Delete and Retreat
In search of longer weekends and shorter emails
Greetings, all!
As we head into the long weekend, I’m thinking about all the emails that will be in my inbox next week—and hoping they will be short and to the point. Today’s concision Hack comes from me, but you’ll find it in the Harvard Business Review. I hope you’ll check it out, but in the meantime, here’s the extra-concise, subscriber-only version: Cut what you don’t need. Cut overlapping sentences. Don’t tell us that you’re about to tell us something: just tell us.
And here’s an exercise that didn’t fit in the (concise!) article. I’d love to see your edits in the comments.
The text below comes from this CDC press release. What would you cut? (Don’t read past the delete key until you’ve decided on your edits.)
Today, CDC is announcing that the Order requiring persons to show a negative COVID-19 test result or documentation of recovery from COVID-19 before boarding a flight to the United States, will be rescinded, effective on June 12, 2022 at 12:01AM ET.
This means that starting at 12:01AM ET on June 12, 2022, air passengers will not need to get tested and show the COVID-19 test result or documentation of recovery from COVID-19 prior to boarding a flight to the U.S.
You can see my edited version below with the original version. (80 words to 38 words). There’s no right answer in editing; your version may be different but also shorter and clearer!
The original passage contains two overlapping versions of the same point: air passengers will no longer need to show negative Covid-19 tests to return to the United States. Overlapping sentences are a perfectly natural outcome of the drafting process, and I see them all the time when I edit and teach. We’re still thinking through our ideas as we draft, and we often write progressively clearer versions of the same points as our ideas take shape. Your overlapping sentences may not be quite as obvious as these, but if you start looking for overlap, you’ll probably find it. (I see a bit in this paragraph, but I’ll leave it for you to find…)
Could you do more to rewrite those paragraphs? Sure. But my point here is that well-chosen cuts can go a long way to making your writing clearer and more concise.
Wishing you a long weekend of good health and short emails. As always, please share thoughts and suggestions in the comments.
Jane