The beautiful, majestic, breathtaking city of rome was visited by many tourists from american during the hot summer. Pronouns, active voice, and base verbs help eliminate excess words. Our rough drafts are full of extra words, because thats the way most of us speak and think. By eliminating wordiness, you can clarify your meaning. Use these resources to study what you know about identifying and reducing wordiness. Eliminate wordiness worksheet answer key directions. Using excessive prepositions consecutively within a sentence is known as a preposition pileup or preposition choochoo train. Exercise 3 worksheet is suitable for 5th 9th grade. Avoiding wordiness and redundancy practice worksheet. In order to prove that he could hold his own on the. Apr 16, 20 redundancy and wordiness some act english test questions may ask you to identify or eliminate redundancy or unnecessary wordiness within sentences.
Make the exact number of words indicated in the brackets. Due to the fact that some of the guests that we invited to the meeting have not yet. Rewrite the underlined fragments to eliminate wordiness and make them more concise. Wordiness read over your compositions, and, when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.
Writing concisely is one way to capture and retain readers interest. The reefs below the steep cliff were barely visible through the fog. Using a combination of helping verbs be, have, do, make and nouns derived from verbs is called a noun style. To save money, eleanor had a combination of bologna sandwich and potato chips for dinner. Many local farmers plan to attend next fridays meeting. They provide alternative word choices that can add variety to an essay and can help eliminate unnecessary repetition.
The focus of this writing worksheet is to have writers revise and edit a threeparagraph passage to eliminate wordiness and repetition. You can do the exercises online or download the worksheet as pdf. Eliminate wordiness worksheet this quiz was prepared by michael dolan, a student in professor karyn hollis tutor training course at villanova university. Wordy sentences use too many useless words that clutter writing. Eliminating wordiness from your writing at the present time in the present circumstances at this point in time use now or today at this moment in this day and age at that point in time in those days use then. Wordiness occurs when a writer uses more words than necessary to express a thought. Shakespeare indicates that something is wrong in the state of denmark. Combining sentences and cutting superfluous wording in the process is a great method for not only eliminating these issues, but also producing more complex and compound sentences. Fix a wordy sentence by removing unnecessary phrases, changing verb tenses, and choosing better adjectives. Eliminating wordiness you can think of your draft as a eliminating wordiness you can think of your draft as a puzzle. Exercise 24 eliminate the unnecessary words or phrases in the following. Remove unnecessary words avoid redundancy by removing words that do not contribute to a sentence. Each of the sentences below contain wordy clauses underlined rewrite each of the wordy sentences below to eliminate wordiness. Conciseness and eliminating wordiness ku writing center.
This exercise asks you apply your knowledge of eliminating wordiness by combining sentences. During the time when i lived in south carolina, it was my intention to go to college in florida. While it is easy to think of number, person, and gender in simple sentences, there are special constructions that can make agreement difficult. The manual of instruction which was last revised in june 2017 is proposed to. If you had a hard time getting your ideas down on paper, chances are you included some false starts or filler phrases in your writing, something like the ahems, uhs, and okays that.
Avoid passive voice, needless repetition, and wordy. If you had a hard time getting your ideas down on paper, chances are you included some false starts or filler phrases in your writing, something like the ahems, uhs, and okays that occur when were speaking and. Eliminate wordiness, repetition and unnecessary vague abstractions in the following. Wordy sentences contain more words than necessary to convey their meaning. Now that you know why its important to eliminate wordiness, and now that you know how to do so, its time to write some words of your ownor as the case may be, delete some of those unnecessary words. Youll answer quiz questions on things like the methods of reducing wordiness and.
Why eliminating wordiness is so important for your essay. Eliminating wordiness although adding words helps fill pages, information that doesn. Successful globalization depends on factors that involve culture more than economics. How to eliminate wordiness find sentences with forms of the verb to be be, am, is, are, was, were, being, been. The agricultural programs bill was vetoed by the president.
