
Writing Clear, Concise, Sentences - Panoramix
http://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/ClearConciseSentences.html
======
grellas
The principles listed here are sound and helpful. If you follow them, your
writing style will undoubtedly improve.

But do not adhere to them as rigid rules or you will suffer in your ability to
express yourself. Passive voice exists for a reason. Long words can add
variety, rhythm, and color to your prose. Elongated sentences can help give
your writing a flow that a mere parade of short sentences can never hope to
achieve, not even after a thousand rewrites. Or not. All such items can be
misused as well, and the books are replete with bloated forms of expression
used by lawyers, politicians, educators, administrators, and the like who
would not know a simple word or sentence even if it stood before them doing
somersaults. The key is to know sound principles for clear and concise writing
and then to apply them with a rhythmic ear for balance in your forms of
expression. That means, yes, use passive voice, long words, and flowing
sentences as needed to add grace to your prose but always with the baseline in
mind: that is, to communicate in ways that are clear and concise and that
people will readily understand for your stated purpose (formal style for
formal settings, casual for casual, and whatever fits for anything in
between).

I note all this because, years ago, I consciously and diligently set about to
attempt to master writing and stumbled upon the rock of "simplicity" during
such stretches in my learning process where I had assumed that _all_ one could
do was follow such rules. Any attempt to apply such rules one-dimensionally is
a mistake, and you will regret trying it. Follow sound principles, by all
means, but not dogmatically.

The other major keys to good writing are depth of language skills and
extensive reading. No one will read your work unless you have something
helpful to say. You get this by working hard to develop your skills, and lots
of writing (and reading) is vital to this process.

~~~
firebones
Much truth here. Years ago I took a summer school course in technical and
scientific writing involving intense exercises in ruthlessly eliminating
passive voice (regardless of the gymnastics involved in doing so) and many
other common tropes of academic writing. The course was like a cell-
obliterating chemotherapy against whatever creative writing voice I had
managed to put together at that age, and it took years to overcome the
effects.

Toss in a good measure of courses involving study of Hemingway and Vonnegut
and I was a wreck for years. A passive construction, a ten-dollar word, the
odd adverb--all had me in doubt and writing the most vanilla prose.

So it goes.

It was only when I started participating in NaNoWriMo that the forced march of
cranking out 1666 words a night for a month combined with the permission to
produce a shitty first draft allowed me to being my recovery.

~~~
nprincigalli
Reminds me of the classic Hemingway vs Faulkner discussion:
[http://www.guilford.edu/about_guilford/services_and_administ...](http://www.guilford.edu/about_guilford/services_and_administration/writing/style/faulkner.html)

Hemingway: Manuel drank his brandy. He felt sleepy himself. It was too hot to
go out into the town. Besides there was nothing to do. He wanted to see
Zurito. He would go to sleep while he waited.

Faulkner: He did not feel weak, he was merely luxuriating in that supremely
gutful lassitude of convalescence in which time, hurry, doing, did not exist,
the accumulating seconds and minutes and hours to which it its well state the
body is slave both waking and sleeping, now reversed and time now the lip-
server and mendicant to the body's pleasure instead of the body thrall to
time's headlong course.

------
sp332
I'm positive the second comma shouldn't be there. (I wouldn't normally comment
on commas, but it seems on-topic...)

~~~
StavrosK
Yep. They managed to refute their own title in four words, I am impressed.

~~~
zwischenzug
Exactly what I thought.

I would have written "Writing clear and concise sentences"

~~~
ryanklee
They were attempting most likely to follow Strunk & White's idiotic dictum to
omit all needless words. More often than not, when people trust Strunk & White
to do their thinking for them, bad language occurs.

~~~
zwischenzug
That is a moronic dictum. I've always followed Fowler's Modern.

------
SlyShy
Some of the comments I've read seem to misunderstand the purpose of this page.
This isn't the objectively best writing style, this is a concise writing
style. No, it might not be the most pleasant to read, because extremely to-
the-point short sentences sound blunt. The guidelines provided for writing
short and concise sentences are very useful, if that's the style you are
aiming for.

~~~
telemachos
From the site: _Follow the principles below to write sentences that are clear,
to the point, and easier to read._

I think they're claiming a lot more than "here's how to write concise
sentences, if that's the style you're aiming for."

Note also that this section ("Clear, Concise, Sentences" [sic]) falls under
the heading "Improving Your Writing Style."

