5 Steps to Concise Copy

December 6, 2007 by ian

Brevity is the soul of wit (Lord Polonius in Shakespeare's Hamlet)

Online, concise copy will always get better results than verbose copy.

How can I make that sentence shorter and give it more oomph?

1. Dump the passive voice.
   Online, concise copy will always get gets better results than verbose copy.
2. Get rid of meaningless words. Concise copy is always better, right? Plus folks are reading this online.
   Online, Concise copy will always get gets better results than verbose copy.
3. Get rid of repeated words.
   In copy, concise copy gets better results than verbosecopy.
4. Replace four words with one.
   In copy, concise gets better results than beats verbose.
5. Make sure it reads OK. In this case, I'm not thrilled with my phrasing. A little rejiggering does the trick:
   Concise copy beats verbose.

The result is better. This:

Online, concise copy will always get better results than verbose copy.

became this:

Concise copy beats verbose.

For tutorial purposes, I took this to an extreme. If I were writing this sentence, I might compromise a bit and write something more like 'Concise copy beats verbose copy' or 'In copywriting, brief is better'.

What tricks do you use?

Subscribe using RSS

comments (2) | trackbacks (0) | permalink