Effective writing is concise. You can be concise by dropping unnecessary words from phrases or sentences. Every word should tell. There is no reason to call a spade “a long handed instrument for turning earth in a garden.” Here are some examples of verbal deadwood drawn from Philippine newspapers and inter-office memoranda:
affixed his signature – signed
at the present time – now
held a conference – met
in the immediate vicinity – near
for the reason that – because
tendered his resignation – resigned
told his listeners – said
united in holy matrimony – married
used for fuel purposes – fueled
was able to make his escape - escaped
In the following samples, the words in italics should be omitted:
advanced prediction
a period of two weeks
definitely decided
fatal killing
final conclusion
free gift
new recruits
other alternative
past history
The rule is: Chop out the verbal deadwood. You will save on newsprint and stationary.
affixed his signature – signed
at the present time – now
held a conference – met
in the immediate vicinity – near
for the reason that – because
tendered his resignation – resigned
told his listeners – said
united in holy matrimony – married
used for fuel purposes – fueled
was able to make his escape - escaped
In the following samples, the words in italics should be omitted:
advanced prediction
a period of two weeks
definitely decided
fatal killing
final conclusion
free gift
new recruits
other alternative
past history
The rule is: Chop out the verbal deadwood. You will save on newsprint and stationary.
46 comments:
In journalism, space is important. So, if you are thinking of using deadwoods to make your article wrong: You are wrong. If a group of words mean the same or can be exchanged with a shorter and more comprehensive word, go ahead and change it. The lenght does not justify the content.
Some people tend to not spot those erroneous expressions called verbal deadwood. But what if somebody who is an intellectual being who could spot these words read your article. What do you think will be his reaction? I guess he will just smile at the mistake and will think that a lot of newsprint, stationary, and money are wasted. So to avoid this scenario, smarten yourselves and omit these deadwoods.
Being concise means you are an effective writer. Do not prolong your sentences by using verbal deadwood. You can be concise by omitting the unnecessary words or phrases in your sentences. Every sentence should be able to tell what you really want to tell. By omitting verbal deadwood, you can save time, energy and ink.
Some people tend to not spot those erroneous expressions called verbal deadwood. But what if somebody who is an intellectual being who could spot these words read your article. What do you think will be his reaction? I guess he will just smile at the mistake and will think that a lot of newsprint, stationary, and money are wasted. So to avoid this scenario, smarten yourselves and omit this deadwood.
I admit, I commit this mistake too. And when I read my article again it is confusing. The sentence becomes long because of the words you used that can be ommited. Even if it is ommited, the message of the sentence is still the same. Sometimes, the result is way better too. It becomes clearer and more concise.
Making short words longer is a waste of ink and brain cells. Then again, this error is mostly done when a writer sees it that he's used a word too many times--he's maneuvering out of his article's redundant state. Then again, with the same writer, his efforts to omit redundancy may backfire (as above mentioned, phrases such as advanced predicition, past history...).
Woah! How can impatient readers survive a 40-word sentence full of verbal deadwoods which could have been shortened to a 7-word sentence. It is really dreadening. I therefore conclude that the world of journalism is a world where every shortcuts are accepted as long as you get to your point with an acceptable grammar.
Rule 4 talks simply talks about using simple words, not lengthy explanations that would make your reader throw your article in the trash can. You should use familiar, short and comprehensive words to catch your reader's attention.
Verbal deadwood brings a lot of unfavorable thing. One thing is a very big use on space. Another thing is redundancy. Having verbal deadwood would just confuse your readers and will make your article very long.
Let us all remember that writing a journalistic article requires lots of time. Of course, for many of us, we tend to make a deadline, not only for us to pass on time, else, to discipline ourselves. Besides, you won't seem intellectual just because of the length of your work. It's the substance itself. So omit verbal deadwood...and really be intellectual.
Repeating the same idea in different sentences does not make you smart. So, do not try and elongate your sentences by going round in circles just to make it look like you know what you are talking about. It does not make you smart at all!
