How to combine these two sentences?

Question

I wish to say the following two things but felt a lot of the two sentences are redundant and could be combined into one.

The two sentences are:

• "Delete the steps of sieving the granules with #40 screen."
• "Delete the steps of collecting the granules that are larger than the screen."

My attempt to combine the two sentences results in the below:

"Delete the steps of sieving the granules with #40 screen, and of collecting it that are larger than the screen."

I wonder if my attempt is understandable and if there are better ways to further simplify the sentence.

Answer 1

When writing instructions, you want to avoid creating a very long sentence which might be confusing, as the reader is likely following slowly and carefully. You want the instruction to be clear and not lose the reader.

Also, "delete" means to erase or remove. In instructions where steps can be followed or not, depending on some other clause, we usually say to "omit" them, or more likely "skip" them.

Perhaps the clearest would be to state from the outset that there is more than one step to omit? That way the reader is looking out for two distinct steps:

You can skip the steps of sieving the granules with #40 screen and collecting the granules that are larger than the screen.

Even better would be if the steps in your instructions were numbered, then you could just say, for example, "skip steps 2 and 4".