In an effective sentence, every word serves a purpose and occupies the. In this editing and proofreading worksheet, learners read a sentence that is too wordy. Students revise sentences to eliminate wordiness and redundancy. It not only makes your writing clear and specific, but it also makes room for more useful content. Many american tourists visit the beautiful city of rome in the summer. Wordiness and needlessly complex content make it harder to select essentials from. Writing resources eliminating wordiness hamilton college. The beautiful, majestic, breathtaking city of rome was visited by many tourists from america during the hot summer. In this paper, i will explain why i believe that living with some roommates can be extremely difficult and challenging. Eliminating wordiness student academic success services. Eliminating unnecessary wordiness as you read the following list, consider which patterns are typical of your writing. The writing center has writing resources available with tips to help students eliminating wordiness in their papers.
Shakespeare is indicating that something is wrong in the state of denmark. Keeping your paper concise strengthens its clarity and gives it a smooth flow. This is another reason eliminating wordiness is important in your essay. The licensee may download, read, and print the document for his or her. Eliminating wordiness from your writing at the present time in the present circumstances at this point in time use now or today or nowadays. Click on the link at the bottom of the page to see the answers. It is supposed that children are ready to read by age five. There are many farmers in the area who are planning to attend the.
The paper is obviously yours, so delete phrases such as i think, i believe, in my opinion, it seems to me, etc. The paper is obviously yours, so you dont need to use phrases such as i think, i believe, or it seems to me. There are several reasons that wordiness impacts clarity. This exercise asks you apply your knowledge of eliminating wordiness by revising the sample passage. Notice in the following examples how a noun style makes sentences wordy and lifeless.
As shown in the western michigan university study, a great way to reduce wordiness and decrease confusion is to use plain language. The movie has to do with the life of vincent van gogh. Be careful not to change the meaning of the original sentences. There areis noun relative pronoun verb remove there areis and the relative pronoun. Avoid overusing it is, there is, and there are weak expletives at the beginning of sentences.
You can eliminate wordiness by choosing stronger, more specific verbs. Strengthen your prose, making it sound more authoritative and confident. This room is used for study purposes by the students. Avoid passive voice, needless repetition, and wordy phrases and clauses. Eliminating wordiness exercise 1 purdue writing lab.
Twelve tips for eliminating wordiness avoid using a phrase when a word will do. This stylistic problem can cause other problems, including runon or confusing sentences. Combine each sentence group into one concise sentence. Verbosity excess word use is often a result of idea generation, and wordy sentences and paragraphs, especially in early drafts. Successful globalization depends more on culture than economics. Elimination of wordiness exercise 2 this exercise asks you to apply your knowledge of eliminating wordiness by combining sentences. Edit your writing to eliminate unnecessary words by following these guidelines.
Another source of wordiness is unnecessary repetition of a word or phrase in a sentence. General lee invaded pennsylvania in june 1863 to draw the army of the potomac away from richmond. Avoid overusing it is, there is, and there are weak expletives at the beginning. Unless you know how to drive a manual transmission. Revise these sentences to state their meaning in fewer words. By writing clearly and concisely, you will get straight to your point, so your audience can easily comprehend it. Arthur asked the baldheaded man if he polished his head. In order to view pdf files on your computer, you must have a pdf reader program installed. It makes it easier for people to understand and engage with your.
Heres a few more resources to help you with eliminating wordiness. Eliminating wordiness exercise 1 revise these sentences to state their meaning in fewer words. If you do not already have such a reader, you can download a free. Click the link at the bottom of the page to see the answers. Bob provided an explanation of the computer to his grandmother. Derivative prefixes are those that denote the meaning of removing something. Wordiness is the use of several words when a few can express the same idea more clearly and concisely. We all want to communicate clearly, but wordy sentence constructions can mask the best of ideas.
The reason that general lee invaded pennsylvania in june 1863was to draw the army of the potomac away from richmond. Avoiding wordiness and redundancy practice students revise sentences to eliminate wordiness and redundancy. Try to change these verbs so you dont have more than three or four per page. They rewrite the sentence and eliminate the wordiness. Wordiness is the tendency to use more words than necessary. Another way to avoid wordiness is to use the active voice instead of the passive voice. The paragraphs are quite long, and this should take most students quite a while to complete. Below are 10 examples of wordiness, with recommendations on reducing it. This can make sentences confusing, obscuring meaning, slowing down the reader, and distracting from the overall message. Wordiness and redundancy comma splice sentences 2 worksheets grades 37. Editing exercise worksheet is suitable for 6th 7th grade. More exercises for eliminating wordiness directions. Omit the filler phrases it is, there is, and there are at the beginning of sentences.
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