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If you want to give various bits of information (say variables like age, nationality, occupation, and so forth), would it be correct to use the phrase 'in short detail?'

This is the sentence I have come up with:

In Participants (§2.2) I describe the individuals that partook in my study, offer in short detail their key demographics and backgrounds of each of the interviewed respondents, and their designated roles.

I've looked the phrase up, bit can't find references in dictionaries, and for the rest Google comes up with either really old sources (18th and 19th centuries) and texts of which I can't tell if they use the term correctly.

Thank you!

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    "Limited detail" would be a better term to use. "Short detail" might not be understood.
    – Hot Licks
    Commented Jan 1, 2016 at 14:19
  • Short detail sounds like a contradiction.
    – Lawrence
    Commented Jan 1, 2016 at 14:22
  • Use bio. It's short, direct, and standard.
    – Dan Bron
    Commented Mar 1, 2016 at 20:57
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    I'm a native English speaker, and I have never heard the phrase "in short detail". In short -- don't use it.
    – ab2
    Commented Mar 1, 2016 at 22:34

2 Answers 2

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... offer in brief detail their key demographics and backgrounds of each of the interviewed respondents ...

Short detail is easily misunderstood to mean the same as the idiom "short on detail", meaning missing important facts relevant to the topic being discussed.

Brief detail or limited detail on the other hand, suggests that the scope of the offerings has been intentionally restrained without omitting critical facts.

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Participants (§2.2) contains descriptions of the study's subjects, consisting of the condensed versions of their key demographics and backgrounds, and their designated roles.

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  • Thanks for the suggested edit of my sentence, but tat doesn't answer my question if it would be correct to use the phrase "in short detail?"
    – user149854
    Commented Dec 9, 2015 at 9:57

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