Poor Conciseness
Let's review a paragraph that needs to work on its conciseness. While it may deliver a great message, the ideas of the paragraph are weighted down by inefficient word use. While listening to the paragraph, ask yourself a few questions; do you find yourself struggling with the language? If you were to rewrite this paragraph, could you make it clearer and more direct? How?
In Ernest Hemingway's novel For Whom the Bell Tolls, the main character is a protagonist who when he's in the book is trying to blow up a bridge. The main character of the novel's name is Robert Jordan. While he's trying to blow up the bridge, he's learning things about the life he's living. There's lots of stuff, but for example, he's learning what it means to love another person other than himself, and what it means to love people in the community that he's living in. The book was published in 1941. As his death approaches, Robert Jordan starts to see these lessons in a sharper perspective and thinks, even though he's going to die at the end of the book, that he can live a worthwhile, meaningful life. Indeed, it's his knowledge of his death that makes his life so precious.
How to Revise for Better Conciseness
When revising for conciseness, you want to ask yourself two questions about every sentence you've written. First, is the information in the sentence necessary to communicate what you're trying to communicate? If not, simply delete it. If the information is necessary, ask yourself the second question: 'How can I state this information in fewer, clearer words?' Then try it. Count the words in your sentence, then rewrite it with fewer. Repeat this process one or two times, looking especially for redundant information. Gradually, your sentence will shrink and your conciseness will improve.
Using that strategy, let's revise the passage we heard earlier: