Write Tight

Write Tight is the book I read for the report we had to turn in this week. The book, written by William Brohaugh, extols the virtues of precise writing. Write Tight embodies the ideas of eliminating wordiness in its first section. It shows how to write and edit to avoid the redundant. The book shows how to use words like gain properly. Instead of writing, "We all want to gain success," Brohaugh writes, "We all want to succeed." Brohaugh also writes about the other types of wordiness to avoid, like the overly politically correct. He states that being politically correct is a noble goal, but splitting the use of waiter or waitress is abusing the language. He also thinks that using waitperson of "member of the waitstaff" is taking to long to get to an irrelevant political point. Regardless of sex, waiters put food on the table, so referring to one as a waiter, waitress or waitperson is illogical. He says to just pick waiter since their job is to wait on food. No differentiation of sex is required. Plus Waitperson takes too much space in newspapers. The editing mistake I found this week is from Write Tight. It's an example of using the already understood to write. A newspaper reported, "A new study released Friday..." when it is already assumed that the study is new. If the study being released was old, then it would be worth noting. And only then.