Writers: Beware! 10 Overused Words

"10 Overused Words in Writing"
Precise edit (2008)

"All words are good words. Some, however, are overused without adding value to what you write. As a result, they reduce the readers' interest, make text seem redundant, and cause the writer to appear amateurish.

"We have created a list of 10 overused words, based on the documents we have edited over the last 5 years. We don't recommend that you remove these words from your writing. Instead, we recommend that you become aware of how often you use them and that you revise your documents to limit their use.

"1. There
When writers are not sure about the subjects of their sentences, they will often use this word as the subject...."

These may not be the ten most over-used words: but they're near the top. As the author said, don't drop them entirely (unless you want to be an 'artistic' author, and compose your prose with out the letter p, or write your name with no capital letters).

Seriously? This is a pretty good resource: something writers, myself included, can use as a review from time to time. Again: there's nothing wrong with those words. But, stay aware and don't over-use them.

You'll notice, if you read the article, that I've used a few in this post.