For several years, I have had a healthy curiosity with minimalism. I’ve listened to TED talks and watched documentaries about the topic and pared down my items accordingly. Last year, I read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo. The author describes a process in which you go through every item you own, keep only what sparks joy or is necessary, and discard the rest. Once you have tidied up your belongings, your mind is free to tackle other issues. This process resonated with me, perhaps because it seemed quite similar to my approach to medical editing.
Part of our job as editors is to remove redundancy in manuscripts—to tidy it up, if you will. We go through a manuscript word for word and carefully discard what phrases or words that do not serve the science (with the author’s approval, of course). Omitting unnecessary words can improve readability. In making an author’s work clearer and more concise, readers are able to tackle other issues, such as responding to the research or designing their own studies. Moreover, scientific writing should be as precise as possible to avoid misinterpretation. Below are some tips, adapted from AMA Manual of Style 11.1.
Some common redundancies that can typically be avoided (redundant words are italicized):
- first initiated
- skin rash
- herein we describe
- past history
- period of time, time period, point in time
- whether or not [unless the intent is to give equal emphasis to the alternative]
- younger [older] than 50 years of age
Here are some common words and phrases that can usually be omitted without affecting meaning:
- as already stated
- it goes without saying
- it is important [interesting] to note
- it was demonstrated that
- take steps to
And here are some expressions to avoid and what to use instead:
| Avoid | Better |
| in terms of | in, of, for |
| an increased [decreased] number of | more [fewer] |
| as the result of | because of |
| during the time that | while |
| in close proximity to | near |
| in regard to, with regard to | about, regarding |
| the majority of | most |
| have an effect [impact] on | affect |
When editing and reducing redundancy, a balance must be struck. Deleting or rewriting too much may lead to accidentally altering the author’s intended meaning, which could adversely affect the author-editor relationship or perhaps even result in a correction after publication. I have been tempted to rewrite sentences, but I have to remind myself that this is the author’s work, not mine. Our responsibility as manuscript editors is to make a research paper as readable as possible so the science is the main focus.—Iris Y. Lo
Thank you for this wonderful article! I couldn’t agree more with “Our responsibility as manuscript editors is to make a research paper as readable as possible so the science is the main focus.”
Regarding “whether or not,” what would be an example of using this phrase “to give equal emphasis to the alternative”?
I’ve always taken “whether or not” to mean “regardless of whether,” as in “Patients were included in the study whether or not they were already receiving treatment.”