn to practice reducing long, convoluted, rambling sentences into 280 characters.

Click here to download a FREE exercise to practice reducing longer sentences into shorter, concise statements.

Here are some related resources in my store that you might find useful for your students.

Avoiding Redundancies - A Revision Technique for Writers

Just Say It! How to Avoid Wordiness in Writing

Revise and Edit Papers and Manuscripts

“It ain't whatcha write, it's the way atcha write it.”

                                                ------- Jack Kerouac

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Say What You Mean and Avoid Redundancies

Good writers simply say what they mean and avoid excess verbiage.

Don’t say: “In my opinion, I think you are wrong.” Instead, just say: “I think you are wrong.” (Obviously, this is your opinion.)

Don't say: "At this point in time." Instead, just say, "now."

Don't say: "I thought to myself." Instead, just say, "I thought." (Obviously, your thoughts are directed to yourself. They are your thoughts, after all.)

Good writers avoid using redundant expressions.

Redundancy generally occurs when a word or phrase that already has specific meaning is further modified by words or phrases that mean the same thing. 

In your writing, you should always strive to find the most specific words to express your thoughts.

Then, when you find those words, you must also resist the temptation to embellish them. If you do the result often results in redundancy. 

The following examples are quite common. You may hear them most often on the news or read them online or in print. But, just because they are commonly used doesn't make them good writing.

Avoid redundant expressions to make your writing clear, concise, and clutter-free. Consider the following examples. The words in parentheses are not necessary.

blue (in color)
small/large (in size)
(first) discovered/introduced/began
combine/add/mix/link/weave (together)
Easter (Sunday)
a.m. (in the morning)
(free) gift
(added) bonus
drown/starve/strangle (to death)
(Jewish) synagogue
the winter/summer/spring/fall (months)
(fully) comprehensive
visible (to the eye)
(mental) telepathy
(old) relic
reason (why)
consensus (of opinion)
(previous/past) experience/history
(new) baby/invention/discovery
(remaining) vestige
spin (in circles)

thought(to himself)

These are just a few examples. There are many more. Be watchful and eliminate redundancies from your writing whenever possible.

Click here for an exercise you can use with your students to help them master this writing revision technique.

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Teach Grammar the Easy Way

I hope by now,  if you are using one of my Simple Steps to Sentence Sense books to teach grammar and usage, you have discovered that students can be successful and make good grades and even enjoy learning. As the English Proverb states: "Nothing succeeds like success."

This post is an update on an older post, and many teachers tell me reading it was very helpful. I hope so. 

What a wonderful feeling it is to give students frequent chances to succeed and feel good about themselves! 

The way to achieve this is really simple. When you grade students’ group and individual papers, break each lesson into several components. (I always let them trade and grade except on tests.) 

For example, when you do Step 3: Finding the Subject, don’t just check for the subjects that students find in each sentence. That would only give students 20 answers at 5 points apiece and make it easy for them to get a low score.
Instead, count the prepositional phrase(s) in each sentence as one point, the verb phrase as one point, and the subject as one point. Voila! Now there are over 60 answers and students can miss several and still get a decent score. 

Of course, these tips work with any assignment you give your students whether or not it comes from one of my books. 

For each step, you can decide which parts of the sentence are the key parts. For example, when working on Step 4: Finding the Complements, the key is deciding if the verb is action or linking before looking for the complement. When grading each paper, be sure to count the verb and whether it is an action or a linking verb along with the complement as key elements in the score. 

Use the answer pages in the back of the book to count the number of elements you plan to score in each lesson and make your directions clear about which parts of the sentence students are to mark when scoring papers. This is another opportunity for the teacher to re-teach and emphasize that sentence analysis must be done in steps, and that the steps must be done in order. Skipping a step is a recipe for confusion and disaster. 

This method could get to be a bit too much of a hassle if the teacher had to do the math each time papers are graded and figure out the correct score for papers that have 63 answers, or 71 answers, etc. It could, but it won’t, if you download my Grading Scale Chart. You can print it on both sides of a sheet of paper, slip it into a plastic folder sleeve and take it with you anywhere. You can even give your students a copy if you so desire. 

I always just called out the answers out loud: minus 18 equals ? (or whatever). Then I asked the whole class to raise their hands as I called out the grades starting with 50 or below. When the student heard his/her grade, he/she was to put his/her hand down. At the end, the students with 99 or 100 still had their hands up and got a round of applause, but no one was embarrassed at having a low score. 

Simple Steps to Sentence Sense is an easy and enjoyable way to teach grammar. You can choose to print the exercises and tests and distribute them to your students, or your students can access them in Google Drive and Go Paperless! You will find the books HERE. You know you are successful when you hear students say, “This is fun.” Grammar? Fun? Well, all right! 

Click here for a series of free instructional videos that explain each step in detail.

Please tell your friends and colleagues about my book. (Hint: Simple Steps to Sentence Sense is also a useful tool for foreign language teachers to use, and it is really successful with special education and ESL students.) 

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