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CUT THE FAT
No one wants to read one extra word more than one has to. For example, this sentence --
When the arrow-tipped hands of the clock stood one on top of the other with a space beneath the downward-pointing arrow, he pushed his chair back and with a noticeable effort erected himself to a full, standing position and proceeded to walk away from the spot where he had formerly been sitting.
–- might become this: At six, he stood up and left.
Try these. Take two or three shots at delivering the essential information of the sentence in shorter, brighter versions.
1) For not quite the best part of a week, Alan worked assiduously on a puzzling problem that challenged the very heart of his self-confidence by addressing itself to areas of education such as physics and astronomy, both of which were areas that he felt represented shortcomings in his own personal educational biography.
2) It is a simple truth of existence that everyone has certain areas of his or her on personal biography that, given their druthers, they would rather that the rest of the world were ignorant about the specifics of those biographical details.
3) An unusual but interesting property of the sand that accumulated at the seashore is that beaches that slope steeply into the ocean will be found to have coarser grains of sand than more level beaches where the sand grains will be finer.
No one wants to read one extra word more than one has to. For example, this sentence --
When the arrow-tipped hands of the clock stood one on top of the other with a space beneath the downward-pointing arrow, he pushed his chair back and with a noticeable effort erected himself to a full, standing position and proceeded to walk away from the spot where he had formerly been sitting.
–- might become this: At six, he stood up and left.
Try these. Take two or three shots at delivering the essential information of the sentence in shorter, brighter versions.
1) For not quite the best part of a week, Alan worked assiduously on a puzzling problem that challenged the very heart of his self-confidence by addressing itself to areas of education such as physics and astronomy, both of which were areas that he felt represented shortcomings in his own personal educational biography.
2) It is a simple truth of existence that everyone has certain areas of his or her on personal biography that, given their druthers, they would rather that the rest of the world were ignorant about the specifics of those biographical details.
3) An unusual but interesting property of the sand that accumulated at the seashore is that beaches that slope steeply into the ocean will be found to have coarser grains of sand than more level beaches where the sand grains will be finer.