I agree with everyone's take that verbal deadwood is just a waste of everything:time,space,energy,ink,
money,patience and even brain cells. An article is good when there are no verbal deadwood or redundancy.Everyone,yes everyone is annoyed at anything repeating and repeating for the nth time. Journalistic writing must be concise.
Don’t write so long to be able to avoid the use of verbal deadwoods. A concise and a short one would be a safe writing.
Like what the second rule stated, get to the point, there is no need for you to elongate your sentence just because you want to make your article longer. Verbal deadwood is something most of us commit because we want our essays or writings to seem longer. Well, it's wrong to think that. Verbal deadwood is just an excuse to make you look smarter. I agree with Annica that the length does not justify the content.
People sometimes actually KNOWS that some words are not really required but they still put it in anyways. Maybe for impressing or a sick cover up for lack of ideas.
Most of the time, we tend to make our work longer. We do this by making our sentences short. When we make our sentences long, we often use verbal deadwood. Or those who are not really necessary. When this happens, the sentences stated into our work will be confusing. Our work should always be concise and we could be concise by making our sentences short and clear.
As much as possible articles should be concise. That is why we should remove verbal deadwood from our articles. These words tend to make the article repetitive and long. If these words were to be removed, it would be easier for the readers to understand the article. It could also save newsprint, and saving newsprint could lead to saving trees, and saving trees could lead to saving earth from global warming. So before writing your next article think about the effects of not removing verbal deadwood from your articles.
Omitting verbal deadwood is the same with saving time, effort, and ink. When we eliminate verbal deadwood, we not only save time, effort, and ink, but we also tend to make the article simpler. So, go save time, effort, and ink. Omit verbal deadwood.
This rule also follows the rule "Get to the Point". Omitting verbal deadwood is like getting straight to the point. Readers will just be confused if the author uses verbal deadwoods. So follow the rule no. 4 and save space.
Verbal deadwoods can be expressed or written in just short words and these are like the unfamiliar words that are not necessary to our writings because they only lengthen our work. We should avoid using these words because it can make confusion to our work.
Why write a lot of things when they mean the same anyway, correct? It isn’t really necessary to make your article appear long, it just has to inform and inform and inform. It will not make sense if you add up words or if you actually define a word, it won’t do you and your article good.
It doesn't mean that the article is good if it is long. Sometimes news articles are more appreciated if it is shorter. If we can shorten our article, why not?
Rule no. 4 for me makes our life so much easier. It shortens our paragraphs and sentences. It is a matter of choosing the right term that would save time, space and effort but still conveys the same message.
Articles need to be clear and concise, and good articles don’t have time for verbal deadwood. These erroneous expressions tend to create chaos in the minds of your readers. It is our responsibility as writers to ease their suffering and let them know what we are talking about in a simple manner. When achieved, an article becomes fascinating and very informative.
Most of us use verbal deadwoods without noticing them. And this makes our article confusing and not interesting to our readers. So, we should not use verbal deadwoods just to make our articles longer. This will just worsen your article making you readers uninterested in your work.
Too long paragraphs can be really be boring. We should omit verbal deadwoods because they have the same meaning. We shoud use shorter sentenes in replace for the longer ones.
This is so simple. Remove all that is not needed. And verbal deadwood is one of them. So, remove it. It will also save space.
This rule is somewhat the same as the previous rule. The only difference is that in this rule, it refers to long complicated phrases that can just be sum up in a word. Verbal deadwood just makes an article harder to understand. People tend to commit such error, thinking their work will sound better. That is definitely wrong. Though it sounds better, the thoughts the writer wants to convey get all mixed up and readers end in confusion.
Verbal deadwoods make your article very dull and lazy to read. Readers want to have every word like a piece from a puzzle that they can understand and nothing confuses them.
You throw things you no longer need. If you don’t, they end up as junk that you would probably never use or look at. So, do you honestly think that placing a lot of words in your paragraphs will help your career? The answer is one big no. It will probably kill you by being burned at stake. So, try to reduce your words. Make it easier to comprehend by using simpler words. Omit your verbal deadwood.
