Make Your Writing Concise and Readable by Eliminating Redundancy

By Montrie Rucker AdamsJune 17, 2014 Blog writing

I was in elementary school the first time I realized I loved writing. However, I soon realized that writing the fiction I loved to read, and writing non-fiction, was very different.

When you’re writing your blogs or other content, every word should have meaning and tell your story. Using redundant phrases gets in the way of readability and lessens the impact.

Here are some common two-word redundant phrases to eliminate. Use one word or the other, not both:

close proximity
join together
large in size
past history
past experience
daily basis
added bonus
completely full
circulate around
final outcome
invited guests
general public
future plans
free gift
armed shooter
advance planning
major breakthrough
revert back
sum total
still continues
true fact
unexpected surprise
unsolved mystery
twelve midnight

Many write the way they talk. You may say, “It was an unexpected surprise!” however writing both is not necessary. Saying them isn’t either, but old habits are hard to break.

If you make “plans,” they are for the future. A”gift” is always “free” (at least it should be, or it’s not a gift). If something is “true,” then it is a “fact.”

Many are reading on devices, with limited time. Writing tight and concise gets to the point and drives a clear message.

Try it…let me know what you think.

Just for Your Safty

By Montrie Rucker AdamsNovember 8, 2009 Blog, Hey.. Try This bloggers, classified ads, dictated, editors, errors, marketers, mistakes, newspaper, proofread, public, safety, safty, spellcheck, spelling, typos, writing

That’s just what I saw in an ad in big, bold letters, sprawled across my computer. “Just for Your Safty…” I could not read beyond the word “safty.” My first thought was, “Hmmm, that typo is huge! How did it get past the editors?”

Most bloggers, Facebook enthusiasts, marketers and people who love to write, don’t have editors. Editors check your words before you put it out there. They make sure that your audience will understand what you say and that your message makes sense. They are the ones that, if you’re writing about our nation’s safty, what the audience reads is information about their safety.

No one is perfect. That’s a given. But when you’re putting your stuff out there for all the world to see, make sure that it’s tight and it’s right. Have someone look it over. Ask them to proofread it for errors – typos, sentence structure, dotted i’s and crossed t’s. After that person reads it, give it to someone else.

I once worked at a major newspaper. In our department we wrote classified ads. The nature of our job was to type as fast as we could what the person on the other line dictated. One of our biggest fears was to leave the “l” out of the word “public.” Guess what? Our fears were often realized.

One way to proofread spelling is to read the words from right to left instead of left to right. Most people miss words because they know what they wrote, so they skim over the words without truly reading them. But when someone else reads it, they see, “all there money was lost,” and “the dogs were baking all at once.” Spellcheck can’t check this.

The best of the best make mistakes. The challenge is to make sure that you at least do all that you can to not make them. If you do, at least you can say that you covered all the bases. It’s for your own writing safety.