Eight enemies of clear writing

How to find your way out of the fog

by Laura Paquet

Elsewhere, we show you how to use the Gunning-Mueller Fog Index to find out how much bafflegab there is in your writing. Now we'll show you how to cut the fog. As we see it, there are eight enemies of good writing, as nasty as were the public enemies who used to adorn "most wanted" posters.

ENEMY #1: Passive voice. The passive voice is the number-one offender when it comes to poor writing. If you have a sentence that says that something is being done, but doesn't say who's doing it, you're using passive voice. These sentences are notoriously difficult to understand.

ENEMY #2: Excessive nouns. Some sentences are stronger when you replace a noun structure, such as make a decision, with a verb, such as decide. Keep an eye out for nouns ending in -ion, -ance, -ment, -ence, -ize or -ing.

ENEMY #3: Long sentences. Every 2.5 words you add to a sentence drives readability up by one grade level.

ENEMY #4: Redundancy. Why, for example, would anyone need to specify that a review is full and comprehensive or that it has been postponed until later? Watch for the word of when it falls between two nouns. Say June instead of month of June.

ENEMY #5: Words nobody understands. Sometime euphemism and jargon are unavoidable, but is your "recreational facility" really a "gym"?

ENEMY #6: Puffed-up words. As the old saw goes, write to express, not to impress. Avoid words like endeavour (why not try?), blaze (why not fire?) and their equally puffed-up siblings.

ENEMY #7: Negatives. Each negative requires an extra third of a second for your reader to process. In particular, avoid double negatives (such as I didn't say I wouldn't).

ENEMY #8: Adherence to the rules. Sometimes, rules are made to be broken, even these. Breaking the rules brings more variety to your writing.

Cornerstone is a writing and editing firm that uses marketing and PR principles to create "words you can build your business on."

Call us from anywhere in the world for rush work.

Click here to exit .