Exercise 13-3 Wordiness

The sentences below use too many words. Edit them carefully to reduce the number of words, but do not cut out important information. If necessary, rewrite the sentence complete in the space below the sentence.

1. He was kind of a large man, heavy in weight, and not a very bright guy whose ability to think things through thorougly was pretty limited.

2. The actual photograph was taken by John Smith and showed a room that was littered with paper and other items and furnished with furniture of a cheap quality.

3. Always confused by any kind of mathematical problem, Sally, for no reason that anyone could ever figure out, signed up for one of the hardest and most difficult math courses in the entire curriculum.

4. His past performance in not being able to win people over to his particular point of view certainly indicated to us that he was very likely to do poorly as a political candidate running for mayor.

5. My future plans include enrolling in a college or university where I can study the field of journalism and can improve my natural-born talent for writing.

6. The committee, meeting in executive session with no one else there, made the decision to cease and desist the practice of requiring members of the organization to pay money to attend all of the functions of the organization.