Leo Amadeus Gerella Ruiz
Rule number four is like an extension of our previous lesson in common errors in english. Verbal deadwoods just add waste to an article, making it look wrong. Deadwood are not needed so why is there a need to use them anyway?
You throw things you no longer need. If you don’t, they end up as junk that you would probably never use or look at. So, do you honestly think that placing a lot of words in your paragraphs will help your career? The answer is one big no. It will probably kill you by being burned at stake. So, try to reduce your words. Make it easier to comprehend by using simpler words. Omit your verbal deadwood
This rule will be helpful to writers and readers if followed because this will save space and remove redundancy. This will also save the writers from errors and corrections from meticulous readers. We should omit verbal deadwood because this will only deaden the thought of our article.
If you could write a sentence in a simpler way, why not do so? Using too many words in one sentence to flourish it does not do you any good. What a waste!
Verbal deadwoods are phrases or words that are not needed in our work. Sometimes, verbal deadwoods can be replaced by a single and simple word. Replacing these deadwoods with those simple words would help our readers a lot in understanding our work. Replacing those verbal deadwoods would shorten our sentences and thus will not bore our readers.
Looking at the above examples, it is apparent that most verbal deadwood tend to point towards the redundant side. Redundancy prevents people from getting to the point. It also sucks up space like a vacuum. If one were to visualize an article as a tree, then one should take the pruning scissors and cut out the figurative dead wood.
Omitting verbal deadwood makes our article easy to read and understand. Not just easy but also it saves time and effort. Some arrogant writers tend to write word or sentences just to impress, this doesn't make you smart at all.
Ma Inna Paulina Egamino Palana
IV - Enrico Fermi
Fe-15
Correct. Effective writing is concise. The article that I read about the girl that got a scary experience has so much unnecessary words or verbal deadwoods that I really got bored and decided to no longer continue reading it. I was even expecting that the italicized paragraph was its summary, but it was what the girl said. Anyway, avoiding too many descriptions is better. It gets to the point faster.
Writing journalistic articles entails a lot of rules to follow and one of it is this: omitting verbal deadwood. Verbal deadwood is something that wastes. It wastes ink and time. It occupies more space in print but this space becomes totally useless as we have only repeated what we have already written. The redundant words would eventually veer your reader from the one you wrote.
I used to place verbal deadwoods in my articles but since we tackled this lesson i realized that adding them would make my articles erroneous. Tis rule is connected with the 3rd rule and i think that omitting verbal deadwood would be beneficial for the readers for they would understand what they are reading better.
Omitting Verbal Deadwood would make our works concise and effective. These deadwood would just make our works redundant and long. Or we can also use simpler words to replace those deadwood, so our works can be concise and understandable. Omitting deadwood would save time and space.
Agreeing to what Mark said, I believe that twisting your words just make the reader, insensitive to the world. I may not agree to what he said in the last part. No, It does prove you are smart. But, you are not wise to acknowledge the capacity of the reader's vocabulary. You just have to do this in creative writing and not of journalistic writing. Be smart, by acknowledging the presence of a general audience. Be wise, by acknowledging that everyone is better off knowing what social norms dictate.
Verbal deadwood might to make you seemingly intellectual, but unfortunately it doesn't. It just makes your life harder. So please do yourself a favor and remove these words.
Verbal deadwoods only lengthen our sentences. It also weakens our work. It just determines how literate a writer is.
In Journalistic Writing, we write to inform concisely and effectively. Verbal deadwoods increase the risk of redundancy, which is obviously not a good thing. It would just bore the the readers. Using deadwoods is just another way of wasting your effort and your precious time.
In journalism, if a group of words can be express in a shorter and more understandable word, you must use the simpler one for your readers to easily catch your ideas. No matter how long your paragraphs may be, if the readers didn't understand what you are trying to convey and it lead them to other understandings, you have accomplished nothing.
Post a Comment