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27 Expendable Phrases to Cut from Your Marketing Copy Readers are pressed for time, so stop muddling your point. Eliminate these phrases and improve the readability of your content.

By Laura Blackwell

entrepreneur daily

This story originally appeared on PR Daily

Wordiness is everywhere -- in emails, ad copy, press releases, and websites.

Even as more people skim and scan than actually read our content, we have clients and bosses who think the more words the better. But readers are busy. Unnecessary words slow them down. Every word should matter.

Some words and phrases do no work; they're slackers. Deleting them doesn't hurt your meaning -- it often improves the readability of your content.

Consider this sentence:

I am bewildered by your inconsistent use of the serial comma.

Tacking on any of the expendable phrases below would add nothing. So, if you catch yourself including them in your copy, hit the delete key:

  1. All things considered
  2. As a matter of fact
  3. As already stated
  4. As far as I'm concerned
  5. At the present time
  6. By means of
  7. Due to the fact that
  8. For all intents and purposes
  9. For the most part
  10. For the purpose of
  11. In a manner of speaking
  12. In a very real sense
  13. In the final analysis
  14. In the event that
  15. In other words
  16. It goes without saying
  17. It is important to note
  18. It is interesting to note
  19. It may be said that
  20. It stands to reason that
  21. It was found that
  22. It was demonstrated that
  23. Needless to say
  24. Take steps to
  25. The fact that
  26. The field of
  27. To be sure

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