Looking to tighten up your sentence? Replace unnecessary function words with something better. Function words are words of adjective, adverb, preposition and conjunction. These words make sentence duller, lengthier and unprofectional.
Here is how to tighten up your sentence by function words replacement. Remove/replace unnecessary function words of adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction and repark concisely.
Remove negative adjective words ''not“ or ”“no”“, and replace with a more concised negative adjective as in the case of ”not predictable“ replace with ”unpredictable“ or ”no person"“ with ”none.
Reduce the use of adverbial words ended with "“lly”" and replace with a verb conjugation. For instance, replace “He quickly responded” with “He retorted”.
Replace prepositional words or phrase “in the”, “of the”, “of that” before or after two nouns (where one noun is in relation with another noun) in a sentence, and repack the sentence into a possessive manner. For instance, instead of “in the pocket of that man” change to “In that man’s pocket”, or better, convert the latter noun into modifier and remove function words as in “Government of united states” to “United states Government”.
The over use of coordinative conjunctions (For, And, But, Or, Yet) in between two independent clauses (as coordinative clause) rather one clause be converted into dependent clause (beginning with a subordinate conjunction e.g. As, Because, Although, Before…) or phrase or Article and the other clause still remains independent clause. For instance, Steve rushed to the toilet, and begun unzipping. replace with: As Steve rushed to the toilet, he begun unzipping.✔ or with: The Doctor Steve, who rushed to the toilet, and begun unzipping.✔
Alternatively, the clauses be converted into short independent clauses separated by semicolon (;). Example, Steve rushed to the toilet; he began unzipping.✔
Clause can be converted into correlative independent clause which begins with correlative conjunctions (Whether, both, either, Neither, Not..). For instance, Whether Steve calls Elenor or not, she’ll come.✔
Especially when drafting headlines, a conjunctions should be replaced with a comma, long dash, semicolon or Amstand &. For instance, instead of “Jack and Jill went to the mountains'' use ”“Jack & Jill went to the mountains”"
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