Trimming the fat: Avoid redundancy in your writing

Apr 17 2008

A large part of being an English Major is doing peer reviews for various essays we had to write. Most professors would give us "guide sheet" to follow that gave a list of stuff to look for in the essay we were reading. There was always the usual; thesis statements, logical arguments, proper citation and of course grammar and spelling. But one thing I found in a lot of the essays I reviewed (and I’m certainly as guilty as anyone) is redundancy in the writing.

What is redundancy? A simple definition is that it’s words/phrases in writing that are extra and should be cut out. Here’s an example:

His doctor asked him the question again, "Where does it hurt?"

Can you guess the part of the above sentence that is redundant? I’ll give you a hint, notice the words "ask" and "question". Can you ask anything other than a question? Probably not. So this can be cleaned up:

His doctor asked him again, "Where does it hurt?"

Maybe not the most illuminating prose, but you get the point. Redundancy in writing takes up valuable space and distracts from what is being written.

There are a lot of examples of redundant phrases, and I don’t think I need to go through all of them. But here are a few of the more common ones:

- Each and every - Just use the word "each".

- Advance planning – All planning is in advance.

- 1 am in the morning – If it says AM, then the word "morning" can be cut.

- First annual – I see this one all over the place. If it’s the first time for an event, then it is not yet "annual". Not sure if this is redundant, but it’s not real logical. Maybe I’m just picky.

All of us use redundancies in our writing at one point or another, even when we’re trying to carefully avoid them. The best cure for this ugly writing disease is to edit, edit, edit. Have someone else edit your work (because you probably won’t catch everything).

What other redundant phrases have you seen (either in your own writing or someone else’s)? Leave a comment and let us know!

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One Response

Haha, super helpful post! I sometimes use a few of those now and then and I never realized that it was extra. I don’t know any other redundant phrases at the moment, but they’ll probably pop up in my head sooner or later.

Jess 4/28/2008 4:59 pm