contact form 7 issue

Hi guys
i am having an issue with using contact form 7 plug in. I downloaded a form someone had already created and wanted to use that on my web site the form had around 20 questions all set to REQUIRED. I did not want all the questions set to required so i deleted the (required) from the coding thinking this would make the question not set to required but when i go to submit the form the sections that no longer have required at the heading of question are still being red flagged and wanting some text put in the box

the coding looks like

<p>Phone Number (required)<br />
[text* phone-number] </p>

i only deleted the (required) part is there something else that needs to be removed to achieve what i want. Thanks and sorry for the novice question this is the first web site i have made