How Many Redundant Words Can You Find?

When you are writing, it is easy to add in 'redundant' words to your story.

I wrote the text below, to help a friend's daughter who is studying for the Literacy Skills Test (which she has to pass to become a teacher) and I thought that this is something that some writers might find useful.

How many 'redundant' words or phrases can you find? I will post the answer, with the redundant words highlighted, in a later post.

Memo to Teachers about Forthcoming Theatre Trip

 

It is essential that we plan ahead. The school party will leave for the station at 11.45 a.m. in the morning not 12.45. This was an unexpected mistake.

 

Although the theatre will be filled to capacity - as our visit comes at a time when pupils from language schools visit London - the theatre manager has said that as we are specially invited guests, they will add an additional row of chairs for our students. This is an unexpected surprise.

 

We have made a definite decision to travel by train but at the present time, we are not sure how we will make our way from the station to the theatre, but we are in close proximity to the bus stop and so might make use of the local bus service. We will be merging together our two groups before continuing our journey.

 

During the course of the interval, as an added bonus, the theatre has promised to provide refreshments and each child will be given a free gift of a programme at the end of the performance. When the play has completely finished we shall be leaving from the King Street entrance (in case any parents wish to meet their children). It is absolutely essential that parents let the school know if this is to be the case. Looking at the past history of these visits, we expect them to be few in number.

 

If the play runs late, we shall have a difficult dilemma as the last train back is at 11.45pm. The end result might be that we will miss this train but as the train has been estimated to be roughly ten pounds cheaper than hiring a coach, the final outcome, if we changed our mode of travel, would be an increase in parents’ contribution to the cost of the trip. Pupils might possibly be back at school earlier than suggested but we will postpone until later telling parents this.

 

The theatre trip will be repeated again next year if it is successful. It still remains a possibility that this could become an annual trip.