Concise Writing – How to Do It Correctly

Concise writing is an important skill to have in academic writing but also in everyday life. The attention span of a stereotypical human is around 8 seconds, which is pretty low. Of course, in academic writing there is a different motivation behind our reading, but still, we prefer to read information that is short and concise without losing content. The following article will present you different ways on how to write concisely and still stay clear about your topic.

Definition: Concise writing

Concise writing is the skill of using little but effective words to form a text. It is necessary in order to keep the readers attention and interest instead of overwhelming them with too many words. There are various ways on how to shorten your text and improve your writing, including the topic of redundancy, the usage of different word groups, precision in your phrasing as well as the structure and grammar of your sentences.

It is also important to know that concise writing does not always have to refer to shorter sentences, but it means that the text is precise and specific. This, in the end, will lead to a shorter text because there are no further explanations or formulations necessary.

Ways to write more concise

There are many ways to achieve concise writing in your text, whether it is avoiding redundancy, the usage of different words, precision in word choice or even sentence structure or grammar.

Avoid redundant words

We often use redundant words without realising because they just come to us naturally. If we, however, avoid them actively, we realise how much they lengthen our text.

Usage of words

How and to what extent you use certain words can influence your writing a lot. To achieve concise writing, some words can be simply left out while others have replacements that actually improve your text language wise too.

• Strengthen weak adjectives

Using strong adjectives does not only help you in concise writing, but also adds clarity and precision as well as variety to the text. Almost every time you need to add “very” or “really” to an adjective to enhance its meaning, it can be replaced by a single, naturally strong one instead.

• Do not overuse adjectives

Adjectives serve to describe nouns further, adding life and images to a text. However, they can also be distracting and lengthening if used too much or in the wrong places. This is why you should not overuse adjectives and decide each time, if the word is really necessary to be in the sentence.

In this case, none of the adjectives describing the cat might be necessary because the descriptions are not relevant to understand the situation. Neither does the leaf need to be described as “moving” because the reader can already imagine why the leaf caught the cat’s attention. This, however, does not mean you have to remove every adjective in every sentence. Oftentimes they are important to describe a scene or to give context, so decide on each of them individually.

In this case, the description of the man might be unnecessary, depending on the context, but adding the word “strange” to the object intrigues the reader and clarifies why the man is interested in a random item lying on the ground.

• Limit the use of adverbs

Adverbs are often unnecessary. They are used to further describe the verb, when most of the time, the verb itself is enough of a description.

• Remove vague nouns

Sometimes we tend to insert vague nouns to further describe something, while they are actually not needed. Eliminating these filler words helps you in concise writing and gaining clarity.

Be precise

It sounds rather easy, being precise, but oftentimes we tend to use fancy phrases or overstatements to point out certain aspects. Cutting excess words and roundabout descriptions may help you achieve concise writing easily.

• Limit the use of phrases

Phrases are commonly used in writing, when it seems like a formal tone is required. However, long phrases may actually distract the reader from the context instead of elevating it. This is why replacing them with one or two words helps you concise your sentences and stay clear in meaning.

• Specifics instead of generalities

At first, it does not seem to influence the length of a sentence if you use specifics instead of generalities.

However, being precise and specific right from the start may save you from having to add further clarification afterward.

Sentence structure

There are also a few ways to achieve concise writing by changing the structure and phrasing of your sentences. These do not only shorten your text, but also make it clearer and more readable.

• Use active not passive voice

Many students tend to write passive voice in their papers because it seems to sound more formal, but passive voice also lengthens sentences. This is why, to write more concisely, it will help to rephrase your text in active voice in order to shorten it.

• Change negatives to affirmatives

Negatives always ad a “not” or “no” to your sentence, thus lengthening it. By changing to an affirmative, you do not only lose these extra words, but also clear up the structure to make the sentence easier to understand for the reader.