Today's Writing Tip Is about Redundancy

I'm a big fan of the software program Grammarly, and it has taught me a great deal about redundancy.

As writers, we tend to lose objectivity in our own work. The reason why is because we are too close to the material. It's hard for us to envision the end result and what a cleaner version of our writing could look like.

Okay, now I'm going to rewrite that paragraph above, which is full of redundancy. What's wrong with it?

1.       We don't need the reflexive pronoun "own."

2.       We don't need to say the reason why.

3.       We don't need to say end results. That's like saying close proximity — same thing.

Here's a clean version:

As writers, we tend to lose objectivity in our work. That's because we are too close to the material. It's hard for us to envision the results and what a cleaner version of our writing could look like.

Streamline, people! Get it down in your first draft, but when you revise, look for words you can chop out.

Happy writing.

Sigrid

Today's Writing Tip Is Kind of Sort of Worth Reading

When did the words "kind of," "sort of" and "slightly" creep into our vocabularies? These are meaningless terms and they detract from our writing. This also seems to be a class phenomenon in that the more educated someone is, the more likely they seem to be to put these disqualifying modifiers in front of their perfectly good nouns.

For example, I have noticed the "kind of/sort of" talk on CBC radio in Canada, BBC TV in Britain, NPR in the US, and on the podcast Pod Save America. These are otherwise well-spoken people who say things like, "I was slightly mortified" or "It was kind of wonderful." No, no, no. You are either mortified or you are not. Period; end of story. It was wonderful or it wasn't, and if it wasn't that great, then it was so-so.

Be aware of using these meaningless terms in your speech and in your writing. The latter will sound much more clear and concise without them.