ord comes back from the bosson the report you labored weeks

over: “This is good, but it needs to be alot shorter.” You throw up your handsin frustration. She didn’t tell you whatto cut or how. Not only does yourreport gather together all the informa-tion the committee needs to make adecision on the project, but it gathersthat information together well. Everysection furthers the argument, you sayto yourself; there’s nothing extrane-ous in it.

Similar situations crop up in manybusiness settings. A presentationhandout you want to keep on onepage. A project description limited to200 words. An executive summary ofa complex, detailed report. Here aresome tips for cutting length withoutlosing meaning.

1 Take a good, hard lookat the structure

Which parts support the roof, andwhich can be cut away without col-lapsing the whole structure?

The old advice about previewing andthen reviewing your message may befine for lengthy reports and essays, butwhen you’re squeezed for space, theyamount to building three walls to dothe job of one. Don’t announce whatyou will say, just say it.

For example, you may have followedyour old English teacher’s advice toinclude in your introductory para-graph one sentence previewing eachpoint you will make. Here’s an easycut: Delete the introductory paragraphand jump right into the message.

W Additionally, the foundation you builtmay be more solid than you need. Forexample, maybe you’ve includeddetailed background information.Does your audience really need it allto understand and be persuaded byyour argument? If not, summarize itbriefly and get right to the bottom line.

Finally, some of your structure may beunnecessary. If a section exists mostlyfor show, it can go. Cut anything thatilluminates something other than yourmain point.

2 Stick to specificsSpecifics make up the meat of yourargument, and generalities the carbs;put your writing on a high-protein,low-carb diet. A telling anecdote orstatistic will stay with your audiencelonger than a generality and will usu-ally convey the more general message.

Think of how politicians often expendtheir precious time in a speech ordebate highlighting a specific hero’sstory. They know that telling a story(of a wounded soldier, laid-offworker, entrepreneur) is the best wayto put forward a platform (betterweapons, more unemployment insur-ance, lower taxes).

3 Use formatting creativelyYou might first think that adding illus-trations or headings to a report will eatup space, but in fact this tactic canhelp you shave down how many wordsare needed to get your message across.

Headings. Headings are usefulbecause they clarify a report’s organi-zation, eliminate the need for topic

sentences, create white space, andhelp readers skim. But the way they’reusually formatted—on a line by them-selves, sometimes with a blank linefollowing—takes up a lot of space. Ifyou want the space back without los-ing the headings, convert them to in-paragraph headings like the one at thebeginning of this paragraph.

Tables. If you want to compare andcontrast various options, do so in atable rather than in running text. Justto start with, you won’t have to keeprepeating the names of the differentcompanies, for instance, or the criteriaon which you’re judging them. Moresignificantly, a table presents complexcomparisons in a succinct way. Yourreaders can compare and contrastOptions A and B, Options B and D, orOptions A, B, and C, as they want; youdon’t have to write out all the similari-ties and differences between variousoptions.

An added bonus: The audience’sexpectations change when they lookat tables. They don’t expect completesentences, and they may be willing tolook at text in a smaller font.

Maps and diagrams. Think howlong it takes to write out directions:Maple St. is the third stoplight.There’s a Denny’s on one corner anda used-car lot on the other corner,but if you get to the Clarksdale citylimits you’ve gone too far. A mapconveys the same information con-cisely and accessibly. Flowcharts andorganizational charts likewise conveycomplex relationships in easy-to-understand form.

Emphasis. To make sure your audi-ence remembers what you have to say,you may be tempted to use phraseslike This is the key to the whole thingor If you take one message away fromthis document, let it be the following.Instead, put that message in boldfaceand you’ve conveyed those phrasesimplicitly.

3Copyright © 2003 by Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.

Five Quick Ways to Trim Your Writing

At the eleventh hour, you’ve got to do surgeryon a crucial report and make it 30% leaner. Here’s

how to do it with a minimum of pain.

WRITING BY JOHN CLAYTON

4 Downshift your toneThere is something about writing areport that causes many people toadopt a formal, bureaucratic tone.When you write this way, you use big-ger words, more parentheticalphrases, and a greater number of com-plex sentences. If you shift to a moreinformal tone, you may find yourselfwriting shorter.

