Operating Procedures: Omit Needless Words

This is the fourth post in our series to do with operating procedures and the advice provided in the book Elements of Style by Strunk and White.

Elements of Style

In this series of posts, we consider,

• Minimalist writing,

• The use of short, pithy instructions,

• Avoidance of the repetition of instructions,

• Omission of needless words,

• Omission of adverbs,

• The use of short and old words, and

• Avoidance of wordy phrases and padded syllables.

(The information is taken from the book Process Risk and Reliability Management.)

Previous posts are,

• Operating Procedures: Vigorous Writing, and

• Operating Procedures: Minimalist Writing, and

• Operating Procedures: Short Pithy Instructions.

Omit Needless Words

This phrase (which is taken from Professor Strunk’s book) is one of the keys to minimalist writing.

The following Table, which is taken from the book, illustrates how needless words can be removed; the phrases in the first column are all unnecessarily lengthy; they can be shortened to the phrase in the second column.

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