We’ve all got words that we used more than we should, and I bet if we were to make a list, “very” would make it to the top five – not to mention other words that can be ruthlessly cut out from every article we write – words that may add to the length but not to the substance.
There’s a tendency to fill writing with needless words; this can bog a reader down in details, distracting from your message. William Strunk Jr. phrased it best in the must-have book for writers of all levels, Elements of Style:
“Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.”
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