How to Write Concisely - Deepstash
How to Write Concisely

How to Write Concisely

Curated from: hbr.org

Ideas, facts & insights covering these topics:

4 ideas

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Extra words add up

Extra words add up

If you have something complex to say, you should always take the space to say it. But when your writing becomes unnecessary wordy and repetitive, your audience must figure out what you're saying instead of thinking about what you're saying.

Writing something long is much easier and quicker than writing something shorter. Some strategies can help you write more effectively.

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Delete words that don’t add anything to your sentence

Many workplace documents contain words that weigh it down, such as generally, basically, actually, kind of, really, virtually, totally, essentially, completely, practically, literally, and just.

We may be so used to these words that it may sound odd without them. Consider if these words are essential to the meaning of your sentence. If not, cut them out.

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86 reads

Cut the overlap

While we're figuring out what we think, we tend to say the same thing again in early drafts.

To find overlapping sentences in your documents, try highlighting repetition as you edit.

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Instead of telling us what you’re going to do in a sentence, just do it

Instead of telling us what you’re going to do in a sentence, just do it

When we draft a document, we're thinking about what we're doing, so we tell our readers what we're doing.

However, your readers don't need to follow the journey. They need to know where you end up.

Consider this sentence:

"I will now offer you three steps we should take to improve our onboarding process". A better sentence is, "We should take three steps to improve our onboarding process."

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