Omitting Needless Words
March 5, 2010Dr. K gave a great lecture about glue, meat, and mush words in class yesterday. But how, exactly, do you trim sentences down? Here’s a crash course.
I give 5/5 to posts that are correct. Some of you are consistently getting 5s—which you should feel great about. But many of your posts are like empty plots of dirt, to use a cliche metaphor. You keep your garden free of weeds, but could plant flowers there to take your writing from “good enough” to great. I challenge you to write me a patch of tulips: make your point in 200 words or less, keeping glue-/filler-/lard-/whatever-mental-image-works-for-you-words to a minimum.
Don’t be scared of apostrophes.
The popularity of Weezer >>> Weezer’s popularity
This is not right. >>> This isn’t right.
Axe qualifiers.
I’m pretty sure >>> I’m sure
Sarah really likes tulips very much. >>> Sarah loves tulips.
Ask every single adjective if it deserves to be in your sentence. Some do, some don’t.
The little brown dog >>> The dog
My roommate’s absolutely hilarious and very friendly fiancé >>> My roommate’s hilarious fiancé
Chop words that are common in speech but that you wouldn’t put in a formal paper.
Really, though, did it snow last night? >>> Did it snow last night?
So, March 30 will be a great day >>> March 30 will be a great day.
Use positives.
The room was not clean. >>> The room was messy.
I don’t agree with Card. >>> I disagree with Card.
Leave yourself out of the sentence.
I think MP3s are the devil. >>> MP3s are the devil.
Facebook, I believe, can be a big distraction. >>> Facebook can be a big distraction.
Now, let’s put these rules to work. Here are some examples from your blog posts. (Please don’t be offended if something you wrote is here; becoming a better writer requires a thick skin. Believe me, I know how it feels to have my writing torn to shreds.)
*I can definitely see that there might be some truth to that. >>> That might be true.
*The copyright system is in place to protect people. >>> Copyright protects people.
*Within ten minutes, a person can burn a CD with over one hundred songs, and not pay a dime for any one of them. >>> You can burn more than 100 songs in just seconds—for free.
*I think that most people are basically honest and will follow these laws if they can be brought to recognize the wrongness in not doing so.
>>> Most people are honest; they’ll follow these laws once they realize it’s wrong to break them.
*Our society has become one where average people like to watch commercially-produced movies using YouTube. >>> YouTube is popular.
I hope this helps!
