Economy of Expression: When five words will do the work of sixteen, with no loss of vividness or clarity, please hack the extra eleven out of there. Economy does no mean brevity, but requires “that every word tell”. Compression of meaning is one of the factors that create impact in our writing, and its power is felt even by simple readers who cannot explain why they are moved. Sections A through D illustrate some common sources of wordiness that dilute our effectiveness. Squeeze the water out of what you write, even if only a word or two.
A. Stock or Prefabricated Phrasing: This often makes our writing windy and always makes it stale. Underline the familiar or stale combinations of words in the examples below – they’re not cliches in the sense of hackneyed metaphors or similes, but they have the same wearisome effect on the reader, and they make the statement diffuse, robbing it of impact:
1. Indifference on the part of Stevening to the fact that his films are full of vice make him a sorry influence as far as young people are concerned.
Nearly half of that sentence is stock phrasing (13 words out of 28), and the effect is like driving on ice – we try to pull away from the stop sign but we’re moving hardly at all, though the engine races and the tires whine – a lot of words are going by, but little information. “Indifference on the part of Stevening” should be reduced to “Stevening’s indifference.” And when we write in standard phrases we often cease to think about what the words mean 0 it’s not a fact that these films are ridden with vice, but only this author’s value judgment. The stock phrase “as far as… are concerned” is completed by adding X, Y, or Z in the blank – “as far as tennis is concerned,” or “as far as college was concerned.” Fill-in-the-blank writing is like painting by the numbers – it does not produce distinguished results. The sentence above should be pruned: “Stevening’s indifference to the vice in his films has a sorry influence on the young.” I’m not here concerned with the author’s meaning, but only his manner of expressing it. If wordiness may be compared to body fat, then strive for a lean and athletic style, through exercise.
2. With all due respect to Joseph Stalin, how anyone could want to have his own image adored on millions of posters, portraits, and monuments was beyond me. His ruthlessness and fear of conspiracies caused the deaths of millions of ordinary Russians. A case in point was his massacre of the Kulaks and his purge of the Red Army’s officer corps, which catastrophes that…
The opening phrase makes no sense, since the author does not “respect” Stalin – writers of hackneyed phrases become inattentive to the meaning of their words. After cutting the first five words, the author is left with a stock sentence beginning “How anyone could want… was beyond me,” and he plugs in A, B, or C to bung the hole. Finally, after noting Stalin’s paranoia and brutality, he wishes to cite specific instances, so he prefaces these with the stock phrase “A case in point was….” But the reader needs no help to recognize that the references to the destruction of the Kulaks and the Red Army purge are offered as evidence. Such phrases as “For example,” “By way of illustration,” and “A case in point” are nearly always deadwood (and he cites two cases, not one). We could improve the economy of the passage and freshen its stale smell by saying “How Stalin could endure the adoration of his image on millions of posters, portraits, and monuments is a mystery of human vanity. His ruthlessness and fear of conspiracies caused the deaths of millions of ordinary Russians, for the massacre of the Kulaks and his purge of the Red Army’s officer corps were catastrophes that….”
It’s easy to write in stock phrases, for the sentences almost write themselves, but as Hemingway said, “Easy writing makes hard reading.” We’re all guilty of this slovenliness to some degree, especially in speech when we’re constructing sentences rapidly, but let’s struggle against this vice. It may be quick and easy to fling together prefabricated mobile homes, but there’s no much pride of ownership in them. Some people seem unable to open their mouths without some dead phrases flopping out, and George Orwell sees this as evidence of staleness of ideas. The corruption of our political oratory is demonstrated by several of the presidents we’ve elected in the past half-century. Richard Nixon (R.) and Lyndon Johnson (D.) were painful to the ear, and I’d rather spend a hot summer in Purgatory than listen to ten words’ utterance by Bush the Second.
We have different levels of aptitude for writing well, and I’m often astounded at the achievements of some writers of little formal education (Lincoln, Twain, Dickens, Austen). But for most of us, writing is like any other skill learned by constant drill and repetition, and not by sound advice only.
So underscore the stock phrases in the following examples, then revise them for greater economy and freshness. Some sentences should be combined as well as condensed, for both long and short sentences have their uses. I’ve taught writing skills for exactly 50 years, and I’ve been collecting pedagogically useful specimens for about 48 of them – most are the works of my former students, long forgotten, but a few may have been borrowed in ages from other critics, to whom I apologize.
