Wordiness

Wordiness often arises from the author not being exactly sure of what he or she wants to say in sentence. As the author improvises the words he/she is writing the sentence, he or she loses control of the sentence. Then after the author has regrouped and has rethought the direction of the sentence, the idea from the first half and the idea from the second half don't necessarily go together very well.

Also, wordiness tends to arise when the author does not know the most common way to succintly phrase the item he/she is trying to express.

Here are some examples.

1) Even though, we're no longer working for them, but the health benefit was still covered for six more months after the lay-off, which was kind of good news for all of us, on the other hand anyway, especially for myself because I needed that for my pregnancy.

Among other problems (such as verb tense shifting and the sentence being a run-on), this sentence is excessively verbose. It seems to be circling around what it wants to say. Regrouping one's thoughts about what is being expressed might reveal the following:

1) Even though we were no longer working for the company, its health benefits still covered me for six months afterwards, and this was especially good news for me because I was pregnant.

The same information is being expressed in 2/3 the time and space. Also, the information conveyed is much clearer.

2) By someone who an individual has affection for expressing those same feelings back towards them than a person is able to gain self esteem from the feeling that they possess qualities that are desired and admired by other individuals.

This one's a real head scratcher. It conveys the sense that it may have been culled from a book of cryptic philosophy. It settles down after a rocky beginning to get to its main point, but it could still probably be condensed.

2) If one person reciprocates another person's feelings, then those mutual feelings towards each other can instill a self-confidence that everyone can admire.

Often a sentence can be made more precise and less verbose through the application of appropriate vocabulary and common phrasing.