Redundancy: How to identify and eliminate it

Let’s look at, examine, and explore tautologies, repetitions, and other superfluous excesses

As communicators, we want to keep our writings as cogent as possible; in part, that means excising needless words—notably redundancies.

Earlier and later

There’s a particular construction that frequently makes its way into even the best news writing, as well as into press releases and other corporate communications: “later this week,” “earlier this year” and the like. Here’s how and why the “later” and “earlier” are redundant. Consider this sentence: “I’ll get back to you later this week.”

Well, it has to be later this week; it’s in the future. “Later” is implicit. It’s sufficient, when discussing an upcoming event, to say, “I’ll get back to you this week.” (If you want to specify Thursday or Friday, try “late this week.”)

The same goes for this sentence, dealing with a past event: “She went to Marrakesh earlier this year.”