Amey-Thakur Concise writing
Concise is not short for its own sake; it is the removal of everything that does not carry meaning, so what remains lands harder. Most drafts can lose a quarter of their words and gain force. Brevity is respect for the reader's time.
Method
- Cut the filler phrases. "In order to" becomes "to"; "due to the fact that" becomes "because"; "at this point in time" becomes "now". Delete throat-clearers ("It is worth noting that", "I think that", "As you know"). These add length and subtract nothing (see clear-writing).
- Delete redundant words. "Advance planning" (planning), "end result" (result), "completely eliminate" (eliminate), "past history" (history). English is full of pairs that say one thing twice; keep one.
- Replace phrases with words. "Make a decision" (decide), "give consideration to" (consider), "is able to" (can). Verbs hidden inside noun phrases ("perform an analysis of" for "analyze") bloat sentences; free the verb.
- Prefer the active voice and a clear subject. "The committee rejected the proposal" (5 words) beats "The proposal was rejected by the committee" (7) and names the actor. Passive constructions add words and hide who acted (see clear-writing).
- Question every sentence, then every paragraph. Does the piece lose anything if this goes? Often not. Whole sentences that restate, qualify needlessly, or wander off-point are the biggest cuts (see editing-and-revision's cut pass). Aim to say it once, well.
- Set a target and edit to it. Writing to a word or time limit forces the discipline: what would you keep if you had half the space? The constraint reveals what actually matters. A tweet, an abstract, or an exec summary is this exercise (see exec-one-pager, tweet-thread).
Boundaries
- Concise is not terse or cryptic; cutting a necessary connective or an example that aids understanding hurts clarity. Remove what does not serve the reader, keep what does (see clear-writing, structure-and-flow).
- Some content needs room: a careful argument, a teaching explanation, a story's scene. Brevity serves the point; it does not override it.
- Rhythm matters: an all-short-sentences staccato tires the reader. Concise means no wasted words, not uniformly minimal ones (see voice-and-tone).