3. With regard to Senator Kleven, it should be brought to the attention of the public that he was the recipient of $147,000 in contributions that he did not choose to make known. I don’t want to imply that this was against the law, unless it could be shown that….
I assume that the opening stock phrase (“With regard to”) was used as a pointer only, without implying respect for the Senator, but it’s certainly a dead line, ready for the fire. Also note the tendency to use a phrase in place of a simple verb – “was the recipient of” instead of “received,” or better yet “gathered,” which implies the senator’s intent to enrich himself. In the last sentence the author apparently does want to suggest that his behavior was illegal, or at least improper, but I’d consider the word “criminal” instead, as more vigorous. It’s a minor principal of good prose to avoid many negatives such as “not” and the prefixes “il-,” “un-,” “non-,” “in-,” which may obscure the meaning. The reader must multiply all of these positive and negative terms (-)(+)(-)(+)(-), and if he drops a sign the meaning is 180 degrees wrong. Avoid such ambiguities as this: “It is not clear if the President was not ill-informed by his subordinates of the implications of the Watergate burglary.” State your meaning positively when you can, and shun the “not un-” barbarism. Finally, in line three of example #3, use a single adjective (“secret”) to describe the contributions, not the windy clause “that he did not choose to make known.” Revisions: “The public should know that Senator Kleven gathered $147,000 in secret contributions, which could be criminal if it….”
Underscore the stock phrases in the following, then revise for improved economy and freshness:
4. As far as the age of the planet is concerned, I had made up my mind that the 4.6 billion years of the Earth’s geological history makes the five million years of human evolution seem insignificant, to say the least.
5. In spite of the fact that the Supreme Court should overturn Roe vs. Wade, it should be brought to the attention of voters in each and every state that liberal senators are blocking conservative nominees to the bench.
6. Jake had the dubious distinction of being the worst drunk in Phi Kappa Delta, and when he fell down the stairs to the living room it suddenly dawned upon me, as far as college went, his tuition was wasted. In time the university felt so too, and he had no one to blame but himself when he was expelled in his junior year.
7. Another aspect that must be considered is the “right to work” law, which poses a problem by weakening union memberships. The law’s expressed purpose leaves something to be desired, and the fact that the name sounds appealing should not disguise the law’s sinister purpose. A case in point is the Iowa law which….
8. His facts and figures left something to be desired, and he wasn’t all that he was made out to be, but at long last he looked me straight in the eye, and I couldn’t believe my eyes as I breathed a sigh of relief because I didn’t have a care in the world, though I had mixed feelings about the simple things in life and I could smell a rat so I didn’t mince words when I gave him a piece of my mind, and we went at it hot and heavy with no holds barred despite the fact that I felt cold and clammy and I tossed and turned all night, getting madder by the minute till morning rolled around and we woke up bright and early, but nothing in the world could knock some sense into that hard head of his, though it’s my opinion that he began to have butterflies in his stomach or was just plain scared, but I gave credit where credit was due and said that if he applied himself it would pay off in the long run, but my advice fell on deaf ears, though he nodded in agreement, and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth and it really gets my goat, and I’d like to throw the book at him to let off a little steam for giving me the raw end of the deal, even if boys will be boys, but all good things must come to an end – unlike these damned stock phrases and clichés, which are endless.
All right, I confess that I wrote #8 myself, after too many tutorials with authors who seemed to be trying for pure stock phrasing – I only wanted to help.
Please not that only one or two of the stock phrases in specimens 1-8 would be considered cliches, most of which are hackneyed metaphors and similes or other figures of speech (“It hit him like a ton of bricks” or “It’s only the tip of the iceberg”). Stock phrases are simply idioms, but they have effect as cliches – staleness of expression, and wordiness too. They’re like the phrases that we memorize in French or German, which may be one reason why few authors achieve literary distinction in a second language. A native French student of mine complained bitterly when I attacked the stale phrases which she had been memorizing for years.
B. Redundancies and Miscellanious Deadwood: These are words or phrases that say nothing, or which are pointlessly repetitious (often indicated by echoes). The redundancies are frequently camouflaged with synonyms or pronouns, but they still exist, though they do not chime so awkwardly. The solution is to cut them out, not to conceal them. In the specimens #1-6 below I’ve underscored the major redundancies and deadwood (which I abbreviate as “dead” on my students’ paper).
1. It is obvious that bad laws may encourage criminals in committing crime, as shown by the era of the 1920s in the time of prohibition – alcohol was easy to make and very profitable. This just goes to show that we cannot eliminate the problem of drug abuse by passing legislation in defiance of elementary chemistry and the common desire to get high.
