5 ways to trim the fat from your writing

Americans set their new year’s resolutions in a fairly predicable pattern. The same 10 resolutions are popular, year after year. Top of the list? Losing weight.

While many writers, editors and PR professionals will be hitting the gym and lunching on salads in 2015, there is more than one type of weight to lose. This year, why not resolve to tighten your writing and eliminate extra words and redundant phrases? Here are a few ways to get started:

1. Use concise language and eliminate redundancies.

Thomas Jefferson said, “The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.”

Some words add very little to your content. Pruning phrases is an easy way to tighten your writing (use “mystery” instead of “unsolved mystery”; use “revert” instead of “revert back”). You can also cut out extraneous phrases, such as “all things considered” and “due to the fact that.”