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Blog Grammar Rules Improve Your Writing Tip #16: No wasted words

Improve Your Writing Tip #16: No wasted words

The ProWritingAid Team

The ProWritingAid Team

ProWritingAid: A grammar guru, style editor, and writing mentor in one package.

Published Sep 16, 2018

Improve your writing

David Byrne once sang, "Say something once... why say it again?" We like his advice.

For writers, redundancies are a common weakness. A redundancy is a problem in which a writer writes the same idea twice in different ways. For example, "a pair of twins." Twins are pairs by definition, so there's no need to include the extra word. Or "absolutely essential." The word "essential" already implies an absolute feeling, so you're only adding unnecessary words by including the adverb.

A quick way to excise redundancies is to pay close attention to implied meaning. If you use descriptive nouns and verbs, for example, most adjectives and adverbs will likely become redundant. For example, the verb "dash" already implies quickness. To add an adverb such as "rapidly" would only be redundant. Don't do it!

Our writing improvement software is an excellent tool for finding redundant expressions. Try it out today.

Next improve your writing tip: Improve Your Writing Tip #17: Don't repeat sentence starts.

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The ProWritingAid Team

The ProWritingAid Team

ProWritingAid: A grammar guru, style editor, and writing mentor in one package.

The most successful people in the world have coaches. Whatever your level of writing, ProWritingAid will help you achieve new heights. Exceptional writing depends on much more than just correct grammar. You need an editing tool that also highlights style issues and compares your writing to the best writers in your genre. ProWritingAid helps you find the best way to express your ideas.

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