New, 2024! Updated with AI
Originally mosted March 4, 2009. Though I must say, my comments section has gotten out of hand.

I recently started re-reading William Zinsser's On Writing Well. Zinsser emphasizes simplicity in writing. To reduce wordiness, he implores the writer to remove needless words and phrases:

"I might add," "It should be pointed out," "It is interesting to note that" how many sentences begin with these dreary clauses announcing what the writer is going to do next? If you might add, add it. If it should be pointed out, point it out. If it is interesting to note, make it interesting. Being told that something is interesting is the surest way of tempting the reader to find it dull; are we not all stupefied by what follows when someone says, "This will interest you"? As for the inflated prepositions and conjunctions, they are the innumerable phrases like "with the possible exception of" (except), "due to the fact that" (because), "he totally lacked the ability to" (he couldn't), "until such time as" (until), "for the purpose of" (for).

It's not only dry corporation speak that you should worry about. Actually, what I mean to say is that a little bit of wordiness totally creeps into informal writing way more than you'd think. If you do any sort of writing on the web, you seriously need to think about editing, and more often than not, this tool can help point out some bad habits.

You might be concerned that your writing will lose its personality. Zinsser goes on to say:

You will reach for gaudy similes and tinseled adjectives, as if "style" were something you could buy at a style store and drape onto your words in bright decorator colors. (Decorator colors are the colors that decorators come in.) Resist this shopping expedition: there is no style store. ... Style is organic to the person doing the writing, as much a part of him as his hair, or, if he is bald, his lack of it. Trying to add style is like adding a toupee.

You don't want your blog to wear a toupee, do you? Writing style isn't about needless words. Once you remove them, your thoughts will shine through, clearer and more powerful, and then you can then build them back up. This takes time, but your readers will appreciate it.

By using sources on the web, I came up with about 600 simple substitution rules to cut out wordy phrases, and encoded them into a python script. Along with other sources, I used Jeff Atwood's Coding Horror blog to train it, [edit] as he seems to have a high wordiness factor, because I wondered if I could get a web celebrity to notice my little blog, and it totally worked.

Try it out above. Paste your entire blog article, essay, or email into it. Download the python source here.

Unfortunately Internet explorer 6 has some problem with my code...

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