Quote 9 of 497

17. Omit needless words.

Vigorous writing is concise.  A sentence should contain no
unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the
same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a
machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make
all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his
subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.
		-- _The Elements of Style_, p. 23

Tags: drawing paragraph unnecessarywords elementsofstyle needlesswords unnecessarylines unnecessarysentences