- Eliminate redundant pairs
When the first word in a pair has roughly the same meaning as the second, choose one.
- Delete unnecessary qualifiers
Remove qualifiers that really aren’t necessary (such as “really” in this sentence).
- Identify and reduce prepositional phrases
Overuse of prepositional phrases (which begin with words like “in,” “for,” “at,” “on,” “through,” and “over”) can make a sentence clunky and unclear.
- Locate and delete unnecessary modifiers
Sometimes the meaning of a word or phrase implies its modifier, making it unnecessary.
- Replace a phrase with a word
Many commonly-used phrases can be replaced with single words without sacrificing meaning.
- Identify negatives and change them to affirmatives
Expressing ideas in negative form means you must use an extra word.