5 exercises — identify and remove the most common filler patterns in technical English: bloated phrase structures, nominalisations, and redundant meta-commentary.
Top 10 filler patterns to cut from your writing
"in order to" → "to"
"due to the fact that" → "because"
"make use of" → "use"
"in a [adj] manner" → "[adverb]" (efficiently, quickly)
"is responsible for [verb]-ing" → just the verb
"there are X that" → restructure with real subject
"at this point in time" → "now"
"in the process of" → remove entirely
"a number of" → "several" or a specific number
Nominalisation: "perform an investigation" → "investigate"
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
A developer writes a comment in a PR: "In order to be able to support the processing of requests in a more efficient manner, we should consider making use of a caching layer." Which revision is most concise without losing meaning?
Option A eliminates five common filler patterns in one pass: "In order to" → "To" (saves 2 words). "be able to support the processing of" → "support" (removes stacked infinitives + nominalisation). "in a more efficient manner" → "efficiently" (adjective phrase → adverb). "consider making use of" → "consider adding" (removes dead verb stacking). "a caching layer" ✓ (already concise). The 10 most common filler patterns in technical writing: (1) "in order to" → "to"; (2) "due to the fact that" → "because"; (3) "at this point in time" → "now"; (4) "make use of" → "use"; (5) "in a [adjective] manner" → "[adverb]"; (6) "the fact that" → remove or rephrase; (7) "provide support for" → "support"; (8) "is able to" → "can"; (9) "perform an analysis of" → "analyse"; (10) "in the event that" → "if". Each filler removed makes your docs faster to read and more professional.
2 / 5
A technical writer reviews a README sentence: "There are a number of issues that were identified during the testing phase that need to be addressed before the release." Choose the best concise rewrite.
Option B applies three key conciseness moves: (1) "There are X that" → restructure with the subject directly: "There are issues that" → "Several issues". (2) Remove double relative clauses: "issues that were identified during testing that need to be addressed" → "issues identified during testing must be resolved" (one participial phrase, one main verb). (3) Weak passive → strong modal: "need to be addressed" → "must be resolved" (stronger, shorter). Option A is better than the original but keeps "a number of" (→ "several") and the awkward "they need addressing". Option C adds filler ("that exist", "prior to release time"). Option D creates more complexity. Pattern: whenever you see "There is/are…", ask if you can restructure with a real subject: "There is a function that handles authentication" → "A function handles authentication."
3 / 5
An engineer writes a Jira ticket description: "The purpose of this ticket is to make improvements to the performance of the API endpoint." What is the most concise equivalent?
Option B is the winner for Jira/GitHub issues and PR titles: imperative verb + object, no meta-commentary. "The purpose of this ticket is to" = pure filler — the reader already knows what a ticket is for. Ticket and PR title formula: [Verb] [what] [optional: for/in/to + where/scope]. Examples: "Improve API endpoint performance" / "Fix null pointer exception in auth middleware" / "Add rate limiting to the /payments endpoint" / "Remove deprecated v1 routes" / "Refactor user session management". Why not A or C? Option A still has "The purpose is to" — slightly better but still unnecessary setup. Option C uses nominalisation ("performance improvement") instead of a verb ("improve"). Option D is passive and awkward. Key principle: in technical context (tickets, commit messages, PR descriptions), start with the imperative verb. No preamble needed.
4 / 5
Which version of this status update email sentence is the most concise and professional?
Option C removes three layers of filler in one rewrite: "are currently in the process of conducting an investigation" → "are investigating" (present continuous is sufficient — no need to announce the process of doing a process). "the root cause of the outage" → "the outage's root cause" (possessive is slightly more compact; both are fine). Filler phrases removed: "currently" (present tense already implies current). "in the process of" (says nothing — remove always). "conducting an investigation" → "investigating" (nominalisation → verb). Option A has all three fillers. Option B replaces "currently" with "At the present moment in time" — worse! That phrase = 5 words for 0 meaning. Option D has "have begun to start" (two verbs for one action) + "the process of". Status update principle: readers want facts fast. Every extra word between the reader and the information is friction. Write "We are investigating" not "We are currently in the process of conducting an investigation into".
5 / 5
A developer documents a function. Which description is most concise and accurate?
Option B achieves perfect function documentation conciseness by applying four rules: (1) Skip "this function is responsible for" — start with the verb: "Validates". (2) Active voice over passive: "validates" instead of "user input gets validated". (3) Remove pleonasms: "a boolean value that is either true or false" — "boolean" already means true or false; just say "true" / "false". (4) "X if Y, Z otherwise" — the standard pattern for conditional return docs. Docstring golden rule: describe what the function does, not what it is. One sentence max for the summary line. Pattern for return value: "Returns [what] if [condition], [what] otherwise." More examples: "Returns the user record if found, null otherwise." / "Throws ValidationError if any required field is missing." / "Caches the result for 5 minutes; returns cached value on subsequent calls." Option C keeps "has the responsibility of" and the vague "returns boolean". Option D uses passive voice throughout.