From the course: Writing with Flair: How to Become an Exceptional Writer

More implied words: Exercises

From the course: Writing with Flair: How to Become an Exceptional Writer

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More implied words: Exercises

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- Now try making this sentence a bit tighter. He vowed to carry out an investigation of the criminal gang's activities. An investigation is always carried out, isn't it? He vowed to investigate the criminal gang's activities. It's implied. Did you spot the implied word that's still left in there, though? Activities. If you're investigating a criminal gang, what else would you be investigating other than its activities, right? So you could say: He vowed to investigate the criminal gang. Now, it's not that the first version is wrong or anything. It's just not efficient. We often use implied words unconsciously as well when we're kind of trying to describe something. The room was quite dark and dimly lit. Well, quite dark, a quite dark room doesn't have to be dimly lit, but a dimly lit room would have to be quite dark, wouldn't it? So you want to think about stuff like that. And this one: Nokia continues to maintain a close watch on regulatory developments. The word maintain implies continuity already, so to maintain means to keep on with something, right, which basically means to continue. So you could say: Nokia continues to watch regulatory developments. So don't let implied words slip through the net of your awareness. Some invariably will slip through, but just do your best to catch them.

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