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Redundancies and Wordiness

Here are examples of how to avoid redundancies and wordiness:

NO - What initially began as.YES - What began as

NO - The event was located in.located at

YES - The event was in a warehouse. Or: The party was at a restaurant.

NO - In order to get past the crowd,

YES - To get past the crowd, .

NO - He was in the process of bringing the car around.watch those ing words!

YES - As he brought the car around

Other examples of redundancies:

Totally destroyed

Serious crisisSuccessfully dockedFatally killed

Examples of shortening wordy sentences:

NO: They had just purchased the New York home and were in the process of renovating it.

YES: They had just bought the New York home and were renovating it.

NO: He refused to comment on the fact that he had been indicted.YES: He refused to comment on the indictment.

Wordiness can also be cut down by combining sentences so that words do not have to be

repeated, i.e.

NO: Construction on the school will begin in April. More than 200 students will attend it

when it opens in September. The school is being built because of unexpected growth in the

southwest end of town.

YES: Construction on the new school, which will accommodate 200 students, begins in

April. Unexpected growth in the southwest end of town created a need for a new building.

BETTER YET: Construction on the new school for 200 students begins in April and willaccommodate the unexpected growth in the southwest end of town.

NO: I moved from Calgary to Halifax to receive an education, but what I received not onlyeducated me, but provided me with experiences I would never have received inside my

comfort zone.

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YES: When I moved from Calgary to Halifax for an education, it also provided me withexperiences I would never have received if I had stayed in my comfort zone

Split verbs

attempting to creatively share their faith....

attempting to share their faith in a creative way

.a creative way to share their faith

Numbers

One to nine

10 to 1,000,000,000 (you get the idea!)

Quotation Marks

North American newspaper style guide, Commas and periods always go inside quotation

marks.

Commas

Commas separate essential and non-essential information, they are not pause marks.

i.e., The five-story building, built in 1953, was scheduled to be torn down in the spring.

NOT When the man came around the corner, he was startled to see the new sign.

YES - When the man came around the corner he was startled to see the new sign.

Per cent

Always write it out and dont use the symbol %; write per cent or percentage points.

Dates

Dates the year is only included if it is other than the current year.

That which

Very often it is helpful to drop that in sentences.

i.e.

NOT - She said that she wanted to be alone.

YES She said she wanted to be alone.

When to use that and when to use which?

That is generally used when the clause is essential to the noun, i.e. The movie that openedat the Rox last week was.(its not just any movie, its the one that opened last week at aspecific theatre). Which is generally used to introduce a new element, i.e. The movie, which

cost $4 million, has done landslide business.

A helpful distinction: which clauses generally need commas, that clauses dont.