Revising for Conciseness - Rejecting Redundancies and PurgingEmpty Words

Concise writing will save your reader time and make your message easier to understand. During phase three of the 3-x-3 writing process, revise for conciseness by rejecting redundancies and purging empty words.

Which of the following options are redundancies?

1) Adequate enough

2) Combined together

3) Big in size

4) Absolutely essential

Determine which empty words can be purged from the following sentence to make it more concise.

Answer: A. 1) Adequate enough

2) Combined together

3) Big in size

4) Absolutely essential

b. 3) "That was unfinished"

Explanation:

A. Redundancies in phrases refer to the repetition of words with the same or similar meanings which gives off the impression of saying the same things twice. All the options listed are therefore redundancies.

By saying something is Adequate which means that it is sufficient for something one does not again need to include enough because it is the same as sufficient as well.

By also saying Combined, one has already inferred that something was brought together. Including together again is redundant because the together is already in the definition of combined.

Big in size is another redundancy because when a person describes something as Big, they are already referring to the size of the thing in question. Adding in size is therefore not needed.

Finally, the Absolutely in the phrase makes the phrase redundant. When something is said to be essential it means that it is absolutely needed or crucial. To say something is Absolutely Essentially is like saying something is an Essential Essential.

B. The Johnson report had already been said to contain incomplete data. To go on to say that the data is Unfinished is a redundancy because by saying that it is incomplete it means that the data is by definition Unfinished. Removing the "That was unfinished" bit fixes the sentence.