Conciseness | 6 Tips & 40 Wordy Phrases to Avoid
In a world driven by fast-paced communication and short attention spans, conciseness has become more important than ever. Concise writing cuts unnecessary words and delivers your message clearly and efficiently.
Whether you’re a student trying to hit the right word count, a job seeker tailoring a resume, or a professional drafting emails and proposals, your readers appreciate clear, focused writing.
Conciseness is about making every word and sentence carry its weight. First drafts naturally collect wordy phrases and clutter. By finding and fixing wordiness, you can make your ideas stand out.
Key takeaways
- Concise writing engages your reader better than verbose writing.
- Swapping passive voice, nominalizations, and “there is” openers for action verbs keeps sentences crisp and direct.
- Spotting hidden redundancies, like “past history” or “advance notice,” instantly strips unnecessary fluff from any draft.
What is conciseness?
Conciseness means expressing an idea clearly without unnecessary words. It doesn’t mean that your sentences always have to be short. Instead, concise writing gives readers the information they need without making them work through extra words and unnecessary details. The opposite of conciseness is verbosity (using extra words to get the point across).
- Wordy: Due to the fact that the meeting was cancelled, we were unable to discuss the proposal.
- Concise: Because the meeting was cancelled, we couldn’t discuss the proposal.
- Wordy: Responsible for managing a team of five people in order to achieve an increase in sales revenue
- Concise: Managed a five-person team to boost sales revenue
How to make your writing more concise
To make your writing more concise, find extra words, weak phrases, and passive constructions that don’t add value, and replace them with precise, direct alternatives. Use the strategies below to catch and fix wordy phrases in your next draft.
1. Use active voice instead of passive voice
The passive voice isn’t always wrong, but it makes sentences longer and less direct. In the active voice, the person or thing performing the action is the subject. In passive voice, the noun receiving the action is the subject.
- Wordy: The report was written by a team of climate experts.
- Concise: A team of climate experts wrote the report.
2. Replace nominalization with verbs
Nominalizations are nouns formed by adjectives or verbs, often ending in the suffixes “-tion,” “-ment,” “-ance,” or “-ity.” For example, “investigation” is a noun that comes from the verb “investigate,” but it requires an extra verb: “conducted an investigation.” When one strong verb replaces a verb + noun combination, the result is more concise.
- Wordy: The school board reached an agreement to expand the ESOL program.
- Concise: The school board agreed to expand the ESOL program.
3. Avoid starting sentences with “there is”
A sentence that starts with “there is,” “there are,” or “there were” uses extra words to get to the actual subject. These placeholders delay the main point and rely on weak verbs. Recentering the true subject makes the sentence more direct and engaging.
- Wordy: There are many studies that suggest sleep deprivation affects student focus.
- Concise: Many studies suggest sleep deprivation affects student focus.
4. Trim wordy gerund setups
Gerunds are “-ing” verbs that function as nouns, like “using” or “following.” In many cases, a gerund at the beginning of a sentence is filler that you can prune out. For example, you can trim a wordy sentence subject, like “using these strategies,” to a concise subject, like “these strategies.”
- Wordy: Using these strategies can improve your writing.
- Concise: These strategies can improve your writing.
5. Remove unnecessary qualifiers
The qualifiers “very,” “really,” “quite,” and “rather” often clutter a sentence without changing its meaning. When you see these words, you can probably take them out.
- Wordy: The results were somewhat surprising.
- Concise: The results were surprising.
6. Eliminate empty padding
Padded expressions use several words to communicate the same idea as a single word. These include:
- In the event that → if
- Due to the fact that → because
- In order to → to
- At this point in time → now
- A large number of → many
A precise word in place of a wordy expression makes writing faster to read without changing the meaning.
Redundant phrases to avoid
Beyond fixing sentence structures, you can also eliminate redundancy to make your writing more concise. Phrases like “ask a question” state the same idea twice, adding unnecessary weight to academic papers and professional documents alike. Use the reference guide below to spot and remove the most common redundant phrases in your drafts.
