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Write Clearly and Concisely

Readers don’t want to work any harder than necessary to understand and engage with the information, ideas, and arguments in a document. They get unhappy if they have to put in extra effort to read a document — so unhappy, in fact, that they’ll often give up.

To keep your readers engaged with your document, write clearly and concisely. Consider the following passages.

Please join me, Dr. Watson. I have concluded that I am in a situation in which I require your assistance.

Come here, Dr. Watson. I need you.

Help!

The second example, reputed to be the first words ever spoken on a telephone, was spoken by Alexander Graham Bell after he’d spilled acid on his pants. Had he spoken the first sentence instead, he might have wasted crucial time while he waited a few extra seconds for his assistant to figure out what he was being asked to do. The simple exclamation of “Help!” might have been even more effective and would certainly have taken less time to utter. Then again, it might have been too vague for his assistant to figure out just how he needed to act and what sort of help was required.

In general, if two sentences provide the same information, the briefer sentence is usually easier to understand. In some cases, however, writing too little will leave your readers wondering what you are trying to get across.

The following three techniques can help you write with economy:

Avoid unnecessary modifiers. Unnecessary modifiers are words that provide little or no additional information to a reader, such as fine, many, somewhat, great, quite, sort of, lots, really, and very.

Example Sentence with Unnecessary Modifiers

The Volvo S80 serves as a really excellent example of a very fine performance sedan.

Revised Example

The Volvo S80 serves as an excellent example of a performance sedan.

Avoid unnecessary introductory phrases. Avoid phrases such as there are, there is, these have, these are, here are, here is, it has been reported that, it has been said that, it is evident that, it is obvious that, and so on. Sentences beginning with It goes without saying, for example, allow you to emphasize a point, but you can often recast such sentences more concisely by simply stating the point.

Example Sentence with Unnecessary Introductory Phrase

It goes without saying that drinking water should be clean.

Revised Example

Drinking water should be clean.

Avoid stock phrases. Search your document for phrases that you can replace with fewer words, such as the following.

Stock Phrase	Alternative
as a matter of fact	in fact
at all times	always
at that point in time	then
at this point in time	now, currently
at the present time	now, currently
because of the fact that	because
by means of	by
due to the fact that	because
in order to	to
in spite of the fact that	although, though
in the event that	if

Example Sentence with Stock Phrase

Call the security desk in the event that the alarm sounds.

Revised Example

Call the security desk if the alarm sounds.