Concise writing also comes from thinking carefully about the smaller elements involved in writing. These include:

• Avoiding redundancy (e.g., “each and every”; “first and foremost”; “true and veridical”)  
  
  
• Avoiding repetition (e.g., stating the same opinion more than once in a single section)
  
  
• Eliminating unnecessary qualifiers (e.g., “very”; “really”)
  
  
• Replacing phrases by a single word (e.g., “in light of the fact that…” by “because”)
  
  
• Keeping sentences as short as possible, and avoiding complex dependent clauses

In each of the cases indicated here, think about how your writing can be made more direct and economical by the modifications suggested.