The first four words in #1 are deadwood, as are the first six of the second sentence. There are many such prefatory phrases which are meaningless, except to promise that soon the author will say something. “I think that…,” “I believe that…,” “It is my conclusion that…,” “It is my opinion that…” and dozens of other dead phrases resemble the little hands pointing to classified ads in Victorian newspapers: amputate them.
They are like the foam on top of a glass of beer, or the meringue on the pie – only bubbles with little or no substance. The most obvious redundancy in #1 is “criminals in committing crime” (note the echo), but others include “era” with “time,” and “problems” with “abuse.” Revision: “Bad laws may encourage crime, as shown by Prohibition in the 1920s – alcohol was easy to make and very profitable. We cannot eliminate drug abuse by legislating in defiance of elementary chemistry and the common desire to get high.”
2. As I have previously stated, the chief difficulty in the elimination of cocaine is the problem of how to patrol our 18,700 miles of borders and coastlines, as well as the task of guarding our airspace from smugglers using small planes.
The first five words are an apology for bad organization, which I don’t accept. The words “difficulty,” “problem,” and “task” are broadly redundant, but this is concealed by using synonyms. Imagine the first draft which may have read, “The chief difficulty… is the difficulty of… as well as the difficulty of….” Don’t conceal the redundancies, but cut them. Revision: “The chief difficulty in eliminating cocaine is the patrolling our 18,700 miles of land borders and coastlines, and guarding our airspace from smugglers using small planes.”
3. It seems to me that another factor we must take into consideration is the cost of the war on drugs. This includes the expense of feeding and guarding a million drug offenders in prison at an annual cost of about $40,000 per year for each of them.
This example begins with two of those little dead hands, and both should be amputated. There is an obvious redundancy in “cost,” “expense,” and “cost” again, and another between “annual” and “per year.” Revision: “The cost of the war on drugs includes feeding and guarding a million prisoners at $40,000 each per year.”
4. I want to emphasize the fact that in the state of Kentucky marijuana growers plant their crops of pot in secluded stretches of the Daniel Boone National Forest in areas that are difficult to detect. They do this so that the evidence won’t be discovered on their own land.
The redundancies in #4 include “marijuana” with “pot” in line two, “stretches” and “areas” in lines three and four, and “secluded” with “difficult to detect.” The first seven words include a dead hand and a stock phrase – cut them and then condense the two sentences as one. Revision: “In Kentucky, marijuana growers plant their crops in the Daniel Boone National Forest, so evidence won’t be discovered on their own land.” As always, more or less radical revisions are possible.
5. She proceeded to rummage in her purse for the money as she began to wonder if Kelly would ever decide to repay it. They were both alike in being careless about forgetting small debts, or indifference to whether they were ever repaid.
Students never seem to have milked the cow, but always “proceeded to milk the cow” or “began to milk the cow” or “decided to milk the cow.” Unless the action is to be interrupted, on most mornings just milk the damned cow and cut those “proceeded to” constructions. Revision: “She rummaged in her purse for the money, wondering if Kelly would repay it. Both were careless and indifferent about small debts.”
6. In Salinger’s book entitled The Catcher in the Rye, he expressed his thoughts and beliefs on the crassness and hypocrisy of urban American culture. In this novel he emphasized how insensitive and phone the people of our cities have become.
The second sentence repeats the first, which is itself too windy. A student makes a generalization, then repeats it in different words, then says it again in another disguise, like an actor who keeps reappearing on stage in different costume for another role. Finally at the end of the paragraph, the student produces a detail or two to support the generalization, a scrap of evidence with an embarrassed look to it, as if wondering what it’s doing there (to paraphrase Mark Twain). All of us would do well with less repetition and more evidence. Unfortunately most of us have a scanty supply of evidence, but unlimited words. In #6, “book” in line one is redundant with the title (obviously a book) and with “novel” in sentence two. “Thoughts and beliefs” are as transparently redundant as the politician who rants for “freedom and liberty.” “Crassness and hypocrisy” in line two are turned into adjectives “insensitive and phony” in line three. And “urban American culture” is repeated as “the people of our cities.” Cut the second sentence entirely and prune the first: “Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye attacks the crassness and hypocrisy of urban America.” The rest was sound without meaning.
7. A method, which was found to be expedient and not very difficult to accomplish and which possessed a high degree of accuracy in its results, was devised whereby….
