Published on 12:00 AM, August 03, 2017

Redundancy And How It's Redundant

One of the main issues that writers should seek to eliminate is redundancy. How many times have you written something like this? 

"There seems to be a lot of people in this very crowded stadium."

See that, right there? It's redundancy. As redundant as how it's redundant to point out that the sentence is redundant. If you're still confused, let's break it down. You're already saying there are a lot of people in the stadium, so there's no use in saying "very crowded" again. A better way to rephrase the sentence would be: 

"The stadium seems to be very crowded."

Not only did that sentence shorten your word count (which is a big plus if you're writing within a word limit), it also gets the point across. That should be your goal – conveying your messages to your reader in simple, short sentences. But sometimes redundancy can hide in plain sight. 

"The army marched forward." 

Logic dictates that an army doesn't march backward so you should not write the word "forward" in that sentence. 

Be smart about what you're writing and try to look for such issues. Your writing will look more professional, concise, and you'll gain a lot of readers.