Yes, it’s Back to Concision, Again (11 of 30)
Remember, being concise helps give you that ‘clear progression’ in your writing (= IELTS 7). The picture above is very complicated, made up of a million parts, but what we see is something beautifully simple and simply beautiful. It’s clearly ‘just’ a bee getting nectar from a flower. It’s simple, right? In the same way, if you can make the same point in fewer words, WRITE THOSE WORDS! You then have time to …
- move on,
- say more,
- and achieve more of the task.
Here’s some practice for you.
Try making the following sentences more concise.
The answers will be given and explained in the next post.
One
There are several factors contributing to this phenomenon, and out of them all, addiction is probably the biggest one. [19 words]
Two
Capital punishment will deter criminals from committing another crime. [9 words]
Three
In order to prevent a mass extinction from happening again, particularly in relation to human existence, governments need to act. [20 words]
Four
Generally speaking, coal was the dominant product, accounting for the largest proportion of all the exported merchandise. [17 words]
Five
The other types of products composed all the remaining percentages, which when combined together were approximately 15%. [17 words]
Six
The remaining exports are fish, vehicles, and meat. The proportion of these three categories did not change much. [18 words]
Answers to Concision 10 of 30: Sentences
One
Crime rates have a strong association with the number of guns possessed by the people living in the society. If more people possess guns, the crime rate will also increase. [30 words]
… becomes …
Crime rates usually correlate with the number of guns possessed. [10 words]
The second sentence just repeated the first. So, combine them together, and put a ‘usually’ to make it less 100%. However, the sentence is still not that logical, since there is the ‘how do you know?’ issue.
Two
Gun owners sometimes use guns for mass shootings.There was a news report that in Las Vegas, there was a mass shooting which caused many people to die. [28 words]
… becomes …
Gun owners sometimes use guns for mass shootings, such as in Las Vegas recently. [14 words]
This is a typical example of ‘over-writing examples’. See my IELTS Writing Task Two book, Exercise 47, Part II, Item 3 (page 121 and 128).
Three
Nicotine is a highly addictive drug, which makes people want to keep getting more of it, and thus it becomes a habit which they cannot quit easily. [28 words]
… becomes …
Nicotine is highly addictive. [4 words]
The second part of the original sentence just defines ‘addiction’ – which is not necessary. The reader knows what ‘addiction’ means (= wanting more & not being able to quit).
Four
The youth think smoking is the way to behave which makes them look like an adult. [16 words]
… becomes …
The youth think smoking is adult behaviour. [7 words]
Five
There are a variety of solutions which can be used to reduce the amount of smoking. The most effective of these methods would be to …. [26 words]
… becomes …
The most effective method to reduce smoking would be to …. [10 words]
Six
This loses the good preservation of the home countries’ traditional customs, since people do not pay attention to those traditions in the country as much as before. [27 words]
… becomes …
This causes the loss of traditional customs, since people do not pay them as much attention as before. [18 words]
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