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Grammarly has pointed out that this sentence may be wordy:

The goal is to tackle the classification of documents with respect to ICD.

due to the usage of "with respect to". It recommends me to change it for "concerning", "to" or "for" but I think the meaning wouldn't be preserved.

Meaning:

The "classification of documents" is an action that consists of tagging documents.

The "ICD" is the "Internation Classification of Diseases", that is, a list of codes.

The tagging should be made according to this codes. Namely, tag each document with one or several codes from the "ICD" list of codes.

Question:

What alternatives do you think are appropriate for this case?

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    Save yourself a few words (and some trouble) by switching to The goal is to tackle ICD classification of documents.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Oct 27, 2018 at 17:33
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    It is impossible to discern what is on the mind of Grammarly, because it has no mind.
    – jsw29
    Commented Oct 28, 2018 at 6:04
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    @FumbleFingers, that may sound simpler, but becomes somewhat awkward when one remembers that the C in ICD itself stands for classification. The OP's sentence is dealing with two classifications (of documents and of diseases) and does need something to express the relationship between the two. There is nothing wrong with using 'with respect to' for that purpose.
    – jsw29
    Commented Oct 28, 2018 at 15:48
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    @jsw29: I never said there's anything wrong with the more verbose form - but since OP is clearly a non-native speaker, it would obviously be an advantage to be familiar with simpler constructions before tackling the harder stuff. And just for the record, I don't see anything remotely "awkward" about using classification even though it's also implicit in the initialism. (But then again I think people who rail against Pin number and RAM memory are misguided pedants! :)
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Oct 28, 2018 at 17:06
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    @FumbleFingers, fair enough, I only said that 'ICD classification' is somewhat awkward, not that it is outright wrong (it is indeed in the same category as 'RAM memory' etc.); there is room for disagreement about how pedantic one should be about such awkwardness.
    – jsw29
    Commented Oct 28, 2018 at 18:03

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As so often happens when you talk through something, I think you already phrased it better when you described the meaning:

The tagging should be made according to this codes. Namely, tag each document with one or several codes from the "ICD" list of codes.

I like “according to” instead of “with respect to”, and I like how concretely and directly you put it; I understand what exactly will happen in the classification.

The phrase “tackle the classification of” is a good example of a buried verb: you could just say “classify” instead. And the phrase “The goal is to” is passive; you could say “We want to” (or whoever wants to) instead. But “classify [according to]” is still sort of vague; as you said, the way you classify is to tag it with a code. So I would just say:

“We want to tag each document with ICD codes.”

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  • Thank you very much for your answer. This is what I was looking for. I have marked your answer as the accepted answer.
    – Alber8295
    Commented May 27, 2019 at 8:05

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