In academic writing, it is very important that you learn to write concisely. It will stop you wasting words and your writing style will improve as your points will come across more clearly.
Remove repeated information or words which are only slightly different. e.g.
‘This essay will consider and explore’ could be ‘This essay will consider’;
‘Mothers and fathers’ could be ‘parents’
You should only give key information rather than unnecessary details.
e.g. ‘Freud was the founder of psychoanalysis. He was born to Galician Jewish parents in the Moravian town of Freiberg, in the Austrian Empire. He qualified as a doctor of medicine in 1881 at the University of Vienna’.
The only detail you would need would be ‘Freud was the founder of psychoanalysis.
Early on in your degree, you might be asked for definitions of topics, but as you progress through your course, you will increasingly be writing as an expert. You don’t need to give definitions on commonly used technical terms.
e.g. ‘Hypertension which is the medical term for high blood pressure’ could become ‘Hypertension’.
When introducing references in your assignment, you only need to provide the author surname, date and possibly page number. You don’t need to give any other details as these will be in the reference list.
e.g. 'Temple, Copsey and Carter (2019) wrote a project report called Challenging Youth Racism in which they stated…’.
This should be ‘Temple, Copsey and Carter (2019) stated…’
Some words or phrases don’t add anything to your argument, so can easily be removed.
Examples of redundant phrases are, ‘Needless to say’ or ‘This being said’.
Also, watch out for words that aren’t needed because they are implicit. e.g. ‘Current trends’ could just be ‘trends’ and ‘brief summary’ could be ‘summary’.
Signposting helps to point out the structure of your work to your lecturer. You can highlight points and show when you are moving from one point to another.
For example, you can use terms such as ‘furthermore’ or ‘additionally’ to build on an idea, and ‘in contrast’ or ‘however’ to show that you are shifting to a different idea.
However, it’s easy to overdo your signposts, which can then irritate your reader by slowing them down. If you feel that you need to include lots of signposting, it might indicate that your structure should be revised.
For example, ‘as was argued earlier in the assignment’ suggests that you have repeated your ideas.
Your writing can become overly complicated if you use too many abstract nouns such as conclusion or consideration. Instead, where you can, replace them with a verb such as conclude. This simplifies your writing and usually means you can use fewer words.
e.g. ‘Leaders should give consideration to the factors affecting a situation and then should make decisions regarding the best approach, then should take action’.
This could be simplified to ‘Leaders should consider the factors affecting a situation, decide on the best approach, then act’.