PR writing can be tricky when it comes to length.

The journalist wants 500 words, you’ve got 600. You don’t want to strip out anything meaningful or anything you spent time researching which you really quite like.  There are many ways to contract your PR articles or press releases, regardless of how long or short they are. A good first step is to cut out the unecessary or redundant words. Have another look at your text, you’ll be surprised how many there are. We use a lot of unecessary words -- a programming of our language skills. A good PR exec needs good, concise writing skills. Here are a few examples of words to get rid of:

• in actual fact – all facts are actual. No point in highlighting one of them
• actually – is just really a way to give the writer or speaker a pause for thought
• and, in addition – one word or the other, not both
• as and when – says nothing more than as or when on their own
• back – completely superfluous in repay back, refer back, return back, revert back
• basically – can be omitted, as can the basic reason or the basic cause, unless there are several reasons or causes
• both – dreadfully over-used. Look at: "The new ruling will affect both  private- and public-sector organisations," and  "Both business and commerce will be affected." Now take out both
• continue to remain -  a real horror: X company continues to remain the number-one supplier of ...  Should be: X company remains the number-one supplier of ...
• the fact that – useful, but over-used: "in  view of the fact that or taking into consideration the fact that the government has imposed ..." The first six or seven words could easily be relaced by because or since.
• absolutely imperative – it’s imperative or it isn’t
• at this point in time - now
• until such time as - until

These are just the worst offenders, and although they might be simply the odd word here and there, they all add up. Obviously in longer documents, like white papers, editorials and advertorials,  there will be whole sections you can tackle about  their length and relevance. Now you’ve got the knack of identifying redundant words, next time we’ll look at how to deal with lengthy phrases.