Concise refers to the communication principle of eliminating redundancy, using as few words as possible while preserving the same meaning in a sentence. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, and a paragraph should contain no unnecessary sentences, just like a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. Conciseness is valued highly in expository English writing and is taught to students at all levels.
Some principles for concision include deleting words that mean little or nothing, deleting words that repeat the meaning of other words, deleting words implied by other words, replacing a phrase with a word, changing negatives to affirmatives, and deleting useless adjectives and adverbs.
Concise communication is marked by brevity of expression or statement, free from all elaboration and superfluous detail. It expresses what needs to be said without unnecessary words and is short and clear.
