Writing style

Improving style is a matter of

•  writing more concisely − removing tautology, redundancy, verbosity
•  correcting ambiguities and vagueness
•  removing hackneyed phrases, vogue words, and inappropriate expressions.

The following sets are examples of how style is improved.

✖  She sat thinking for long periods of time. (tautology)
✔  She sat thinking for long periods.

✖  Her decision was based on the fact that her son was not well. (verbose)
✔  Her decision was affected by her son being unwell.

✖  Make a decision on what to do! (verbose)
✔  Decide what to do!

✖  Bob reported the problem to Jim, and the boss gave him a raise. (ambiguous)
✔  Bob reported the problem to Jim, and the boss gave Bob a raise.

✖  The horse which is in the field is hungry. (ambiguous)
✔  The horse, which is in the field, is hungry.
✔  The horse that is in the field is hungry. (defines which horse)

✖  He leveraged his position as chief engineer. (hackneyed)
✔  He took advantage of his position as chief engineer.

✖  We're looking at building a new workshop, going forward. (vogue phrase)
✔  We're planning to build a new workshop.

✖  Increasing sales is one way to grow the business. (hackneyed)
✔  Increasing sales is one way to expand the business.

✖  The Frequency Multiplexer is functioning correctly. (unnecessary capitalisation).
✔  The frequency multiplexer is functioning correctly.

✔  Only Henry poured water on the cat. *
✔  Henry only poured water on the cat. *
✔  Henry poured only water on the cat. *
✔  Henry poured water on only the cat. *
✔  Henry poured water on the only cat. *

* All of these are grammatically correct, but have different meanings.