The other day I met a former student for happy hour. A few minutes before our scheduled time, I wandered into the local Barnes & Noble. As usual, I found myself in the business section where a 200-page book caught my eye. (I’ll refrain from naming it here.)

I perused its contents and decided to check out readers’ Amazon reviews. I typically find the two- and three-star ones more interesting than five-star unabashed love affairs. One of the former pointed out the author’s incessant use of the term accordingly. I put down my phone and l started thumbing through the book’s pages. Was the criticism a fair one?

Putting Down the Phone

Yep, that word permeated the book. When I searched within the text on Amazon, I found no fewer than 40 occurrences of the word:

Yeah, the overuse of accordingly would annoy me too—especially the instances that routinely begin the author’s sentences. To be fair, I’m an equal-opportunity curmudgeon. There’s a bestselling author who reflexively inserts the word therefore every chance he gets. When I read one of his titles, it rankled me to no end.

The Unreasonably Hospitable Publisher

Meow

Call me catty. You wouldn’t be the first. That doesn’t mean, though, that I’m wrong. Specifically, repeatedly using the same phrase when plenty of others exist is downright lazy. It would take an editor five seconds to reword a decent chunk of sentences with accordingly.

For example, consider page 24 of the book above:

• In 2020, Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare reported that …
• Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare found in 2020 that …
• (Blah blah blah), as Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare discovered in 2020.

I could go on, but you get my point.

What You Need to Know

Your discerning readers will thank you.

All professional and amateur writers rely on old standbys. I sparingly drop certrain phrases in each of my own and ghostwritten books. Still, recognize your tendencies. Either replace overused words manually or via a tool and an online thesaurus. (AI can be useful here.) Otherwise instruct your editor to do so.

Your discerning readers will thank you and you’ll generally make a better impression with the rest of them.

In subsequent posts, I’ll be describing other common writing mistakes that non-fiction authors regularly make.