• “We don’t really know what we want to say until we try to write it, and in the gap between the thought and its expression we realize the bold idea has to be qualified or elaborated. We write more sentences. Then more. We are soon in the territory defined by the French mathematician Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) but associated with others, too: I would have written something shorter, but I didn’t have time.”
• “We should respect grammatical rules that make for clarity, but never be scared to reject rules that seem not to.”

Use and Abuse of Writing Formulas

• “(In the craft of journalism, the technique of holding the reader in suspense is called a delayed drop, apparently a term borrowed from parachuting.)”
• Different measures of readability: sentence length, long/difficult words
• Use of complex sentences that reuse predicates can improve readability

The Sentence Clinic

• The Overcrowded Sentence:
  • Seek the subject and verb, then condense. “Start with the subject noun... and marry it to the verbal phrase.”
  • Introduce subject, verb and object early and in proximity.
  • Ask: what’s the core message? Start there, then elaborate.
  • Use the active voice. Use full stops between ideas.
  • Avoid subjunctive/hypotheticals at the beginning of sentence.
  • Limit negative constructions.
  • Be clear if you are introducing a list: don’t split the message around it.
  • Do not split up a thought with parentheticals. Rather, use multiple sentences.
  • “Hug the verb” with its modifiers.
  • Better to repeat a name than risk ambiguous pronouns.

Ten Shortcuts to Making Yourself Clear

1. Get moving. “Vigorous, clear, and concise writing demands sentences with muscle, strong active verbs cast in the active voice.”
   • Passive voice only preferred if... 1) doer of action is unknown; 2) receiver of action merits more prominence than the doer; 3) when the doer is known but tact or cowardice “imposes reticence;” 4) when the length of the subject delays the entry of the verb; 5) when the active voice creates ambiguity
2. Be specific. Fill sentences with concrete nouns. Enrich your vocabulary with similes and metaphors.
3. Ration adjectives, question adverbs.
   • “Is your adjective really, really necessary to define the subject of your sentence, or is it there for show? What exactly, precisely, does your adverb add to the potency of this or that verb or adjective?”
   • “If something is amusing or sensational there is no need to tell us it is amusing and sensational. Just describe the incidents that amused or shocked and we’ll do the laughing and the grimacing.”
   • “Adjectives that should rarely by modified are: certain, complete, devoid, empty, entire, essential, everlasting, excellent, external, fatal, final, fundamental, harmless, ideal, immaculate, immortal, impossible, incessant, indestructible, infinite, invaluable, invulnerable, main, omnipotent, perfect, principal, pure, round, simultaneous, square, ultimate, unanimous, unendurable, unique, unspeakable, untouchable, whole, worthless.”
4. Cut the fat, check the figures. Make every word tell.
   • Be sure, if using words like relatively, comparatively, etc., you are actually comparing something!
5. Organise for clarity.
   • Parallelism for lists
6. Be positive. “Sentences should assert.”
7. Don’t be a bore. Vary sentence structure and style, utilize rhetorical devices...
   • Loose sentence style: conversational; main clause comes first; each additional piece makes sense without going further.
   • Periodic sentence style: opposite of above— structured; holds off on main clause to build suspense.
   • Balanced sentence style: deliberate symmetry to suggest “calm and order;” may employ parallelism
8. Put people first. Make things concrete and particular so we can relate to them more directly.
9. The pesky prepositions. Avoid the following:
   • The circumlocutory preposition: preposition **phrase that could be replaced by a single word (ex., in the field of...)
   • The prepositional verb: unnecessary additions to the verb that can be omitted or replaced by a different verb (ex. face up to, consult with)
   • Pedantry: no, prepositions do not have to precede their object.
10. Down with the monologophobia. It’s okay, and often more clear, to use the same word (esp. for the subject of a sentence) more than once.

Please Don’t Feed the Zombies, Flesh-Eaters, and Pleonasms

• Zombies = nouns derived from verbs (that should not be)— implementation, participation, applicability
  • According to prof Helen Sword: “I call them ‘zombie nouns,’” she writes, “because they cannibalize active verbs, suck the lifeblood from adjectives and substitute abstract entities for human beings.”
  • Sometimes helpful, but avoid in excess: “Run a computer search of your writing or editing for other frequent telltale suffixes, such as -ance; -ment; -ence; -ent; -mant; -ant; -sion.”
  • Other major offenders: problem/issue, field, purposes, question, use of
  • “Verb-adverb combinations are stronger and shorter than noun-verb-adjective combinations. Two verbs are better than a verb plus abstract noun.”
• Flesh-eaters = bad things in your writing that you barely notice
• Pleonasms = repetitive and redundant phrases

Storytelling: The Long and Short of It

• We appreciate conciseness.

Other...

• Lack of clarity affects real people in government, business, journalism... often purposeful manipulation
• Ex. People that agree with ACA but not Obamacare— no one actually knows what the law does