HBR Guide to Better Business Writing - Bryan A. Garner 2013
Waste no words
Developing your skills
Make every word count. When you mean before, don’t say or write prior to, much less prior to the time when.
Though prior to is a linguistic choice that the dictionary offers us, it’s a bad choice. Never use two words for one, three words for two, and so on. Syllables add up fast and slow people down. Of course, stick to idiomatic English. Don’t start dropping articles (a, an, the) where we’d all normally expect them. And don’t cut the important word that left and right—more often than not, you really need it to be clear. But remove all the words that aren’t performing a real function. Doing so saves readers time and effort and makes your ideas easier to grasp and apply.
Wordiness can exist on many levels, from rambling statements to unnecessary repetition to verbose expressions that could be replaced by shorter, sharper alternatives. Whatever the manifestation, it’s bad. Consider the following examples:
NOT THIS: |
BUT THIS: |
The trend in the industry is toward self-generation by some companies of their own websites, and Internet technology is changing the nature of training necessary to acquire the skill of website development at an acceptable level of sophistication, so that this activity can more and more be handled in-house. [49 words] |
Since Internet technology makes it easier than ever to develop sophisticated websites, some companies now develop their own in-house. [19 words] |
We are unable to fill your order at this point in time because there is an ongoing dock strike that affects our operations. [23 words] |
We cannot fill your order right now because of the dock strike. [12 words] |
I am writing in response to a number of issues that have arisen with regard to the recent announcement that there will be an increase in the charge for the use of our lobby computers. [35 words] |
You may have heard that we’re raising the fees for using our lobby computers. [14 words] |
The greater number of these problems can readily be dealt with in such a way as to bring about satisfactory solutions. [21 words] |
Most of these problems can be readily solved. [8 words] |
To trim extra words from your documents, try:
✵ Deleting every preposition that you can, especially of: change April of 2013 to April 2013 and point of view to viewpoint.
✵ Replacing every -ion word with a verb if you can. Change was in violation of to violated and provided protection to to protected.
✵ Replacing is, are, was, and were with stronger verbs where you can. Change was hanging to hung and is indicative of to indicates.
You’ll see all three tricks at work here:
NOT THIS: |
BUT THIS: |
The manufacturers of tools for gardening have been the victims of a compression factor that has resulted in an increase in units on the market accompanied by a negative disproportionate rise of prices. [36 words] |
The garden-tool industry has suffered from an oversupply of units coupled with rising prices. [14 words] |
For the near and intermediate future in terms of growth goals, Bromodrotics, Inc., is evaluating its corporate design needs. The purpose of this short-term and intermediate-term evaluation is to make a determination as to how the image of the company might best be positioned to be of assistance to the sales force in meeting its growth goals. [57 words] |
To increase sales, Bromodrotics needs to improve its image. [9 words] |
Ruthlessly cut words from your first draft, so long as you remain faithful to the sounds and rhythms of normal, down-to-earth English. Don’t compress words to the point of sounding curt or unnatural.
One other trick in that last example: eliminating padding such as in terms of and the purpose of. Sometimes you’ll find even worse phrases:
in this connection it might be observed that
it is important to bear in mind that
it is interesting that
it is notable that
it is worthwhile to note that
it should be pointed out that
it will be remembered that
Leave all these things unsaid—without saying it goes without saying that....
Recap
✵ Never use more words than necessary: If you can say it in two words instead of three, do so—as long as the result still sounds natural.
✵ Tighten your prose by removing inessential prepositions, replacing abstract -ion nouns with action verbs where possible, and replacing wordy be-verb phrases with more direct simple verbs.
✵ Eliminate padding that doesn’t contribute to your meaning.