What words should I avoid?

Avoid using words to fill up space. Modifiers, qualifiers, and intensifiers (very, almost, nearly, quite) add nothing to our writing. Unnecessary adjectives and adverbs clutter up the page and put our readers to sleep. We should also avoid using big words and empty phrases because we think they makes us sound clever.
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What are unnecessary words?

A word which adds nothing extra to a sentence is called a pleonasm. A word which merely repeats the meaning of another word in an expression is called a tautology. These are both cases of redundant words and can be omitted.
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What are examples of weak words?

Five Weak Words that Make Your Writing Less Effective
  • “Stuff” Stuff is a lazy word. ...
  • “Things” Things is another lazy word. ...
  • “Got” Got is a terrible verb. ...
  • “Was/Is/Are/Am” Often people will say something like, “I was there” or “We were at the party.” ...
  • “Went” Went is like are.
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Which types of words should be removed in editing?

  • Eliminate unnecessary determiners and modifiers. Writers sometimes clog up their prose with one or more extra words or phrases that seem to determine narrowly or to modify the meaning of a noun but don't actually add to the meaning of the sentence. ...
  • Omit repetitive wording. ...
  • Omit redundant pairs. ...
  • Omit redundant categories.
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How do I get rid of 100 words?

10 Tricks to Reduce Your Word Count in Academic Writing
  1. Delete "The" You can often omit the word “the” from your text without losing any meaning. ...
  2. Erase “That” ...
  3. Remove Adverbs and Adjectives. ...
  4. Use Shorter Words. ...
  5. Trim Wordy Phrases. ...
  6. Choose Active Voice. ...
  7. Revise Needless Transitions. ...
  8. Eliminate Conjunctions.
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15 OVERUSED ENGLISH WORDS you should try to AVOID



Why do I forget big words?

It is not necessarily a sign of something serious*, but more of an occasional brain glitch. Scientists have found that some things make TOTs more common – such as caffeine, fatigue, and strong emotions – and that words learned later in life are more likely to be forgotten.
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Is 1000 words too much?

1,000 words is actually a relatively short piece. A dissertation would usually be in the region of 12,000 words, and university assignments can stretch to essays of 5,000 words.
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What are the 6 rules of editing?

Murch's six rules on editing consist of Emotion, Story, Rhythm, Eye trace, Two- dimensional Plane of Screen, and Three-dimensional Space of Action, which all have different values in order of importance for the cut.
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What are unnecessary words in speech?

Also known as discourse markers, filler words are what we use when we don't know what else to say. More often than not, they're unintentional; we use them subconsciously to fill the space or time while we prepare our main message. Fillers words are most prevalent in speech.
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What is the golden rule of editing?

Always write so that everything is clearly understood.
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What are lazy words?

Lazy words are filler words. They act similar to verbal pauses in speech. As an example, I fell prey to “just” in graduate school.
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What are 10 weak verbs?

With weak verbs, the stem vowel does not change in the past or past participle tense.
...
Examples of Weak Verbs
  • Add > added.
  • Beg > begged.
  • Call > called.
  • Damage > damaged.
  • Earn > earned.
  • Mark > marked.
  • Taste > tasted.
  • Yell > yelled.
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What are the most powerful words in English?

The 20 most influential words, via David Ogilvy
  • Suddenly.
  • Now.
  • Announcing.
  • Introducing.
  • Improvement.
  • Amazing.
  • Sensational.
  • Remarkable.
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What are the most boring words?

According to this behemoth of a database, the most overused phrases in the English language are:
  • At the end of the day.
  • Fairly unique.
  • I personally.
  • At this moment in time.
  • With all due respect.
  • Absolutely.
  • It's a nightmare.
  • Shouldn't of (for shouldn't have)
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What is the most misused word?

“Irony” makes Harvard linguist Steven Pinker's list of the 58 most commonly misused words in English, and ranks in the top 1 percent of all word lookups on Merriam-Webster's online dictionary.
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What is the most unpopular word?

1. Moist. Moist is by far the clear winner when it comes to least favorite words. Plus, moist has been around since at least 1325 A.D., which means people have had plenty of time to get sick of its use.
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What are ghost words in English?

The Oxford Dictionary defines ghost word as “a word recorded in a dictionary or other reference work which is not actually used.” Merriam-Webster says a ghost word is “a word form never in established usage.” The term was coined by Professor Walter William Skeat in 1886, well before dord came into existence.
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What are the 10 most commonly misused words?

10 Most Commonly Misused Words
  • Elicit versus Illicit: ...
  • Emigrate versus Immigrate:
  • Climatic versus Climactic: ...
  • Principal versus Principle: ...
  • Your versus You're: ...
  • Affect versus Effect:
  • Its versus it's: ...
  • The infamous "there's": there, they're, their:
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What words should kids not say?

Words and Phrases My Kids Are Not Allowed to Say
  • “Oh My G*$!”
  • “Shut Up!”
  • “I Hate You!”
  • “You're Stupid!”
  • “Idiot!”
  • “Get a Life!”
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What is the 321 rule in editing?

Every video maker includes the 321 rule. This means that you should always keep three copies of every single thing that you make in two different places. You have one goal – to tell your audience a great story with your video. This can be achieved if you simply edit, edit and edit your content until perfection.
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What is eye trace?

Eye Trace is an editing technique that anticipates where the audience's eyes will be looking within the frame at any moment so that the filmmaker can use this knowledge to direct where, when, and what the audience will look at in a frame, especially across multiple cuts.
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What is the 180 rule in film?

The 180-degree rule states that two characters (or more) in a scene should always have the same left/right relationship with each other. – Filmmaking Gods. The rule dictates that you draw an imaginary line between these two characters (or subjects) and try to keep your camera(s) on the same side of this 180-degree line ...
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Is 25000 words a lot?

25,000 words might be enough for shorter books like a novella or short story collection. If you're to publish a longer work, a 90,000-word novel is standard in the fiction world, and 50,000 is average for nonfiction.
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Is 200000 words a lot?

200,000 words is 400 pages single-spaced or 800 pages double-spaced. Typical documents that are 200,000 words or more include full-length novels. It will take approximately 667 minutes to read 200,000 words.
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Is 50k words a lot?

50,000 words is 100 pages single-spaced or 200 pages double-spaced. Typical documents that are 50,000 words or more include full-length novels. It will take approximately 167 minutes to read 50,000 words.
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