This specimen I borrowed about 40 years ago from a book then called A Style Manual for Biological Journals, whose editors railed against the wordiness of the manuscripts they received, which inflated their costs of publication. Their revision for #7 was “An easy, accurate way to…” which I’d endorse with raucous cheers. The following phrases were from the same source, and I’ll give the editors’ revisions:
An innumerable number of tiny veins = innumerable tiny veins
At the present moment = at present (or at the moment)
Bright green in color = bright green
Conducted inoculation experiments on = inoculated
Contemporaneous in age = contemporaneous
It would thus appear that = apparently
Lenticular in character = lenticular
Serves the function of being = is
The fish in question = this fish (ever interrogated a fish?)
The treatment having been performed = after treatment
They are both alike = they are both
Throughout the entire area = throughout the area
I shall, with your permission, offer some brief observations.
I disagreed with the editors on the last example, for they recommended “May I say a few words” – that’s better, but I’d cut the entire line. Of course you may say a few words, but use fewer words. The following lines are empty of meaning – you could drag a net through them and never catch a fact or an idea:
Concerning this matter it may be borne in mind that….
In this connection the statement may be made that….
It is interesting to note that…
With respect to the occurrence of these types, it has been found that….
These are more of the little dead hands alluded to before. We need to recognize when our words mean something and when they do not. Underscore the deadwood and redundancies in the following specimen and condense the remnants without loss of meaning. You may choose to combine these into fewer sentences if necessary to avoid a constipation of style. Short sentences have important uses, such as in dialogue, for we tend to speak in shorter sentences than we write (when speaking, we tend to add afterthoughts, sometimes as fragments). Or an abrupt sentence at the end of a paragraph may confer a special emphasis. But in other cases a long sequence of short sentences may seem awkward, as if the author doesn’t know how to combine independent clauses grammatically.
8. Voting is the essential political freedom an individual must have if he lives under a democratic system of government.
9. He proceeded to grease his hands with cooking oil and began to cut off portions of the bread dough, being careful as he proceeded to twist each piece. He was very proud of the fact that he was getting on in life with only a grade school education.
10. The road as it is currently with ruts and washouts is unsafe to travel on, and there are no road signs at the intersections showing the route to Slippery Rock. One tourist got lost by taking the wrong route and ended up in Washita, a town fifteen miles from Slippery Rock, because of the lack of signs.
11. Both of the two girls were drunk, but they climbed into their Camaro and started off, throwing gravel and making dust from excessive acceleration.
12. The point I’m trying to make is that Welch Hall completely defeated its own purpose when….
13. A recent experience of mine might have been pictured like this: After entering a restaurant I found….
14. When the typhoon struck the ship, MacWhirr took command and saved the ship from the storm. With regard for the crew, however, they showed themselves to be rather cowardly.
C. Weak or nearly meaningless sentences: These are often the “topic sentences” at the beginning of a paragraph, which in the worst cases vaguely announce that you will now say something about Topic X, but without saying it. Begin each paragraph with a meaningful statement. Combine and condense sentences lacking in substance, advice that I abbreviate as “C&C.” Inept writers always seem to begin a paragraph with a vague statement, then slowly, slowly become more specific. Your professors are obliged to read many papers, and this extra verbiage is wearisome.
1. South of Commerce Avenue, two gangs exist, and create a problem. One group calls themselves the Bloods and the other the Latin Kings. They battle nightly to control the market for drugs in Belmont.
The predicate of the first sentence says nothing – if the gangs do not exist, there’s no problem. In the second sentence we would assume that they’ve chosen their own names, and there’s a redundancy between “gang” in line one and “group” in line two. Combine and condense three weak sentences into one: “South of Commerce Ave. two gangs, the Bloods and the Latin Kings, battle nightly to control the drug market in Belmont.”
2. There is a fourth kind of protest that is different from the other three. This is the kind that appears when….
The topic sentence says nothing except to announce that the author is going on to Type #4 – it’s meaningless to say that Type 4 is different from 1, 2, and 3, for otherwise it would not be a fourth. Note the echo of “kind” from the first sentence to the second, which is awkward and reveals wordiness. Condense the two sentences and begin the paragraph with a meaningful statement: “A fourth kind of protest appears when….”
3. It was an ordinary barn as far as barns go. It was painted an ordinary white which had become dirty and cracked. Inside the barn, spider webs were numerous. They extended across every rafter in the barn, forming geometrical designs.
