|
Wednesday, June 20, 2018
"[God] is not an insurance agent." H.G. Wells, from War of the
Worlds
8:23 am pdt
Tuesday, June 19, 2018
Ockham, without his razor
Friday, June 8, 2018
Today's Educational Words of Wisdom The best way to get better at anything is to first stop saying that you aren't any good
at it. Positive thinking matters. A lot. When you start off by saying you're not very good at something,
you've already given yourself an excuse for doing poorly. In essence, you are already planning on doing badly.
And if you plan on doing badly, you will.
Tuesday, June 5, 2018
Redundancy and the Needless Repetition of Words redundant: (adj.) wordy; verbose; long-winded; prolix; flowery; rambling; overly extensive
wordage; drawn out; garrulous; chatty; loquacious; effusive; demonstrative; vociferous; talkative; prolonged;
protracted; expanded; lengthened; superfluous; extra; excessive; not required; surplus; unneeded; unnecessary; and uncalled
for. Redundancies come in many forms, just like there are many words
that mean the same thing as "redundant." In its simplest form, it is stating anything that truly
isn't necessary, and the Golden Rule for good writing is: If it's not necessary, then it shouldn't be there.
And that's why redundancies really need to be avoided. In addition,
being redundant can make your reader question your vocabulary. I mean, seriously, if you don't know that
"recapitulate" means the same thing as "over and over," then how much should I trust you to know about
the international commodities market? Think of it this way: You are trying to get me
to change my mind in your paper, but I don't want to change. Nobody does. So I'm looking
for a reason to ignore you. Anything will do. Being redundant makes it easy to ignore
you. Yeah, you may be ignored regardless, but don't make it easy. As
well, saying something like "hemorrhage or the increased loss of blood" can be downright funny, and it's never good
when your reader is laughing and your paper is supposed to be serious. Being redundant can also look like
you are trying to make a short paper longer (which is usually very obvious). And redundancies can really
be confusing (such as "associational organizations" – just what the heck does that mean?).
The following hyperlink will take you to some of the more common "forms" of redundancies.
|
