Every writer eventually faces the 2,800-word draft that needs to be 2,000, the essay that's 120 words over, the abstract with a hard cap. The instinct — and the mistake — is to start deleting sentences at random until the number comes down. Skilled cutting is the opposite: systematic, ordered, and surgical. You remove the words that were doing nothing, and the message comes through sharper than before, not thinner.
Cut in this order
Not all fat is equal. Some cuts delete cleanly with zero loss of meaning; others cost you substance. Work from the top of this list down and stop as soon as you hit your target:
- Filler openers. "It is important to note that…", "In my personal opinion…" — these announce that words are coming instead of delivering them. Delete the announcement; keep the words.
- Adverbs propping up weak verbs. "Ran quickly" becomes "sprinted"; "said loudly" becomes "shouted." The strong verb absorbs the adverb and saves a word.
- Redundant pairs. "Each and every," "null and void," "end result" — each pair means exactly what one of its halves means. Keep the shorter half.
- Nominalizations. Verbs disguised as nouns: "make a decision" → "decide", "conduct an investigation" → "investigate". One word replaces three.
- Throat-clearing intros. First paragraphs that warm up the topic ("Throughout history, communication has been important…"). Start where the argument starts.
- Paragraphs that repeat an earlier point. If two paragraphs make the same claim, one of them is a sacrifice. Merge their best sentences and delete the rest.
The order matters because the early items are free — you can cut them with your eyes closed — while the later ones require judgment. Burn the free cuts first and you often never need to touch substance at all. For a much longer catalog of deletable phrases, keep our wordiness reference list open in a second tab.
Merge examples that make the same point
The stealthiest wordiness isn't a phrase, it's structure: two anecdotes, three statistics, four quotes all proving the same claim. Readers experience it as "I got it the first time." When two examples make the same point, keep the stronger — the more vivid, more recent, or more credible one — and cut the other. A quick way to test: cover the second example and ask what a skeptical reader would now be missing. If the honest answer is "nothing," it goes. Five of the most mechanical swaps you'll make again and again:
| Wordy | Tight | Words saved |
|---|---|---|
| "due to the fact that" | "because" | 4 |
| "at this point in time" | "now" | 4 |
| "in order to" | "to" | 2 |
| "make a decision" | "decide" | 2 |
| "each and every" | "every" | 2 |
Active voice is a word-saver
Passive constructions almost always carry extra machinery — auxiliaries and "by" phrases the sentence doesn't need. "The survey was completed by 40 managers" (7 words) becomes "Forty managers completed the survey" (5 words), and the tightened version names the actor up front, which readers process faster. Not every passive should change — "the samples were contaminated" is correct when the actor is unknown or irrelevant — but when the "by" phrase is present, flipping the sentence is nearly always a two-word saving plus a clarity gain. We break the full trade-off down in active vs. passive voice.
What NOT to cut
The order list has a mirror image: things that look cuttable but aren't. Protect these:
- Evidence. Numbers, citations, and data are the parts of an argument doing the heavy lifting. Cut words around evidence, never the evidence itself.
- Transitions. "However," "in contrast," "as a result" look like filler but carry logical load. Removing them saves three words and costs the reader the connection between ideas.
- Examples doing real work. The test above cut duplicated examples. An example that handles a different objection, audience, or edge case is earning its keep.
- Honest hedges. "May," "suggests," "up to" — when the data genuinely is uncertain, the hedge is information. Cut false confidence, not real caution.
A worked example: 120 words to 80
Here's a typical over-written memo paragraph — 120 words of it:
It is important to note that, in my personal opinion, the committee has come to the conclusion that the current parking situation is completely and totally unacceptable at this point in time. Due to the fact that demand has increased in a significant manner over the course of the last several years, there are many employees who make the decision to drive to work each and every day and are unable to find spaces in the vicinity of the building. As a matter of fact, a large number of staff members arrive at the office during the early morning hours for the purpose of securing a spot, and this is a situation that requires our attention in the near future.
And the same paragraph at 80 words — every fact intact, one concrete recommendation added:
The committee has concluded that the current parking situation is unacceptable. Demand has grown sharply over the past several years, and many employees who drive to work daily cannot find spaces near the building. Some staff now arrive before seven just to secure a spot. Facilities should survey demand this quarter, negotiate overflow leases at the Fourth Street garage, and present a recommendation with real numbers before the September renewals open, so the board can decide at its October meeting.
That's a 33% cut — and notice the tightened version actually says more, because the words spent on "in my personal opinion" went to a deadline instead. This is the consistent experience of cutting in the right order: the draft gets shorter and better at the same time.
Measure the cut as you edit
Cutting blind is slow; cutting against a live number is fast. Note your starting count, paste the draft into the WordlyCount counter, and edit with the page open — every deletion updates the total instantly, so you always know whether you need another pass or you're done. Watching the number fall also makes the process satisfying instead of painful, which sounds trivial until you're 400 words over at midnight.