Tightening your writing

Based on a writing tip I wrote recently for my work colleagues.

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This Writing Tip focuses on ways you can tighten up your writing by removing words and rearranging words. The examples below are from some documents I’ve edited recently. Note that some of these examples swap a word for its plain language alternative (see Gobbledygook, Jargon, and Plain Language).

Bottom line:

• Watch for the excessive use of ‘of’. You can often remove ‘of’ without affecting the meaning of the sentence – if you see an ‘of’ try reading the sentence without the ‘of’ and if it still makes sense, then delete ‘of’.
• Don’t follow these guidelines blindly. The context is important, and what you’ve written may be correct for your context.

Let’s look at some examples from some documents I’ve reviewed:

Instead of…	Try this…
report on an annual basis	report annually
report on a monthly basis	report monthly
on a regular basis	regularly
the frequency at which	how often
in the event of	if
There were no [xxx] recorded	No [xxx] were recorded
has been OR have been	was OR were (depending on context)
until such time as	until
employ	use
utilise	use
in excess of	more than OR exceed
outside of	outside
comprises of	comprises
is comprised mostly of	mostly comprises
are comprised of	comprise
This section seeks to define	This section defines
When communicating, it is important to select the most appropriate method or way of communicating to achieve your goal or objective.	Select the most appropriate communication method to achieve your goal or objective.
ascertain	check
It is a requirement to wear full PPE…	You must wear full PPE…
carried out in a safe fashion	carried out safely
working in a safe and productive fashion	working safely and productively
is presented/provided/given in Figure x.x	is shown in Figure x.x
The [xxx] Archipelago is an area encompassing 42 islands…	The [xxx] Archipelago encompasses 42 islands…
a spill of 700 m3 of diesel	a 700 m3 diesel spill
summer season	summer
testing of [xxx]	testing [xxx]
methodologies	methods
the majority	most
restricted access of fishing	restricted fishing access
mortality	death
measurements of the noise	noise measurements
from the installation processes themselves	from the installation processes
took into account	considered
on the other hand	whereas
will be managed through	will be managed by
The environmental impacts of the spill are dependent to a large degree on	The environmental impacts of such a spill largely depend on
by way of comparison	compared to
report on and include a summary of	report on and summarise

The first column used 178 words (874 characters, not including spaces), while the second column used 111 words (622 characters, not including spaces). So in addition to making the text more readable and understandable, the alternatives require less typing (and less paper if printed).

See also:

• Tighten up your writing by removing unnecessary words
• A good case for cutting dead words