Can I use this expression? I use Grammarly app on a regular basis, and the phrase was marked as a tautology...
asked Jan 23, 2018 at 5:31
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2 Answers
Whether to avoid tautology or not is your personal preference but "summary" by definition is "a brief statement or restatement of main points, especially as a conclusion to a work". You could surely say "brief/short/compact/condensed summary" but that would be buttered butter.
Better to use words like "description", "note", "article", or possibly "extract" with such adjectives. Notice that adjectives like "concise" or "succinct" can work with "summary" since besides "briefness" they mean "being comprehensive" or otherwise "giving a lot of information clearly".
answered Jan 23, 2018 at 7:18
Tautology is not, strictly, a grammatical error, but an unnecessary usage of a word which can count as a fault in style.
Summary in itself is a Short overview of a story. Therefore, Short as an adjective to this word would be useless. Saying just Summary would make it clear.
Hence, one should avoid using such.
