Computing Science

17. Word/Phrase choice - wordiness

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Words are valuable. Try not to waste them. Using ten words where three will do makes a sentence clumsy as well as obscuring rather than clarifying the meaning.

These sentences are very clumsy to read:

Getting rid of the unnecessary words makes them much more elegant and clear:
Sometimes, it's tempting to repeat the same thought or finding but in different ways:
We don't need the second sentence. It simply repeats 'families are split up by circumstance' without adding any new information. It's what a marker calls 'padding', i.e. it serves no useful purpose except to boost the word count.
Checking your work for padding. It distracts attention from the point you are trying to make. Often, padding can just be removed. In other instances, a sentence may need to be rewritten.

Just an aside: anybody thinking of writing articles for journals or newspapers needs to be particularly good at weeding out padding. Editors don't appreciate it and if you don't tighten up your work yourself, a sub-editor will be let loose on it, with unpredictable results.
TaskTask TypeDifficulty
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Task 2Category selectionEasier
Task 3Category selectionEasier
Task 4Category selectionMore Challenging
Task 5Free textMore Challenging
Task 6Free textMore Challenging
Task 7Category selectionEasier
Task 8Free textMore Challenging
Task 9Free textMore Challenging