By: Jane Sumerset
Submitted: 2010-01-31 20:53:35 | Word Count: 546
You’ve made it to the writing process and you have done the right pitch necessary for your content that absolutely worked out. So what’s next? You’ve done editing and formatting your text in order to organize necessary information out of the topic that was given unto you. How about submit your work to your editor, teacher or to your boss. Then suddenly, they had asked you to cut down your writing’s word count. Ever feel disappointed about it? You shouldn’t have.
Has anyone scolded you for filling your writing with too many unnecessary words? If you’ve been spending your editing time trying to get rid of excessive word usage, we might be able to help.
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The following is a list of specific items you can look for that will help reduce wordiness in your writing immediately, apart from using a good grammar software. They are extremely helpful because they are mistakes even the best writers can make when composing their first drafts.
1. Omit phrases like “it is,” “there is,” and “there are” during the start of sentences. Rewrite the sentence to make sense without them.
2. Remove verb phrases using “which” and “that” (e.g. “which performs”), replacing them with the “ ing” form of the verb (e.g. “performing”). In general, check all instances of “which” and “that” in your situations, looking for opportunities to remove it.
3. Omit “this” from the start of a simple sentence by combining it with a previous sentence.
4. Replace “should,” “could” and “would” with stronger verbs. It will not only shorten your copy, it will make your statements better and sound more confident.
5. Replace “ ing” verbs with a simple present or past tense form, whenever possible. For instance, a verb like “is happening” can be updated to “happened”.
6. In the case of two sentences, where the second one serves as an explanation to the first, you can combine them by using a colon instead. (e.g. “I ate my favorite food. It’s no other than ice cream.” to “I ate my favorite food: ice cream”).
In some situations, there are times where you don’t notice how you use excessive words in your content. Also, the fact that these words didn’t play any important role in your writing, it is better to get rid of these words as soon as your finish working out with your piece. What you need to do is to go over with your editing process. As you eliminate such words that are not that important in your content, you may find that your piece can stand alone well without it.
You don’t need to be disturb about it since most writers have to deal with this issue, word counting. That means, whether you’re writing for a certain school requirements, publications and even if its part of your job, it is better to determine how many words should your content must have.
Although you only need to omit certain words that are not essential in your sentences, there are times where they can be tough to handle. It may only disturb us for a while on how to minimize your word count but it’s a good challenge for you to become a good writer and grammar observer.
Author Resource:-
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