5 common redundancies to remove from your writing

Extraneous words and phrases hide within the meaningful prose, like so much deadwood begging to be pruned.

Ragan Insider Premium Content
Ragan Insider Content

Various words and phrases communicate what a word or phrase refers to, herald additional information or signify a comparison.

Still, writers sometimes employ more than one of these indicators at once. The following five sentences illustrate an array of redundancies. Discussions and revisions follow each erroneous sentence:

1. Many of them are between the ages of 15 and 35 years old.

“The ages of” and “years old” serve the same purpose—to identify what the numbers 15 and 35 signify—so use one or the other: “Many of them are between 15 and 35 years old,” or, “Many of them are between the ages of 15 and 35.”

2. Despite differences between millennials and Generation Z, both share the same workplace learning needs.

Both and share have the same function: They indicate that there is something in common. Either write, “Despite differences between millennials and Generation Z, they share the same workplace learning needs,” or start the main clause with “both have” and detail the specifics.

To read the full story, log in.
Become a Ragan Insider member to read this article and all other archived content.
Sign up today

Already a member? Log in here.
Learn more about Ragan Insider.