Tips for Concision 9: Make independent clauses participial phrases

You can improve concision by turning independent clauses into participial phrases.

First, let’s define terms. An independent clause has a subject and a verb and could be a complete sentence by itself. A participial phrase begins with a participle (an –ing verb) and modifies something; participial phrases typically serve as adjectives. Because it’s a phrase, it doesn’t have a subject.

Turning independent clauses into participial phrases means making two sentences into one, but it’s a particular way of doing it. Suppose we have these two sentences:

  • Nunez and Hill had worked at the store together for four years. They had formed a strong friendship.

You can be more concise by converting the second sentence into a participial phrase. Then you can embed it inside the first sentence, setting it off with commas, like this:

  • Nunez and Hill, having worked at the store together for four years, had formed a strong friendship.

Or use it to begin the sentence, like this:

  • Having worked at the store together for four years, Nunez and Hill had formed a strong friendship.

The original is 18 words, and the revisions are both 17. Granted that one word is a modest gain in concision, that is often how concision works: rather than one big edit that saves many words, you make many small edits that add up.