5 ineffective words writers should ditch
These all too common words and phrases add little more than extra syllables to your content. They’re vague, redundant, and overused.
Most people don’t spend a great deal of time planning their next sentence, unless you’re a super nerd like me and have a serious obsession with lexis and language.
We have tens of thousands of words to choose from, so why would we overuse any of them? I’ve had the pleasure of working with all types of writers: the young, the veteran, the newly published, the inexperienced, and the journalist. I’ve been a writing coach, an English teacher, and an editor. Naturally, I began to notice patterns in writers’ errors and stylistic blunders.
I’ve compiled an ever-growing list of ineffective words that should be avoided like a camera on a bad hair day. Today, I’ll reveal the most common five. Keep in mind, I’m not advocating for the death of the following words. Every word has its place, but the following five terms are vague, redundant, and overused.
‘Just’ don’t do it
“Just” can either be an adjective or an adverb. It causes problems with the latter because it’s typically not a strong adverb, and it doesn’t add much value to a sentence. Actually, in many cases, it merely adds another word, which we all know isn’t practical when writing for the Web. Take the following example:
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