36 redundant phrases to eliminate from your writing

As Strunk and White famously admonished, ‘Omit needless words.’ Here are some worth omitting.

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As writers, editors, and PR professionals, we are keenly aware of having to fight for readers’ attention. My daily sanity check is to ask, “Is someone actually going to read this?”

One way I’ve found to help readers is to use concise language and eliminate redundancies. As Strunk and White advise, “Make every word tell.”

Below is a list of phrases in which every word does not tell. These phrases are redundant, repetitive, wordy, and verbose. Paring phrases such as these is an easy way to tighten your writing. (Redundant words are italicized.)

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