Here’s one place to start: Use contrac-tions. It’s not that changing cannot tocan’t and will not to won’t saves somuch space, but using contractions willhelp you avoid the long, formal style ofbureaucrats, explains Edward P. Baileyin Plain English at Work.

Another way to shift your tone is tospeak directly to your audience, usingpersonal pronouns such as you.Maybe you had a teacher who didn’tallow you to use you, so you devel-oped wordy ways to avoid it. Forexample, The lights must be turnedoff before the office is vacated.

But you is fine in most business con-texts, and using it can let you write alot shorter. You must turn off thelights before you leave. We’ve gonefrom 60 to 45 characters—a savingsof 25%.

5 Cut and combineLook over your document sentence bysentence, looking for ways to cutwords by combining two sentencesinto one. Consider these sentences:

This presentation examines the bene-fits of outsourcing. It is my recommen-dation that we reduce overhead byoutsourcing noncore processes suchas customer service, fulfillment, andother support functions.

The first sentence is dead weight. Cutit out and write instead:

We could significantly reduce over-head by outsourcing such noncoresupport functions as customer serviceand fulfillment.

You’ve now both announced yourtopic and stated your position on itwith wording that’s almost 50%leaner than the original.

When the length of a document doesn’tmatter to the reader, you insert lots ofphrases that help pinpoint what you’retalking about. The previous sentencecontains examples of such phrases: ofa document and to the reader. Youdon’t always need to be so specific.For instance, if we delete thosephrases so that the sentence begins,When length doesn’t matter, the wordcount has been significantly reducedwithout any loss of meaning.

Here are some other ways to cropwords:

Drop lengthy titles. Rather than BobSmith, Assistant Vice President forCorporate Communications and Gov-ernment Relations, says…you couldwrite spokesperson Bob Smith says….

Look out for the obvious. Ratherthan write, Obviously, this means wewill need to raise prices, which couldreduce sales, write instead, Our needto raise prices could reduce sales. Doa search for the word obvious, and seeif the sentences in which it or obvi-ously appears could be trimmed down.After all, if something is obvious, whywaste precious space saying it?

Replace long words or phrases withshorter ones. In Legal Writing in PlainEnglish, Bryan A. Garner notes someeasy ways to tighten up your lan-guage. On its own, each such changemay save just a little space, but it’s likesaving pennies: Eventually they addup to something meaningful.

Convert “of”phrases to possessives.For example, change the success of thecompany to the company’s success.

Replace bloated phrases with sim-pler words. An adequate number ofcan be replaced with enough, notwith-standing the fact that is a windy way

of saying although, and during suchtime as simply means while.

Use active verbs. Passive construc-tions require more verbiage. For exam-ple, look again at the final exampleunder “Downshift your tone.” Avoid-ing you required using a passive con-struction (The lights must be turnedoff before the office is vacated) thatwas much wordier than the sentencewith an active verb (You must turn offthe lights before you leave).

Never express a number in both dig-its and words. There’s no need to writeTwelve (12) people attended the meet-ing; either the word or the numeralworks fine on its own. Your corporatestyle manual may have specific guide-lines on when to express numbers asnumerals and when to express them aswords, but following two general prin-ciples can save you space: (1) Neverdouble up; (2) Always use numerals forlarge numbers (200,000, not two hun-dred thousand).

Some of these tips may sound suspi-ciously like the general advice you geton how to write well. That’s no coinci-dence: Good writing is concise.

But the problem we set out to solvewas that your boss told you to cut yourreport by 30%. Following these tipscan do that for you. And if she comesback to you to say, “You know, thatshorter version is a lot better written,too,” that will just be a bonus. ❑

John Clayton is a Montana-based freelancewriter whose clients range from A.T. Kearney toNational Geographic. He can be reached athmcl@hbsp.harvard.edu

Quickly Cutting Your Writing, continued

H A R VA R D M A N A G E M E N T C O M M U N I C AT I O N L E T T E R A P R I L 2 0 0 34

Plain English at Work: A Guideto Business Writing and Speaking

by Edward P. Bailey

Oxford University Press � 1996

Legal Writing in Plain English:A Text with Exercises

by Bryan A. Garner

University of Chicago Press � 2001

FURTHER READING