Filler Words for Essays: How to Avoid Them

Drop Filler Words for Essays: How to Write Better

Your writing is too long. How do we know? You drop filler words for essays and didn’t cut words from your writing.

When you write, you want to drop filler words for your essays because they’re like little rocks in the river of language. They rob you of fluidity.

You might have seen how people can write 1,001 words and still not say it all — it’s called wordiness.

A wordy writer is not a lazy writer. The problem is that too many writers use filler words to make their writing more readable.

Let’s talk about what filler words are and why you should drop filler words for essays. 

Understanding Filler Words and Their Impact

Writers use filler words at the end of a sentence to add emphasis, express emotion, or slow down the sentence. 

They often make a sentence sound more formal and polite. For example, it’s a little more formal to say “You should’ve let me know that” than “You should’ve called me.”

Since grammar rules are complicated and subject to many exceptions, the best way to learn them is to practice and play. Try to cut as many filler words as possible. 

For example, the sentence “I’m going to the store, please wait for me” can be written as “I’m going to the store, please wait.” Cut out all unnecessary words so as to enjoy fluent writing. 

The best way to drop filler words for essays is to use different words and sentences with few repeated words. Use as many adjectives and adjectives as needed in your writing! It’s all up to you. 

Remember, writing is supposed to be a creative expression rather than a copy purely meant to convey facts and data. 

Steps to Avoid Filler Words in Your Writing

• Write your essay by breaking it down into smaller pieces to get it done. Common filler words that people habitually use even in speech are “well,” “you know,” “so,” “like,” and “for example.” 
• Don’t begin sentences with words like “since” or “as.”
• Use paradoxes that are opposing ideas. “The cost of our lives is greater than the cost…
• Don’t go for simple words like “it’s” and.”
• Avoid saying “It was like…” instead, say “It was like that.”
• Notice where you might be unwittingly repeating yourself
• Choose your words carefully because they stick

If there are problems with your writing, perhaps it will irritate or aggravate your reader. The relevance of the word “too long,” no matter where it lies, varies considerably depending on your medium and the reader’s stamina. 

There are various ways to make writing meaningful and lean. One sure way is to find sentences to delete without loss of meaning.

This method entails finding flabby sentences or words cutting through the entire manuscript rather than individual words or sections.

Overwriting usually means you focus on yourself instead of the reader, which ultimately means your message will be lost.

Sometimes, a writer could continuously use the same word or phrase, albeit unconsciously. Learn to say what you need to say once. Continuous repetition of words irritates, bores, or puts readers to sleep.

Strategies to Improve Your Essay

• It is best to remove the majority of “that.” Writers should use “that” to indicate a grammatical need or deliberate emphasis.
• Start and end sentences with strong words. Restructure sentences to begin and end with nouns or verbs rather than prepositions or filler words when possible. “Jane was kind of petty” rather than “Besides all that, she was petty, kind of.”
• Put strong words in anchor positions and pay essential attention to the sounds. Emphatic sentences come out good when sharp consonant sounds like d, g, k, p, etc. are in place.
• Word cloud helps. Copy-pasting your entire document with an online tool like Wordle will create a picture of all the words you use. 

Flabby words make the reading of the essay seem less cohesive and less focused. They add noise to the text and make it harder to read. Always be on the lookout for flabby words and take steps to minimize their effects.

Are flabby words the same as fillers? Flabby words are words that have no contribution to the sentence. They can be flukes, fillers, or dead words. 

Flukes are flabby words that don’t add any information to the sentence. Fillers are flabby words that appear in the sentence without any grammatical role.

Dead words are flabby words that don’t fit into the flow of the sentence. They often appear in the sentences as if they have their role to play, and it is confusing to the reader. In both cases, the primary purpose of a flabby word is not to add information to the sentence. 

Grammar expletives are obnoxious words that go entirely against proper word usage. They are words that shouldn’t exist in the English language, but here we are nonetheless. 

Explanations used to introduce clauses (not to be confused with cuss words) delay the sentence’s subject. Expletives do not add any tangible meaning to verbs or nouns, which play a specific role in expression.

Grammar expletives may be used at the beginning and end of a sentence to express emotion or emphasis. There are many expletives, but only a few are considered grammatically correct. 

It’s never easy to get rid of grammar expletives from a piece of writing. This is because the writer will probably have to rethink the entire essay.

There are some common grammar expletives that you should avoid if you want your paper to come out clean. Words like “then,” “and,” “but,” “never,” “so,” and “yet.” These words don’t just belong on essay topics and papers. They should be banned entirely. 

Before you write, take a look at the expletives you want to remove and jot down a note about what they are. Spend some time reading your note and figuring out how you want your final essay to look after the expletive removal.

Identifying and Eliminating Redundant Words

Redundant words are unnecessary additions to your writing. They are a sign of a weak vocabulary and lack of creativity. They are common and non-urgent and should be left out of your essay. Removing redundant words will make your essay less wordy and cleaner. 

The most effective essays are clear, concise, and to the point. When you are writing, you must be careful about your words. Words like and, is, are, are, that, or too should be used only when they are necessary. 

If your essay can be easily rewritten without using any of these words, you have used too many of them. Your writing is not good if you always have too much information and a lot of it is redundant. If you must include all of this information, then it indicates that you have not written enough on the topic. 

A good essay should be short, concise, and to the point. That is the only way to make your essays interesting and understandable to your readers. 

Avoiding Colloquial Expressions in Formal Writing

Colloquial expressions are phrases or slang words that many people in popular culture might use. They are typically informal and are distinctive to a specific region or group of people. They also create sound effects, lighten the overall tone, and often express opinions. Colloquial expressions also often carry a cultural stigma that might affect the tone of a speech or essay. 

Here are some colloquial expressions that you might use: The cheapest way to get high is: to smoke, drink, or eat.

Colloquial expressions, just like filler words, undermine the effect you want your reader to have. When writing an essay, it is recommended to fine-tune colloquialisms to formal equivalents.

Clichés (such “as time will tell’ and ‘as luck would have it), Idioms (‘a drop in the ocean’ and ‘cut to the chase’), and fillers (‘very,’ ‘so’ and ‘even.’) Are types of colloquial language that are inappropriate for formal writing.

Readers could misinterpret clichés because they are not specific in meaning. Idioms can be understood and taken literally, while fillers detract from the effectiveness of sentences. Avoid them!

Conclusion

Drop filler words for essays. Avoid using words that don’t bring anything to your piece that you can’t already do with a more concise word. 

If a word is dull, overly wordy, or simply unnecessary, it should be removed. If you can’t think of any words that could be removed, the essay is probably full of filler and can’t be saved. 

Using filler words can cause the essay to sound more haphazard and disordered, making it less engaging.