Editing for Conciseness
KISS those Sentences!
"Keep It Short and Simple" (preferable to the less polite version, "Keep It Simple, Stupid," don't you think?) is important advice for any writer. This does not mean that you must avoid long words or complex sentences. Formal academic writing is often complex in structure and in vocabulary. It simply means that, when you edit, you should look for places where you may have used
- more words than necessary,
- words that are longer than necessary, or
- sentence structures that are more complicated than necessary.
To edit for conciseness, check your writing carefully for