Do Wordy Statements Affect The Quality Of Writing?
Written By: Claudia Jeffrey
Quality writing is all about a series of word choices. As you work on a piece of content, you choose a topic, an approach, information sources, and structure the writing. Once you came to write up, then you have to choose the right words to express your thoughts. Also, you have to decide the proper sequence of arranging those words into ideal sentences to communicate your ideas well.
After writing, you revise your draft and make more selective alterations to check further. You may ask these questions to yourself;
- “Is this really what I mean?”
- “Does this sound good?”
- “Will readers understand this?
Finding the right words to capture your message and communicating it as it is to your reader is challenging and fun as well.
Concise writing is an ideal way to engage your readers and making your piece of content a perfect one without wordy statements. In this article, we will elaborate on different types of wordiness and get you some tips and strategies to avoid verbose statements to make your writing a quality one. Hence, the answer to the question above that is; “Do Wordy Statements Affect The Quality Of Writing?” Is a big YES! Let’s see HOW?
Wordiness
The problem is not always selecting the exact right word to express a thought, and wordiness is all about using those words that your reader may find inefficient or consider extra.
Below is a list of examples to clearly demonstrate how you can replace wordiness. In the left column, there are long-phrase, while on the right one, there are some concise substitutes. When you write, keep an eye on these wordy constructions to see if you can replace them and polish your piece of content.
Tips and tricks to avoid wordy statements for a quality writing
Every writer suffers from a thing called Prolixity, or in simple language we can say, Wordiness. It is one of the most common mistakes that happen unintentionally while writing. As mentioned above, it is referred to using too many words, abstract words or unnecessary complex words. Wordy statements can distract and detract readers from the quality and coherency of writing and may frustrate your readers.
Below are some tips and tricks to help you out with the different types of Wordiness to avoid. Also, to make your content engaging by enhancing its quality.
Fillers
The easiest and convenient way of limiting or controlling Wordiness is to eliminate filler words. They sneak between relevant and robust words to make them sound reasonable; however, they are still useless.
Let’s take an example of a phrase; "It is commonly believed that…," the filler word here is "commonly" as it serves no purpose of explanation and eliminating this word from the sentence will not change the meaning of sentence; instead, it will improve the quality of sentence as "It is believed that.." making it concise.
Redundancies
Redundancies are the second most cause of wordy statements. Redundant writing is comprised of two types of Wordiness, redundant words or redundant data that is not required.
Redundant words are often found in descriptive content. When a writer attempts to define or describe something, he/she may overuse synonyms that make sentence lengthy.
For example; "Richard is a hilarious, funny, and comical person." Here all three words are referring to the same meaning used to describe Richard’s personality.
Redundant information is more familiar to students around the world. It occurs when a writer says the same thing many times as repetition but in different ways. Here, readers are forced to read more but get no new information.
Let’s take an example here; "Carrot juice, when consumed on a twice-daily basis, has been found to repress cancer cells." And "Scientists have found that cancer cells can be repressed through the twice-daily consumption of carrot juice."
Both of the above sentences are written differently. However, it contains the same information. Hence, redundancy can be eliminated from content to make it easy to read and enhance quality.
Qualifiers
Qualifiers are words that may naturally come before an adverb or adjective. They can both increase and decrease the quality of your writing. Let’s take an example here; "Mark is a very cool person" very is the qualifier here. The overuse of such qualifiers can distract readers.
Qualifiers can be replaced often by a single word that is more potent. For example; "Maria is extremely angry" can be concise as "Maria is furious".
Preceding every adverb or adjective with qualifiers like extremely, very, barely, or hardly, will make them weak and lose their meaning. Hence, try to use a single good word instead of two or three mediocre to improve the quality of your writing.
Logorrhea
Logorrhea is the most frustrating form of Wordiness as it is an intentional use of overly abstract wordings and lengthy sentences. Readers often encounter logorrhea when reading a lab report, law journal or a post-modern novel.
Authors love to compose a sentence laden with qualifiers and adjectives instead of succinctly defining in two to three words. This makes the reader confused and annoyed. Additional words hence can unnecessarily complicate expository writing.
"Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account."
Above is an example of logorrhea from a famous writer George Orwell. He is renowned for deliberately satirizing use of Wordiness in his political discourse as the paragraph is exceptionally long with a little meaning.
Hence, if your writing resembles logorrhea than put down your treasure of words. Keep reminding yourself that quality writing is all about communicating the right message, not showcasing your complexity of literature. If your readers cannot get what you are trying to convey, you should look after to make more reader-friendly.
Take Home messages
“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.” Says – Hans Hofmann
Considering the above statements, we can conclude that the most efficient and effective way to make your content perfect is to make it concise. Every writer may struggle to brainstorm to take up the ideas through writing and piled up substitute wordings. Writers may be fallen up to the habit of using more unnecessary word instead of using up the space.
The most useful way to avoid Wordiness is to let your draft cool down after writing for a while then return to it. By this, you will find it easier and recognizable to eliminate unnecessary words or edit them out with smart and concise words. By this, your readers will thank you for providing them with an engaging, informative and exciting piece of content in just the perfect length. Good luck!