Basic 6: How to Eliminate Wordiness

“I’m sorry I wrote you such a long letter, but I didn’t have time to write a short one.”  Mark Twain

Academic writing prefers long sentences and values words that lend to the fact that there are many ways and possibilities to solve problems.  What I am referring to here is that scientific research delves into the unknown and therefore needs to explore all sides of an argument to make a decision to a proposed solution.  Then after the solution is proved, that new knowledge in the world is moved into it’s dissemination.  Ah…hopefully now, you can see why academic writing is purposeful and valuable yet different from business writing.  In business, generally, our purpose is to take action on the information and given that business values money and time, we prefer conciseness.

For me, as an academic and business person, I live in both worlds which in some circumstances I need to write in one style and in other circumstances, I need to write in the other style.  The same is true for you; it’s the concept of audience-centeredness again.  Write or speak to connect with the reader or listener.

So, I’ve taken the long way (on purpose) to explain why you need to be adaptable in your writing.  For this class and in business, you need to write in a concise style.  Eliminate long sentences and write with the goal of using fewer words in a sentence.  Research tells us that our comprehension is at 100% in an eight word sentence, after that it decreases.  Think of that from your perspective as a business leader – if you want your followers to understand and engage with you, you have to communicate in a way that is understandable.  Be concise.  Use fewer words.  Short sentences have more emotional power – so use them when you really want to drive a point.

(Did you notice the two different styles in this message? I hope so.)

Now to practicality:

This sentence is too long (39 words):

After talking on the phone with Sally and Alex, the decision to have a meeting tomorrow to discuss our current sales figures and our future sales projection is confirmed for 10 o’clock in the morning in the conference room.  

Notice that you get tired reading it, and that is NOT what you want to do with your readers.

This is better (10 words):

Tomorrow’s sales meeting is at 10am in the conference room.