The first sentence in #3 is vague, and ends with the stock phrase “as far as barns go” – barns rarely go far, except in tornado season, and the word is echoed from line one to lines three and five. There is no need for it in the third line – we assume that the writer means inside the barn and not inside the cow. The echo of “ordinary” is also awkward, and there’s another redundancy between “were numerous” and “extended across every rafter.” We should prefer the second phrase as more graphic. Revise these four sentences as two: “It was an ordinary barn, painted white which had become dirty and cracked. Inside, spider webs extended across every rafter, forming geometrical designs.”
Authors and orators often repeat key words and phrases for rhetorical effect of parallelism or antithesis, as when Shakespeare says that the “greatest scandal awaits on the greatest state,” or when Juliet exclaims “My only love sprung from only hate! / Too early seen unknown, and known too late!” But these devices are best used with caution, and are often oppressive in political oratory when the speaker attempts to create a soundbyte for the media, some slogan to inflame the halfwits of the right or the left.
4. An additional example of Fitzgerald’s fiction that I’d like to consider is “The Rich Boy.” In this story, the author emphasizes the effects of wealth upon character among the Old Families.
Again the topic sentence is almost meaningless, except for the allusion to “The Rich Boy” – obviously it’s “an additional example” that he’d “like to consider.” In the second sentence, “this story” and “the author” are redundant with the previous line. Instead of tediously stalking your subject and surrounding it with vague redundancies, attack it at once: “In ‘The Rich Boy,’ Fitzgerald emphasizes the effects of wealth upon character among The Old Families.” Then specify the effects and marshal your evidence.
Revise the following:
5. In Iraq two rival sects of Islam are present today. These are the Sunni and the Shiite faiths. These groups have been at strife for nearly 1400 years since the death of Mohammed.
6. In Babbit, Sinclair Lewis implies that religion is just another form of business, selling a product or promoting a service. To be number one in Zenith, you had to be at the top. Dr. Drew wanted the biggest Sunday school in the city, just as a real estate agent wants increased sales. The evangelist, Mike Monday, was another representative of business in the novel. He boasted that he was the world’s greatest “salesman” of salvation.
7. You can buy anything you desire. There are even metal boxes to bury human ashes or if you want something a little more pleasant you can buy a beautiful topaz ring with a solid gold band. But whatever you choose to buy, you will have to bargain for it, because….
D. Weak nouns and verbs, often propped up with modifiers: “Beginners in Literature are inclined to fumble with a handful of adjectives round the outline of what they want to describe.” – T.E. Lawrence
Effective writers rely on strong nouns and verbs, meaning those specific enough to create images in the mind of the reader. Such a writer is sparing in his use of modifiers. The novice uses weak or all-purpose nouns and verbs which create only vague images at best, then tries to remedy their weakness with a profusion of adjectives and adverbs. A specific meaning may be conveyed by piling up modifiers, but it’s a recipe for awkwardness. The adverb is the most abused part of speech – if the word ends with the suffix “-ly,” make it prove why it’s in there. If you have so many modifiers that you must use commas between them, you’re probably using too many and should find a stronger noun or verb.
1. The loud, low sound of the freight vehicles in the tunnel…
R: The rumble of the trucks in the tunnel…
2. In Mississippi, Luke’s dilapidated little old house…
Two of the adjectives are redundant since its dilapidated condition suggests its age, but a better noun like “shack” without the adjectives would be better, and “Luke’s shanty” would be better still – the noun is specific enough that it’s not improved by the addition of modifiers, but weakened.
3. A thin stream of waste water from the house ran sluggishly down the pipe toward the river.
“Waste water” sounds like a euphemism (discussed later), and “ran” is a weak verb propped up with an adverb, “sluggishly.” I’d prefer “Sewage from the house trickled down a pipe toward the river.”
4. The toddler moved restlessly in his chair till his mother lightly struck him on the knee with the magazines.
R: The toddler squirmed in his chair till his mother swatted him on the knee with her magazine.
“Wriggled” or “fidgeted” would serve as well in the main clause.
5. The several remaining characters in the story are all presented as various aspects of the false pretenses to be found in upper-class behavior, which we regard as noteworthy only for their polished and amusing dialogue, but totally lacking any valid understanding of the impoverished living conditions outside the boundaries of their property.
Such diffuse prose is common among students who fret about “the flow” of their writing, as they are swept along a torrent of words.
