Be Concise

(Third in a series of articles about improving your writing.)

As a newspaper editor, I used to remind my reporters that there was a finite amount of space for their stories. If they could save one or two words per paragraph in a 20-inc story, it might mean the difference between having their work run intact or having vital information clipped out by a ruthless copy editor under deadline pressure.

Most reporters seemed to grasp the concept, especially as news holes began to shrink. They made a concerted effort to trim the fat out of every phrase.

Unfortunately, the message never made it to the world of business writing, where long, rambling reports seem to be a badge of honor for many middle managers. Why say it in three words when you can stretch it to five or six?

A word of advice to these budding scribes: be concise. Unnecessary words waste your reader’s time, can obscure your message and gobble up space that could be put to better use. Excess words are bumps and obstacles that block the smooth slide through a piece of writing.

Avoid redundancies, run-on sentences, wordy phrases, passive voice and unnecessary adjectives. These sloppy stylistic habits add little meaning to or clarify your message.

Take a look at a few phrases commonly found in business writing and how they can be tightened up:

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