“If you would be pungent, be brief. For it is with words as with sunbeams:
The more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.”
— Robert Southey
“Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words,
a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have
no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.”
— William Strunk, Jr.
“Any addition to the truth is a subtraction from it.”
— Alexander Solzhenitsyn
In general, the best writing is simple and direct. Writing that is simple and direct is most
easily understood. It also tends to be the most forceful and memorable. Use no more words than
necessary — and never use a complicated word if a simpler one will do just as well.
Many people seem to feel that writing in a complicated way makes one sound serious, scholarly
and authoritative. While this type of writing may sound serious, it is no more authoritative
than writing that is simple and direct. Certainly, it is more difficult to understand. Often, it
sounds pompous and overbearing. If your purpose is to be understood, in a way that is both
forceful and memorable, adopt a style that is simple and direct.
How can you achieve such a style? One technique is to use conversation as your guide.
Pretend that you are explaining something, over the telephone, to someone you know: a parent,
a friend, a significant other — someone who is not an expert in whatever it is that you
are writing about. You only have a few seconds to get your point across. What would you say?
Read it out loud, to see whether it would work under those circumstances. If it seems to you
that it would not, keep rewriting until it seems to you that it would.
All original material at this Website is copyrighted © 1996-2005 by ACI/Daniel K. Berman, Ph.D. Such material may not be produced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise — without written permission. Any queries concerning the rights to or use of original materials at this site may be addressed to DBnearSF @ yahoo.com.