8 Steps to Declutter your Writing

Category: Education

You may know the feeling when you open your cupboard and it’s so stuffed with books that you cannot find the book you wish to read. Or maybe your work table is piled with papers that need filing, and you waste a lot of time looking for the one you need. Going through clutter increases stress and consumes valuable time. The same applies when a reader is subjected to cluttered writing. Excessive words and redundancies in an article or document obscure its intended meaning and interrupt its flow. The essence of your meaning is hidden under all those additional words. After writing your article, you must revise it and look for cluttered sentences. Search for words that do not enhance the meaning or imagery and only obstruct the flow of thoughts. Look for the instances of overwriting or beating a point to death. Say it once or twice then move further or you may risk annoying your audiences. How to declutter your academic paper? 1. Avoid small word pile-ups and remove redundancies Tell the essence of your point by reorganizing your words. For example, revise “in the vicinity of” to “near,” “in spite of the fact that” to “although,” “during the time that” to “while,” and “came in contact with” to “met.” 2. Do not saturate your readers with details You could just exclude those minute details that only distract the reader, who wonders the reason for the presence of these details and whether they are significant. 3. Remove empty “filler” words Always avoid using phrases such as “it was,” “there were,” and “there are” in your article as they simply obstruct the flow without adding any useful information. 4. Eliminate the word “that” if not needed You may read the sentence aloud, and if it makes sense even without “that,” delete it. This revision smoothens out the sentence making it less clunky and flow better. 5. Delete redundant words or phrases Cluttering your article with numerous redundant words can come in the way of better and clearer communication and may confuse and irritate readers. You may go through your paper and identify the instances where you have cluttered up sentences with small unnecessary words and phrases obstructing the flow of thoughts. 6. Do not repeat things once you have demonstrated Avoid repeating ideas that are already shown. Delete those sentences that may indicate the same ideas as already mentioned. 7. Avoid qualifiers Phrases, such as “in a sense,” “sort of,” and “a bit,” should be avoided in academic papers. Unfortunately, they indicate that you are apologetic or unsure of your thoughts. This is not actually the message you want to convey to your readers. 8. Condense long-wound sentences Aim for concise and not long sentences. Revise a 600-word article into 300 words. If you are brave enough, edit 1200 words to 500. Slash out everything but the words that convey exactly what you wish to.