What Words Don't I Need?

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

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.

Beginning writers sometimes use more words just to sound more intelligent. We learned to replace complicated, wordy phrases with simpler language. For example:

a man who                        he

due to the fact that           since

it is important that           should 

on the subject of              about

aware of the fact that      know

in the event that              if, when

Redundancies, need to be avoided in order to polish our writing:

liquid oil

wealthy millionaire

lethal bullet

dead corpse

completely destroyed

end result

We played a game in class where the students had four lines to explain what they had done to offend their friend and then to beg them not to leave their house. As a class we chose a few things they could have done that were offensive:

kill their pet

eat all their candy/birthday cake

break something they love

Each student then got up and, dramatically as possible, tried to convince the class that they were sincere in their apology. If they succeeded they were rewarded with a ticket or candy. 

This game helped them choose their words carefully, plus it was just plain fun.

  

The best way to choose a word is to "see" the action in your mind and choose the most precise word to describe what you see. I gave each student a list of other ways to say "said". This week, at home, they should write a story replacing the word said with a more exact word to describe the mood of the conversation going on in their story. There will be a prize awarded for using the new words at least 10 times in their writing.