We’ve all been there. Reading things and in our heads it’s just “blah, blah, blah.”
Big words. Long, fluffy sentences. It’s annoying.
It’s ignorant, actually. No one ever remembers $20 words in $100 sentences.
It’s the simple stuff people remember because that’s what they understand.
Look, good communication is simple. Speak plainly. Write plainly.
Don’t try and impress anyone with your writing. No one reads a long sentence full of words no one ever uses and says, “Wow! That writer is really smart and professional!”
Nope. Those sentences agitate people. It gives them anxiety and they think they have to write like that.
It’s a contagious disease that afflicts too many people who write.
We get it. You’re smart. You want to show it. Please don’t.
Write things that are easy to read and understand.
Author and writing expert William Zinnser said clutter is the disease of American writing.
He also said we’re a society “strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon.”
Don’t strangle anyone who has to read what you write. Don’t even trip them up. Or send them scurrying for a dictionary.
Delete “leverage” and “in order to” and “utilize.”
Don’t write long sentences. You’re not in a syllable competition.
Need help sobering up from your bad writing binge? Turn on the “readability” in Word. Here’s how.
You don’t know about readability? Let’s change that.
Here’s another thing Zinsser said. He says it best:
“Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time. Or the third. Keep thinking and rewriting until you say what you want to say.”