Things that Give Writers Fits

Wordiness

I’m confident further research will show that teachers are mostly to blame for this problem. Students still routinely get assignments to write papers that are “5 pages” or “800 words” long.

And, accordingly, who can blame them for padding their writing with needless words in order to hit the minimum. Students often add entire unnecessary sentences and paragraphs, just to safely meet their teacher’s mandate. And many teachers do not object! Rare, in my experience at least, is the assignment that asks students to cut, say, 40 percent of the words out of their original drafts.

But such an assignment can open eyes!

E.B. White is still probably the foremost authority on this issue of eliminating needless words. His classic little book “Elements of Style,” written in 1918, is still a must-read for writers. (Although fewer and fewer teachers are recommending it these days.) And combating wordiness is a main theme of that book. Below is from bartleby.com’s on-line reprint of that book.

“A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

Many expressions in common use violate this principle:

In especial the expression the fact that should be revised out of every sentence in which it occurs.

Who is, which was, and the like are often superfluous.

A common violation of conciseness is the presentation of a single complex idea, step by step, in a series of sentences which might to advantage be combined into one.

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