What is “wordiness”?

Many students fail research papers because of wordiness. Being redundant often confuses readers and they lose interest in the writing quickly. Keeping a reader’s attention is very important, and two ways to do this is to keep your audience into consideration at all times by eliminating big words and redundant words.

A common mistake used in wordiness is students trying to use big words. Students do this to sound smart and to impress their teachers. Big words are usually used just to make simple sentences sound complex and intelligent, but if you use a simple word it does not mean that the paper sound childish. Sometimes using big words make sentences sound ridiculous. Here is an example.

Wordy: That baby is gargantuan.
Concise: That baby is huge.

A list of things that make a sentence awkward are provided on the website: Word Choice/Wordiness.

misused idioms
unclear pronouns
misused words
jargon
garbled syntax
loaded language
Calloquialisms

Redundancy is another common mistake made by students when it comes to wordiness. Diana Hacker notes, “a sentence is wordy if its meaning can be conveyed in fewer words” (124). She gives of redundant phrases such as “ close proximity” and “true fact” (125). These words have similar meanings and can be reduced to one word. Diana also emphasizes the point to “look for any opportunities to reduce clauses and phrases to single words” (127). Her example is,

Wordy: "Susan's stylish pants, made of leather, were too warm for Miami.
Concise: Susan's stylish leather pants were too warm for Miami" (Hacker 127).

Pamela Arlov state's that "wordiness sometimes happens when writers do not take the time to be concise" (428). She also gives an example of this.

Wordy: "The fact is that, fact, like opinions, can usually be stated without preamble
Concise: Fact, like opinions, can usually be stated without preamble" (Arlov 428).

Eliminating big words and redundant words will make getting an A on a paper easy. While proof reading a paper, make sure words are concise so the sentences will not be wordy.

Work Cited

Arlov, Pamela. Wordsmith: A Guide to College Writing. 2nd ed.

    Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2004

Hacker, Diana. A Writer's Reference. 5th ed. Boston:

    Bedford/St.Martin's, 2003

"Word Choice/Wordiness" Handouts and Links. 2002. 02 Mar 2005

    <http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/word_choice.html/>