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Word for deletion in manuscript editing9/26/2023 It’s a shorter version of exactly or precisely – and since it’s shorter, that makes it preferable in my mind. “She looks just like her mother.” Similar to the first instance, in this case just is used to create a sense of comparative immediacy. ![]() For example, “A bomb just went off downtown.” The word just tells the listener that something happened very recently, and that temporal immediacy is critical. The first is when you’re referring to a temporal moment immediately prior to the one you’re currently in. There are a few instances where the word just is helpful or necessary. As an editor, I might leave one of those iterations of the word just, but I would definitely cut at least one, if not both. And while it might be helpful in one case, it’s a word that is repeated so often, it quickly becomes overused. You can see clearly that both sentences work perfectly well without the word just. I lie on my back, just as if I were lying on the grass in a park to gaze up at a clear night sky. Here are two back-to-back examples I just found in my own writing: “I just need to run to the store.” “She just told me she needs another onion.” But when you look carefully, you can clearly see the word just is neither necessary nor helpful in the sentence construction. As you can see, the sentence works fine – in fact, it’s clearer and more impactful – when written, “I never thought I would lose such a large investment.” Although there are some instances where the word that is helpful, in most cases, you’re better off without. This is a paraphrased example from a manuscript I edited recently. I never thought that I would lose such a large investment. This word often seems necessary as a prepositional phrase but isn’t. You can use this post as a guide to identify overused words in your own writing and cut them out to make your work clearer and more concise. In this post, I’ve included a few words that most professional writers and editors will cut as often as possible. But as our writing improves and we learn how to better translate our ideas into written words, it becomes apparent that these words are more of a hindrance than a help. Some of them come easily because they’re used often in speech others make sentences clunky but feel necessary for clarity. Novice writers often rely heavily on these words. Time to get out those scissors and start pruning. Why? Because they’re overused and often unnecessary. In fact, there are a number of specific words I intentionally target for culling. ![]() Through the course of editing my own novels and working with clients to shine up their manuscripts, I’ve learned that one of the main goals of a late-stage editorial pass over any manuscript is to prune unnecessary words. As a professional editor, one of my primary responsibilities is to work with clients to polish the language in their manuscripts.
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