Verbosidad
I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one
instead.
-- Mark Twain
El uso excesivo de palabras para comunicar una
idea
es un vicio del lenguaje oral que afecta la claridad y la brevedad del
manuscrito científico. Nadie quiere leer de más; por el
contrario,
tus lectores quieren saber rápidamente qué hiciste y
qué
descubriste. En los ejemplos siguientes, la segunda oración dice
lo mismo que la primera pero es más corta y fácil de
entender
(la reducción de texto para las cinco oraciones es de 38 %):
- Los suelos tropicales tienen un bajo contenido de materia
orgánica.
Los suelos tropicales tienen poca materia orgánica.
- Los hongos se colocan dentro del Reino Fungi. Los
hongos
pertenecen
al Reino Fungi.
- The following are plants which have not been recorded
previously from
Belize. The following plants are unrecorded from Belize.
- At no time did we ever fail to locate the owls. We
always
located
the owls.
- Caves were classified as cool (where temperatures range
from
19-22 ºC)
or hot (where temperatures range from 26-40 ºC). Caves were
classified
as cool (19-22 ºC) or hot (26º- 40ºC).
Estas frases verbosas abundan en la
comunicación
oral y escrita:
- A pesar del hecho que= Aunque
- Durante el transcurso de= Durante
- En la vecindad de= Cerca
- Es capaz de= Puede
- Estudios realizados por Platt
(1998) demostraron que= Platt
(1998)
demostró
que
- Por un periodo de=
Durante
- Posee la habilidad para= Puede
- Se ha encontrado evidencia= Hay evidencia
- Se hizo una comparación= Se comparó
- Tiene el potencial de= Puede
- Tiene un ritmo de crecimiento rápido= Crece
rápido
- Un gran número de= Muchos
- A considerable amount of= Many
- A large amount of= Many
- A number of= Some
- At this point in time= Now
- In a manner similar to= As
- In order to= To
- In a similar fashion as= Like
- In light of the fact that= Because
- Not present at all= Absent
- Owing to the fact that= Because
- Significant numbers of= Many
- In the event that= If
- It is our expectation that we
will finally be able to= We
expect to
- No earlier than= After
- They are commonly found= They are common
- They are going to= They will
- They have a predilection for= They prefer
- They have been shown to be= They are
- They have been shown to posses= They posses
- They have been shown to support= They support
- Was found to vary= varied
- With the objective of= To
Ejercicio: Acorta las frases siguientes. Este
enlace contiene versiones corregidas.
- Con el fin de
- Con el propósito de
- Fueron capaces de producir
- Grandes cantidades de
- Procederemos a nombrar
- Se ha demostrado muchas veces
- Due to the fact that
- Five meters in depth
- He has no doubt that
- In a manner similar to that seen in
- It has the capacity to
- It is known to cause
- It is suggestive of the fact that
- It proved to be true
- It sets a limit to
- It was found to be
- It was found to contain
- It was modified to some extent
- Lesser numbers of
- They are able to
Vocabulario rebuscado
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