~~~
abraxasz
> "Clear, Concise, Sentences" [sic]) falls under the heading "Improving Your
> Writing Style."

Well I don't see the problem here. It is true that many righting concise
sentences can help many people improve their writing style (it's the case for
foreigners like me).

I think the site targets two types of audience:

\- Those with very poor style who want to improve

\- People with good style who just want to learn how to write concise
sentences.

I'll give an example illustrating the second point. For some of my school
projects, I had to review a lot of "science project reports", and similar
stuff. Well trust me, it is painful to read a report with long, convoluted
sentences expressing a simple idea..

------
tptacek
This advice seems to mimic much of what's in _Style: Towards Clarity and
Grace_, which I found out about from Richard Gabriel ( _achievement unlocked:
LISP connection_ ) and which is probably the most hacker-friendly writing book
ever written.

~~~
davidmathers
Note, Joseph M. Williams now has 3 different 'Style' books:

Style: Toward Clarity and Grace

Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace

Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace

I can't speak to the first 2, but I purchased the 3rd and found it to be
excellent.

~~~
tptacek
... Toward ... is the one I have, and every time I reread it I feel like I
should find a way to transcribe it into emacs lisp.

~~~
akkartik
Hmm, you mean have emacs warn you when you violate the guidelines?

~~~
tptacek
Yeah, or give metrics.

There should be a startup in here. Paste bad writing in. Get good writing out.
Improve income by 30%.

------
bdesimone
If you get the chance, read Orwell's "Politics and the English Language."

    
    
        Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
        Never us a long word where a short one will do.
        If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
        Never use the passive where you can use the active.
        Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
        Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous. 
    

<http://www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/patee.html>

~~~
telemachos
And then please read this essay from the Language Log in reply (or as a
counter-point, at least): <http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=992>.

~~~
deadbadger
I only wish I could up-vote this more. See also this earlier Language Log
essay
([http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003366.h...](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003366.html)),
in which Pullum points out that passives occur in "Politics and the English
Language" at a considerably higher rate than was typical in contemporary
periodicals - Orwell couldn't follow his own advice, even as he was dispensing
it.

The same goes for Strunk and White, who in the very passage instructing
writers to abjure the passive, say:

"Many a tame sentence of description or exposition can _be made_ lively and
emphatic by substituting a transitive in the active voice for some such
perfunctory expression as /there is/ or /could be heard/."

Still, at least the guide linked in the OP has picked actual examples of the
passive voice as illustrations, and concedes that there are times when it can
be reasonably used (sorry, "writers can reasonably use it"). This makes it
something of a rarity, even if the advice is still poor.

------
SoftwareMaven
Personally, I really like George Orwell's "Politics and the English
Language"[0] as a writing guide.

[0] <http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm>

------
grannyg00se
A lot of this information is presented as a consistent methodology when in
fact it is very subjective. For example, one of the suggestions is that "you
should try to avoid using inflated diction if a simpler phrase works equally
well." Unfortunately, it is not clear when a simpler phrase works equally
well. I may want to 'use' a certain phrasing in one scenario, but feel it is
more appropriate to 'utilize' another phrasing in a different scenario. There
is no simple rule that can be applied to determine whether one is more
appropriate than the other.

~~~
oasisbob
Are you arguing that there is no truly objective test for good writing? If so,
I agree.

------
synnik
Keep these points in mind when generating error messages to your end users.

------
jaywhy
I agree with the article that good writing is concise and clear, but don't
conflate clear and concise with simplistic and short, thinking the only good
sentence is a short sentence, as if we should all write like Hemingway in a
hurry.

"Vigorous writing is concise...this requires not that the writer make all
sentences short, or avoid all detail and treat subjects only in outline, but
that every word tell." \- Strunk and White "The Elements of Style"

------
xtacy
One of the most cited books for better writing: Elements of Style:
<http://www.bartleby.com/141/>. It's available for free.

There are many "manuals of style" available as well like:
<http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html>.

~~~
mellery451
Alas, this version does not include the edits and commentary by E.B. White
(thus, it came to be known as "Strunk and White"), but it's an interesting
archive of the original work.

------
NHQ
You have to break rule number one to be a politician, corporation, or
spokesperson for either. Passive voice is what you use to acknowledge that
something fucked up, without placing the responsibility.

