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The difference between a mediocre writer and an excellent writer often comes down to whether you can tighten your own copy. Eliminating unnecessary words makes every story cleaner, easier to follow and all-around professional.
I’ve long enjoyed editing, which is why I’ve edited friends’ chapters, resumes, graduate school application essays and cover letters throughout the years. And since my new job includes editing, I’m now tearing apart improving other writers’ copy on a daily basis. I love tightening their work and making it better!
Too often, I see writers fail to cut unnecessary words. Don’t get me wrong, it’s okay to include them in a first draft. But when you read over what you’ve written, when you go through the oh-so-important process of self-editing, you should look to eliminate words you don’t truly need.
So watch for these 10 words and phrases as you edit your work. Get rid of them, and your copy will shine:
1. In order to. You never need it. If you’re going to the kitchen in order to make a sandwich… Your sentence could be tighter. Because you’re really going to the kitchen to make a sandwich. That “in order to” makes it take a millisecond longer to arrive at the meaty part of the sentence, which means your story is dragging more than it needs to. Whenever you see “in order to” in your copy, get rid of it. No questions asked.
2. Start to. Did you start to walk the dog, or did you walk the dog? Is the car starting to roll down the hill, or is it rolling down the hill? “Start to” is a more difficult phrase to deal with than “in order to,” because sometimes you do need it. But more likely than not, you don’t. Rather than making “start” the active verb, use the verb that’s actually more active — like walking or rolling — to tell your story.
This plagued me while writing my book; I made the “start to” mistake again and again. But once I knew to look for it during revisions, I was able to correct it. (Hint: If this is a problem for you, try using Word’s search function to look for “start.” You’ll catch each one, so you can evaluate them individually.)
3. There are. Never start a sentence with “There are…” There’s almost always a better way to phrase it. Oh, except sometimes “there are” or “there’s” works, like how I just used it. Here’s an example that doesn’t work: There are hundreds of men in Africa who want me to be their wife. How it should read: Hundreds of African men want me to be their wife.
If this one stumps you, try getting rid of “There are” and starting the sentence with the next word, then modifying the rest of the phrase to make it work. (For example, here I eliminated “who” to make the rest of the sentence work.) “There are” makes your sentences sound boring and, quite frankly, like they were written by a beginner. Start with a word that actually helps you tell the story. That way, you’re not only tightening, you’re also adding sentence variation, which makes every piece more interesting to read.
4. That. In about five percent of your sentences (total guess from the grammar police), “that” makes your idea easier to understand. In the other 95 percent, get rid of it! “I decided that journalism was a good career for me” reads better as “I decided journalism was a good career for me.” Extra word! Nix!
6. Currently. Currently is my pet peeve. Yes, I realize that having a grammar pet peeve makes me a huge dork, and I’m okay with that. Currently is always redundant. You never need it.You’re not currently working for a law firm, you are working for a law firm. If you’re working there, it’s obviously currently.
The only time I can see this word and not groan is when the writer gives us information about the past, and then uses “currently” to transition to now. “I used to work for the mayor, but I’m currently working for the president.” Except you know what would sound better? Using “now” instead. “I used to work for the mayor, but now I work for the president.” So I guess there’s never a time when “currently” doesn’t make me groan. Because even when you need a transition word, “now” works better.
7. Very. This is a very difficult one to remember. I almost never get it right, until I go back through my copy, and the word jumps out at me, and then I change the sentence to “This is a difficult one to remember.” Because really, how much is that “very” helping you get your point across? It doesn’t make the task sound more difficult. Same thing with “really.” It’s not a “really” difficult tip to remember. It’s simply a difficult tip to remember. Got it?
8. Thing. Usually when we write “thing” or “things,” it’s because we were too lazy to think of a better word. In every day life, we may ask for “that thing over there,” but in your writing, calling anything a “thing” does not help your reader. I come across this at work sometimes because I often want to title blog posts, “Things to Consider When Doing This or That.” But I can almost always rephrase it in a way that tells the reader more about what I’m offering. Try to replace all “thing” or “things” with a more descriptive word.
9. Make. This is sometimes used in the same way as “start to,” in place of what could be a stronger verb. For example, when I first titled this post, I wrote “10 ways to make your copy stronger.” That was fine for a first draft; it got my point across. But when I re-read it, I realized the verb wasn’t strong. I’d used “make” as the verb, when it doesn’t tell the reader much at all. So I changed the title to “10 ways to strengthen your copy.” Eventually I realized “tighten” was an even better verb. But the real improvement came when I stopped using “make” to tell my story, and instead used another verb that could do the job better.
10. Passive Voice. As this UNC handout explains, using the passive voice isn’t really wrong. But whenever you have the chances to make your writing clearer, you should do it — and avoiding the passive voice is one of those instances. I know the passive voice when I see it, but I’m bad at explaining it, so I’m going to leave that to Grammar Girl. Explaining grammar is her specialty.
Do you notice any of these problems in your copy? What words do you look to eliminate when you’re self-editing?
Update: A reader kindly pointed out that I somehow failed to include a #5. Which just goes to show you that no matter how much you focus on self-editing, you can’t catch everything yourself!
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