Many Americans (including me!) have bad eating habits. Too much junk food. Too much food, period! We’re overstuffed. We suffer health problems and image problems. We must cut the fat.

When our writing becomes overstuffed, our readers suffer through pages of boring narrative. And we suffer, too — our success is endangered. We must cut the fat!

Obese writing is nothing new. In The King’s English, published nearly a century ago, author H.W. Fowler begins the first chapter with these words:

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Conversational style contributes to good writing. However, it tends to be wordy. Once we’ve written a piece, our next job is to cut it. Separate the wheat from the chaff — and let the delete key carry the chaff away. The first step is to recognize the chaff.

Certain words fly the red flag of wordiness. Prepositions, for instance, often accompany wordiness. Prepositions are essential parts of speech, but they must be limited and controlled. Here are a few examples of how to rewrite prepositional phrases: Continue reading →