Last updated on April 8th, 2023 at 10:58 am
When a writer uses a lot of words in her/ his writing, it amounts to wordiness.
Wordiness is an enemy of comfortable reading and understanding. It delays readers to reach a conclusion.
When your writing suffers from wordiness or verbosity syndrome, you put into your content superfluous words, long sentences and uncalled-for information.
When readers have to bear an extra load of difficult language and convoluted concepts they prefer to move away in search of more effective articles composed in simple, comprehensive style.
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What is Wordiness in Writing?
Wordiness means too many words being used in a sentence or a paragraph or even an entire write-up of any kind.
‘Too many’ would generally mean more words than are necessary to deliver your intent.
There is nothing hard and fast as to how many words you can use in your sentences.
You are at your own liberty to use as much description as you want in order that every drop of what you desired to put into your piece, percolates to the reader. (Observe how I used a bit too many words :D)
However, most writing requirements forbid the use of an excessive number of words which causes redundancy. It is undesired.
What Are the Other Names of Wordiness?
Some synonyms of wordiness are as under (They may not exactly fit for wordiness but are definitely very close to it) :
- Verbosity
- Prolixity
- Wordage
- Windiness
- Redundancy
- Garrulity
- Logorrhea
- Periphrasis
- Tautology
Types of Wordiness
There is a small technical difference between wordiness and redundancy.
Redundancy covers a slightly wider zone than wordiness encompassing extra, useless information, unwanted text and the like.
Prolixity means addition of so many intricacies as will be beyond the scope of the write-up.
Verbosity generally entails use of bombastic words and long sentences.
Tautology is unnecessary repetition of points in your content.
Other synonyms may fall in any one of these types
How Do Bloggers Fall Prey to Verbosity?
Though newbie bloggers are more prone to wordiness it’s quite commonplace with seasoned writers too. Some of them go on explaining things uncontrollably.
“They talk most who have the least to say”
– Mathew Prior
Unable to write crisp sentences, newbies keep using more words than necessary to say what they want to.
For example, have a look at this one by a newbie:
The way I understand your problem is you are not in the habit of writing daily. Therefore, I will advise you to apply the technique of leaving aside all other related blogging works in the morning and sitting down to write 1000 words at a stretch.
Here are the points of excessive fat:
- The way I understand your problem is
- you are not in the habit of
- Therefore, I will advise you to
- apply the technique of
- sitting down to
You can watch out the obvious points of wordiness and observe how the use of too many words blur the intent. Moreover, it harms the concentration of the reader.
Now cut the fat:
Perhaps you are not writing daily. Start writing 1000 words at a stretch every morning.
Is It Important to Remove Verbosity in Sentences?
Yes, of course.
When you use more number of words than you actually require, you are in fact
- Deviating readers’ attention
- Delaying them to arrive at the actual intent
- Imposing unnecessary strain on their eyes and brain
- Moving away from the norms of on-page SEO and readability
How to Eliminate Wordiness and Redundancy in Your Content
To optimize your sentences in respect of wordiness and redundancy:
- Look for words with similar meaning or phrases with similar intent and eliminate them.
- Sometimes adverbs like ‘very’, ‘hardly’, ‘severely’ etc. are used in a redundant way. Find and eliminate them.
- Split long sentences into short ones whenever possible.
- Restructure your sentences to make them concise. This may need
- Conversion from passive to active voice
- Direct to indirect narration
- Replacing a collection of words with a single word and so on
- Change from complex and compound sentences to simple ones
- Altering one part of speech to another
Wordiness Examples
| Example 1 | |
|---|---|
| Sentence with wordiness | Wordiness removed |
| To my utter surprise, I found from the statistical data in his computer that he had accumulated most of his wealth by way of compounding the small chunks of money he had earned while he was quite young. (38 words) | His computer records revealed that he had used compounding on his petty earnings of the youth to amass most of his wealth. (22 words) |
| Example 2 | |
|---|---|
| Sentence with wordiness | Wordiness removed |
| It has been my experience that you need a small quantity of toil accompanied with little bit of grit and a pinch of luck to achieve success. (27 words) | I have experienced that little bits of toil, grit and luck can make you successful. (15 words) |
| Example 3 | |
|---|---|
| Sentence with wordiness | Wordiness removed |
| In terms of habits for good health, a couple of brisk steps in the morning hours is equivalent of taking vigorous exercise for a bigger duration, say 30 minutes. (29 words) | Speaking about good health, a brisk morning walk is same as vigorous exercise for about 30 minutes (17 words) |
| Example 4 | |
|---|---|
| Sentence with wordiness | Wordiness removed |
| The lawyer of opposition has filed a case in the highest abode of justice and demanded justice. (17 words) | The opposition lawyer has filed a case in the Supreme Court demanding justice. (13 words) |
| Example 5 | |
|---|---|
| Sentence with wordiness | Wordiness removed |
| We needed a reconditioning of the kids’ minds. (8 words) | We needed to recondition the kids’ minds. (7 words) |
Is Wordiness Always Bad for Bloggers?
No, it’s not.
If your writing has to elaborate beauty, typically might be that of nature, or needs to detail intricacies, you may need a lot of words. Therein, the so-called redundancy will work to your advantage.
For example, consider this sentence:
“Including all kinds of food in right proportion in your diet is essential for good health as well as developing resistance to diseases.”
You could have written it in a simpler form like this:
Taking a balanced diet is essential for good health as well as developing immunity.
However, that may not be suitable for a layman reading your article. You want your language to be easy and comprehensive. So, you will need mild verbosity here.
Another example is as below:
Corona outbreak has proved it beyond doubt that man is in fact disillusioned about his strength and in true sense, he is but a moth hovering over the eternal light of nature.
This is a sentence like one used in literary writing. Call it flowery or ornamental but a litterateur has a certain way of writing. You can’t say they are wrong.
You cannot raise fingers at Wordsworth for wordiness.
Hence you must retain all the words removing any of which might imply compromising with the wholesomeness of the sentence. At the most we can remove one or two instances of similar meaning words like ‘beyond doubt’, ‘in fact’ and ‘in true sense’.
A literature blog will find its own way. A technical writer will definitely explain and fine-tune to the last nut and the ultimate screw.
Wordiness is not always bad, not always harmful.
Was it Useful?
If wordiness and tips for its elimination sounded useful to you, I request you to suggest (in the comments section) more topics like it. It’s a pleasure to write for my audience and the more useful it is, the more is the motivation to compose new articles.
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