Proofread to Avoid Wordy Phrasing

Let's face it--all of us write wordy, illogical sentences when we are in a hurry. The trick is to take the time, once you've written a complete draft, to read back through and clean things up.



Here is a good example from that investment newsletter I've mentioned before:



"Bernanke patiently explained to the member of Congress making this accusation that what she was calling money was actually not really money at all, but rather temporary reserves loaned to banks to stop fears of a crash and depression."



In my workshops, I like to call this "bopping it twice when once will do." A quick proofread would have led the writer to conclude that one or the other of the words in red needed to go. Then he could have made a quick decision about what to keep and what to get rid of. I liked keeping "really" after the "not."



I also made a second little punctuation adjustment to clarify the wording. I moved the comma between "rather" and "temporary" so that "but rather" clearly goes together. Otherwise, it sounds as if he is talking about "rather temporary reserves" (whatever those would be).



The sentence should read as follows:



"Bernanke patiently explained to the member of Congress making this accusation that what she was calling money was not really money at all, but rather, temporary reserves loaned to banks to stop fears of a crash and depression."



For those of you who are about to send me a comment stating that I don't understand how busy you are--that you don't have time for writing, then proofreading, then fixing--I disagree. Every one of us procrastinates while we think in our heads about what we are going to put on paper. My suggestion is to put it on paper as quickly as you can and THEN use your time wisely to proofread and polish.