Metadiscourse: The Most Painful Example Of Extraneous Writing
If you’re trying to avoid cluttered writing, you would do well to stay clear of using metadiscourse in your text. The act of writing about the writing, it is consistently a waste of space that leads to both unclear points and unnatural-sounding statements. In fact, I find a propensity to use metadiscourse a more irritating trait for some writers than their grammar skills. At least, even the most basic grammar software can sort the latter out.
Terms like “to sum up,” “honestly,” “here’s the deal” and “it begs pointing out that” are just some examples of metadiscourse that find their way into many an inexperienced (and sometimes, seasoned ones, too) writers’ work. Unnecessary and extraneous, they can be taken out with no loss of context. In fact, the material usually makes more sense without them.
Using metadiscourse is frowned upon because it leads to writing that sounds apologetic and hesitant. For instance, instead of stating that “It begs pointing out that the management is wrong,” you can just as easily (and more forcefully) say that “The management is wrong.” After all, it the very act of writing about it already means that “it begs pointing out,” so the metadiscourse ends up not adding any value at all. It’s redundant – nothing more.
If you’re writing anything from the first person, metadiscourses are 100% unnecessary. Unless you’re writing about something you don’t know (at which point, your problem is your poor research), there’s absolutely no need to use them. They don’t “dress up” the copy in any way; they don’t make the words sound more professional; and they don’t add anything to the reader’s experience.