The current trend in academic writing is to state something effectively in as few words as possible. Professors prefer papers with sentences that are clearly structured and not overburdened with unnecessary words. This issue of Grammatically Correct will begin a series that is designed to help you make your academic writing more concise.

To condense your writing, eliminate unnecessary words. But how do you know if a word is unnecessary? Unnecessary words fall into several categories, including expletive constructions, unnecessary phrases, circumlocutions and passive verbs. This week our grammar tip will focus on reducing expletive constructions.

An expletive construction occurs when the words “there” and “it” are followed by a to be verb such as is, was or were. Most of the time expletive constructions are not necessary constructions and only add extra baggage to sentences. It is best to avoid expletive constructions in academic writing whenever possible. “There are . . . that” and “it is . . . that” are two of the most common offenses and can almost always be eliminated.

Let’s take a look at the following examples:

Wordy Examples

There were ten students in Mrs. Robinson’s class.

It was obvious that the students were cheating on the exam.

There were ten students in Mrs. Robinson’s class who were obviously cheating on the exam.

Concise Examples

Ten students were in Mrs. Robinson’s class.

The students were obviously cheating on the exam.

Ten students in Mrs. Robinson’s class were obviously cheating on the exam.

In all three cases, omitting the expletive construction produces a more concise sentence. However, note that in some cases removing the expletive construction is not possible. For example, in the sentence “It is going to rain tomorrow,” no other subject will work, so the expletive construction must remain.

Next week’s issue of Grammatically Correct will continue our series on concise sentences with a discussion on reducing wordy prepositional phrases.

Along with our website, we recommend the following site: University of Wisconsin-Madison’s “Clear, Concise and Direct Sentences” page at http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/ClearConciseSentences.html.  This site features information on several methods for writing concise sentences.

Test your ability to write concise sentences by revising each sentence accordingly.

1. There were several children playing in the park.

2. It was believed by my grandmother that black cats were evil.

3. It is scary to ride the rollercoaster.

Answers

1. Several children were playing in the park.

2. My grandmother believed that black cats were evil.

3. Riding the rollercoaster is scary.

Grammatically Correct is a grammar tip of the week created by Academic Center Peer Writing Tutors at the University of Houston-Victoria in Victoria, Texas.

Comments about this newsletter should be directed to Summer Leibensperger, leibenspergers@uhv.edu.

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