Grammar - Conciseness, Redundancies and Wordiness

Conciseness

The best sentence contains no flab or unnecessary words. Look at the following two sentences.

'One of my most trusted and respected personal friends who lives in the city of London at the moment is considering moving to Ireland because he has been offered a position in that area.' (34 words)

'One of my friends in London is considering moving to Ireland because he has been offered a job there.' <(19 words)

Here I have taken away pieces of writing that I don’t think help the overall sentence. I have done this without changing the meaning. You should take away parts that are useless and unnecessary. However, don’t take away everything, when for example you want to emphasize or add detail. Removal should be done in 2 ways;

Redundancies

This is when you have unnecessary repetition. It says the same thing twice without new meaning. For example;

'Blue in colour'

'Cooperate together'

'Few in number'

'Smaller in size'

And so on.

Please look at the sentences to see some examples,

Redundant: 'The slowly moving train crawled into the station.'

Concise: 'The train crawled into the station.'

Redundant: 'The unnecessary repetition of redundant words can be taken out of a sentence without harming it.'

Concise: 'Redundant words can be taken out of a sentence without harming it.'

Wordiness

You should thing about whether or not you have too many unnecessary words, and if your writing could be made more effective by removing them. There are different types of wordiness, and they are;

Wordy phrases

'At this point of time = Now

'In view of the fact that = Because, Since

'For the purpose of = For

'In order to = To

Overused words

Words like aspect, factor, field, kind, element, thing, and situation. Use these words occasionally, but don’t overdo them. It’s often better in a sentence not to have them at all, but keep them sometimes to make your writing more personal. For example,

'In the field of teaching, this kind of thing has never been seen in a classroom situation.' = 'In teaching, this has never been seen in the classroom.'

Weak sentences beginnings

Sentences that begin with It is and There is/ are are usually less powerful that those beginning with the real subject. When you want to create a stronger image, take them away.

'There were four strangers banging on the door.' = 'Four strangers were banging on the door.'

Exercises regarding wordiness, redundancies and conciseness

Please shorten the following sentences using the suggestion in the threads for wordiness, redundancies and conciseness. Post your answers in this thread.

1. Insofar as learning to play a musical instrument is concerned, the piano, in my personal opinion, would be in the category of the kind that is difficult to learn to play.
2. It is a fact that there are many individuals who do not vote in elections.
3. The judge, who is a known expert in the field of labour discussions, recommended that each chairman of both sides meet with him tomorrow morning at 10am.
4. Although they were few in number, the early settlers who came to America brought with them strong and loyal religious faith and beliefs.
6. The average worker who works in a surrounding environment that contains poisonous pollutants sometimes dies of a mortal illness connected with the pollutants.