What is “redundancy”?

Anthony Jones Dr. Lucas English 1101 21 February 2005 Subject: Redundancy in essays. Purpose: To eliminate redundancy in essays. Audience: Writers that have problem with redundancy in their essays. Redundancy: Less is More

 Most college essays are required to meet a minimum or maximum word count.  In meeting this word count college students have a tendency to write wordy; in which they may also have a tendency to use empty phrases.  They may also say the same things twice.  These tendencies are associated with redundancy.  To avoid redundancy the writer should eliminate wordiness, avoid saying the same thing twice, and eliminate unnecessary repetitions.

First, the writer should eliminate wordiness from his or her paper. For instance, when one word will do the job of several words, the writer should use that one word (Macon State). In this case less is better because it remove wordy sentences from the paper. In writing a paper the writer should always remember every word should count. He or she should omit words or phrases that add nothing to the meaning of the sentence (Macon State). The writer should also watch for empty or vague words such as area, aspect, element, factor, feature, field, kind, situation, thing, and type. They may signal wordiness (Hodges 313) Second, the writer should avoid saying the same thing twice. Past experience has shown that the reader often gets distracted when the writer repeats himself or pounds the reader over the head with the information. The writer should say as much as possible with few words and keep it simple. Not many people enjoy reading the encyclopedia. Third, the writer should avoid using unnecessary repetitions. Although words may be repeated deliberately, for effect, repetitions will seem awkward if they are clearly unnecessary (Hacker 125). If the writer can get the same effect from the reader with fewer words, the writer should. Restating a key point in different words can help the reader understand it; however, there is no need to rephrase readily understood terms or information (Hodges 312). It makes the paper wordy. To review, avoiding wordiness, avoiding saying the same thing twice, and avoiding the use of unnecessary repetitions will eliminate the problem of redundancy in college papers. Always remember less is better when avoiding redundancy.

Work Cited Hacker, Diana. A Writer’s Reference. New York:Bedford / St.Martin’s 2003

Hodges, John C.. Hodges’ Harbrace Handbook. 5th Edition. United States of America: Heinle, a part of the Thomson Corporation. 2004

Macon State College. Tutorial. Eliminating Wordiness.2005 <http://tutorials.maconstate.edu/owl/wp/wp40.asp