"There was a failure of communication."

~~~
philwelch
"Mistakes were made".

------
telemachos
This topic seems to have legs, so I'll recommend another book in this area:
_Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose_ [1] (by Francis-Noel
Thomas and Mark Turner).

They are far more thoughtful about style (what it is and how to teach it) than
most writing guides. They acknowledge that there is not one best or ideal
style for all occasions and that the style they describe and teach is one
among many. It's an eye opening book in many ways. (Note: I see that there's a
second edition just out. I haven't read that. I read the original in the late
90s. I doubt they've ruined it, but just in case.)

[1] <http://classicprose.com/> with excerpts from the book here:
<http://classicprose.com/csx.html>

------
xal
Are there any software packages or web services that help with this? Writing
is a huge part of my job but because I'm english second language I'm lacking
the intuitive sense for such rules. Especially since I learned most of my
english in my formative years on internet forums...

------
billybob
Clear writing is difficult because it requires clear thought. This makes it
worthwhile, even if no one reads it, because it shows the writer whether he or
she understands the subject matter.

Muddy writing, by contrast, is generally meant to impress and not convey
information. The intended reaction is "I don't understand what you said, so
you must be smart." This, unfortunately, seems to work for businesspeople and
academics. But I hope that geeks can see through it.

~~~
billybob
This subject reminds me of a quote by CS Lewis about students being afraid to
read classic works, and going instead to modern, unintelligible commentaries
on them.

"But if [the student] only knew, the great man, just because of his greatness,
is much more intelligible than his modern commentator. The simplest student
will be able to understand, if not all, yet a very great deal of what Plato
said; but hardly anyone can understand some modern books on Platonism. It has
always therefore been one of my main endeavours as a teacher to persuade the
young that firsthand knowledge is not only more worth acquiring than
secondhand knowledge, but is usually much easier and more delightful to
acquire."

The rest of his essay: [http://silouanthompson.net/library/early-church/on-
the-incar...](http://silouanthompson.net/library/early-church/on-the-
incarnation/introduction/)

------
lifefundr
I agree this is a very useful resource for writing in a concise manner. It is
something I am attempting to implement in my daily writing. Even though it is
old news the best advice I have come across is to write your content. Let it
sit for an hour or more. Come back and read it out loud to yourself. This
technique is underused and underrated in my opinion. Thanks for pointing out
this resource. Bookmarked!

------
discreteevent
Its kind of an object oriented style isn't it? That doesn't mean that it
transfers well to programming where there are other concerns apart from
communication. (You don't have to worry about controlling state in your
paragraphs). Anyway, for me the laziest way to improve my composition is to
just read Hemingway and let the style rub off.

------
syaz1
Stephen Fry ranting on language nazis: Season 2, Episode 3: Language:
<http://www.stephenfry.com/category/media/audio/>

I don't really know who he is, but he make some very convincing arguments.

------
Ythan
If you want to improve the clarity of your writing, I also recommend
StyleWriter (<http://www.stylewriter-usa.com>). It's a bit expensive, but the
functionality is unique and helpful.

------
kruegerb
It would be wise to refer to these guidelines while filling out an application
for YC.

------
syaz1
Also related, feeling lazy? Use Steve Hanov's word-removal tool to remove
unnecessary words from your sentences:
<http://stevehanov.ca/blog/index.php?id=52>

------
seewhat
Similar guidelines from the UK's Plain English Campaign:-

<http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/free-guides.html>

------
thorin
Link to my friend's blog. He consults on these matters
<http://www.thomasheath.tv/blog/>

------
samevisions
Very interesting, especially for people like me ( English is not my mother
language ) these basics are useful to build a strong knowledge about Writing.

------
portentint
Your best bet: Write every single day for at least 15 minutes. Writing isn't a
talent, it's a skill.

------
drv
It's amusing that the "Avoid unnecessarily inflated words" section misspells
"implement" as "impliment."

------
Ruudjah
> Writing Clear, Concise, Sentences

With a title like this, I won't even read the thing. So many things are wrong
with this first sentence. 1\. Why The Capitals For Each Word? That screws with
my human word recognition algorithm. 2\. The title implies three things:
Writing clear, do something concise and something with sentences. That's all
but clear to me. "Writing clear": you mean writing the word clear? Does not
sound interesting to me. What do you want with "Sentences" and "Concise"? Not
clear at all to me. 3\. Probably, the author meant something like "How to
write clear & concise sentences". That gives the sentence instantly another
meaning.

~~~
tptacek
Having not even read the thing, you might consider whether a detailed critical
comment about the thing adds or subtracts to the discussion on HN.

