One of the common mistakes that people, including myself, make when writing documentation is “wordiness”. All this really means is that we pad our writing to include extra words and empty phrases that don’t need to be there. In the end, all wordiness does is take away from the real meaning.

How do you know if your sentences are wordy? You don’t have to know because Word can monitor this for you. You can configure Word to underline any wordy sentences, the same way it underlines spelling mistakes.

To tell Word to watch for wordiness:

1. Within Word, click Options from the Tools menu.
2. Select the Spelling and Grammar tab.
3. Click the Settings button.
4. Under the Styles heading, place a check beside the Wordiness option.
5. Click OK.

Tags: word, document, microsoft office, word processor, doc