Twitter: A “Dream 10″ Guide on How to Say it in 140 Characters (Part I)

“Welcome to the Redundancy Department of Redundancy!”

It’s really easy to say redundant things when writing. All writers are guilty of it, and when you’re typing casually on Twitter you’re not really focused on the fact you’re repeating yourself- often blatantly- and eating up valuable character limit.  There are limitless examples of where and when you can be redundant in your Tweets, but you simply need to take a moment before hitting “submit” and check what you’ve written- look at your Tweet and try to eliminate excess words that aren’t adding to the statement.

Let’s examine some samples:

As we can see, some of our prior guidelines have been broken, but if you examine what’s been written you can find quite a few redundant elements that can be cleaned up.

As you can see, there’s no need to say “I personally like it when”… You’ve established “I”- no need for personally.  In this case, the “I” should remain because you’re distinguishing yourself from Jane.  Getting tickled and “made to laugh” are also redundant. Sure, some people have different reactions being tickled, but it’s assumed one laughs. Same with saying a “feather or other soft object”.  People don’t really tend to think you’re being tickled with a rock or garden hoe.

Obviously there are tons of possible ways to be redundant- it’s up to you to examine your Tweets and catch your own redundancies.  Is it worth it? Well, the second tweet above is vastly easier to read, but you’ve also gone from -6 over the limit to 54 characters free! We just keep making more and more room- which is the whole point of this guide.  We must be on to something, huh?

Tip 6 is going to rock, I can just tell!

…  But you’ll have to move to Part II for the next five Twitter-brevity tips!