| Redundant phrase | Why it’s redundant | Concise alternative |
|---|---|---|
| Absolutely certain | “Certain” already expresses complete confidence. | Certain |
| Accidental mistake | A mistake is accidental by nature. | Mistake |
| Advance notice | “Notice” is information that you give in advance. | Notice |
| Advance warning | A warning also happens in advance. | Warning |
| Ask a question | To ask is to form a question. | Ask |
| ATM machine | The M in “ATM” stands for “machine.” | ATM |
| Basic fundamentals | Fundamentals are basic by definition. | Fundamentals/basics |
| Chai tea | “Chai” means “tea.” | Chai |
| Close proximity | “Proximity” already means “closeness.” | Proximity |
| Collaborate together | “Collaborate” means work together. | Collaborate |
| Completely destroyed | Something that’s destroyed is no longer intact. | Destroyed |
| Completely full | “Full” already indicates that there’s no more room. | Full |
| Completely finished | “Finished” indicates completion. | Finished |
| Combine together | To combine means to bring things together. | Combine |
| Each and every | Both words mean the same thing. | Each/every (one or the other) |
| End result | A result is an end product. | Result |
| Exact opposite | “Opposite” already indicates the exact reverse. | Opposite |
| False pretense | A pretense is untrue by definition. | Pretense |
| Filled to capacity | “Filled” communicates that a space is at capacity. | Filled/full |
| Final outcome | An outcome is the final result of an event or process. | Outcome |
| Foreign imports | By definition, imports come from somewhere else. | Imports |
| Free gift | A gift never requires payment. | Gift |
| Future plans | Planning focuses on the future. | Plans |
| Major breakthrough | A breakthrough is a significant discovery. | Breakthrough |
| New beginning | A beginning is inherently new. | Beginning |
| New innovation | An innovation is inherently new. | Innovation |
| Past history | “History” refers to past events. | History |
| PIN number | The N in “PIN” stands for “number.” | PIN |
| Plan ahead | Planning always happens ahead. | Plan |
| Postpone until later | To postpone something is to move it to a later time. | Postpone (You can also replace “later” with a specific day or time.) |
| Reason why | “Reason” already explains “why.” | Reason |
| Reservations in advance | A reservation inherently happens in advance. | Reservation |
| Revert back | To revert is to return to a previous state. | Revert |
| Spell out in detail | “Spell out” already implies “in detail.” | Spell out |
| Still remains | “Remains” indicates continuation. | Remains |
| Therapeutic treatment | A treatment is inherently therapeutic. | Treatment |
| Unexpected surprise | A surprise is unexpected by definition. | Surprise |
| UPC code | The C in “UPC” stands for “code.” | UPC |
| Whole entire | “Entire” means “whole.” | Entire |
| Write down | To write usually means to put something down in words. | Write |
How to check your writing for conciseness
Concise writing rarely happens on the first draft. Trimming extra words is an active editing process where you refine your ideas line by line. Whether you are polishing an academic essay, tightening a cover letter, or reviewing a workplace email, use this 5-step checklist to prune your prose:
- Identify the main point of each sentence: Before deleting anything, clarify the single core message or action the sentence needs to communicate.
- Remove words that don’t add meaning: Strike out empty qualifiers (“very,” “really”), conversational filler (“due to the fact that”), and padded openers (“there is / there are”).
- Look for repeated ideas: Scan for hidden redundancies, such as pairing “past history” or “future plans,” and trim the extra word.
- Replace wordy phrases with simpler alternatives: Convert passive voice into active voice, change nominalizations back into strong action verbs, and swap multi-word expressions for single, direct terms.
- Read the sentence again to protect your meaning: Read your revised sentence aloud to ensure your idea remains accurate, complete, and easy to read.
Frequently asked questions about conciseness
- What are some concise academic writing techniques?
-
To make a piece of academic writing more concise without losing depth, try these four techniques:
- Eliminate wordy transitions: Swap multi-word phrases like “due to the fact that” or “in order to” for single words like “because” or “to.”
- Turn nominalizations into action verbs: Convert padded noun phrases (e.g., “conducted an analysis of”) back into strong verbs (“analyzed”).
- Trim passive constructions: Shift to the active voice when discussing researchers or findings (e.g., “the results were analyzed by two research assistants” → “two research assistants analyzed the results”).
- Cut empty qualifiers: Drop filler words like “very,” “basically,” or “arguably” that soften your claims without adding evidence.
Run your draft through Quillbot’s Paraphraser to experiment with different sentence structures and discover fresh phrasing.
- How do you write a concise professional email?
-
To write a concise professional email:
- State your core request or purpose in the opening sentence.
- Stick to one main topic per email to prevent clutter.
- Use bullet points for action items, deadlines, or key details.
- Limit your body text to under 125 words so the recipient can scan it quickly.
Run your text through Quillbot’s Paraphraser to experiment with different ways to be concise.
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