R: The remaining characters are aristocratic shams, notable for their wit, but indifferent to the poverty of the village beyond their gates.
Writing gains force through compression and that is improved by a preference for strong nouns and verbs while cutting modifiers.
6. The unpleasant old lady held tightly onto her purse and said something that I couldn’t quite understand about my parents.
R: The hag clutched her purse and muttered something about my parents.
In the following specimens, replace the weak nouns and verbs with more specific ones and cut needless modifiers.
7. Mrs. Thomas would know that I’d put the paint on the wall instead of on my canvas, so I went hurriedly to my locker for some turpentine and an old piece of cloth to clean it off, and then quickly placed my brushes in my box.
8. After placing the clothes in the washer, I sat down and hurriedly began to skim through the problems in my calculus text for Monday. Then Scott came into the laundry room, apparently still drunk, telling me loudly that I had taken his wallet when he had fallen asleep in the bar.
9. He slowly entered the kitchen and carelessly put down his mother’s newspaper on the table. He sat down, yawning, and heavily put one foot across the other chair, leaving stains on the seat.
10. The loud noise of voices gradually grew in volume and then fell to complete silence when they saw the small, thin, underweight boy on the crutches standing in the doorway. You could clearly see the all-consuming fear in Kenny’s eyes and his great nervousness as his hand perceptibly began to tremble. A small smile appeared on his thin face as he laboriously made his way to the front desk of the classroom teacher Mr. Phillips, who only placed the new kid’s name on the seating chart and said nothing. Then Kenny laid his crutches on the floor and moved with difficulty to the first seat, where he pulled several things out of his backpack and put them away.
These examples are not unusually bad, but only typical, which means bad enough to need revision. In line three of example #10, note the “small, thin, underweight boy” – two of the three adjectives are redundant (“thin” and “underweight”) but all of them could be eliminated with a stronger noun, such as “the runt on crutches.”
A profusion of modifiers might convey your meaning, but it’s an awkward way to be vivid.
There may be exceptions when you’ll wish to violate any of these principles – in Main Street (1920), Sinclair Lewis wrote “Mrs. Bogart was not the acid type of Good Influence. She was the soft, damp, fat, sighing, indigestive, clinging, melancholy, depressingly hopeful kind.” If you choose to flaunt a sound principle, do it with flair.
Strong nouns and verbs: The following specimens are effective. Underscore the words that seem well-chosen, that create an image in your mind and carry the impact of each statement – most will be nouns and verbs. Also consider what words or phrases that a novice might have used instead:
1. The tractor sputtered and popped at a deafening intensity, and billowed a cloud of soot that settled on my clothes and stuck to my suntan lotion.
Some novices write well. This was from a freshman girl’s narrative about a John Deere “B” tractor with a two-cylinder engine. I suggested only one trivial revision – her first draft read “a cloud of black soot,” and I recommended that she cut the adjective.
2. (A pony cart) We trotted on, we crept up Constitution Hill, we rattled down in Lammas Street, and the tailor still rung his bell and a dog ran squealing in front of the wheels. As we clip-clopped over the cobbles that led down to the Towy Bridge, I remembered…
-Dylan Thomas, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog
3. (An eccentric) But grandpa stood firmly on the bridge, and clutched his bag to his side, and stared at the flowing river and the sky, like a prophet who has no doubt.
-Ibid.
4. (Sounds of a Jewish slum) Every sound from the street roared and trembled at our windows, … the screech of the trolley car on Rockaway Avenue, the eternal smash of a handball against the wall of our house, the clatter of “der Italyener’s” cart packed with watermelons, the sing-song of the old clothes men walking Chester Street, the cries of “Arbes! Arbes! Kinder! Kinder! Heyse gutes arbes!”
-Alfred Kazin, A Walker in the City.
Economy does not mean brevity, though the revision of windy paragraphs may make them shorter. What you write may be as long as War and Peace and yet be economical if all the words and phrases serve a purpose. Students quickly learn to recognize stock phrases but are slower to spot the deadwood and redundancies in their work, even when it’s made obvious by awkward echoes of words and phrases. I urge them to read their works aloud, as I do in their private tutorials. They could identify many problems with their ears that they miss with their eyes. If this practice annoys their roommates, then let them mutter it. Courses in speed reading encourage us not to sub-vocalize, but literature should be read with a spoken voice, whether fiction, drama, or poetry, even if the words only resonate within our heads and no sound is uttered. Those who wish to write well should do the same.
A.W. Johns
Let's Write Right 