Pimp my English | Writing simply

By Anna Malczyk

One of the easiest ways to cut down on mistakes and confusion is to write simple, short, direct sentences. Here are five tips for achieving clarity and conciseness.

1. Use active voice
Make sure you use active sentences instead of passive ones whenever you can. An active sentence is “X does Y.” A passive sentence is “Y is done by X.” For example:

• Students do the assignments on Monday. (active)
• The assignments are done by students on Monday. (passive)

As you can see, the passive version sounds much more confusing and convoluted. In normal writing, you should generally avoid the passive voice.

There are times when passive voice is all right, however, especially when there isn’t a single or defined “doer”:

• One must do the assignments on Monday. (active)
• The assignments must be done on Monday. (passive)

But, in general, avoid the passive voice.

2. Cut out unnecessary phrases
The key to good, simple writing is cutting out all those extra words that creep in. Often, these can be cut out entirely, or replaced with a simple word:

• I read the book so as to find out more.
• I read the book to find out more.
• I want to find out more with regard to the course.
• I want to find out more about the course.
• Owing to the fact that we were late, we missed the movie.
• Because we were late, we missed the movie.
• Thank you for your enquiry regarding the course.
• Thank you for enquiring about the course.

You also don’t need to introduce your sentence with a long, repetitive clause:

• In response to your email, here is the information you require.
• Here is the information you require.

If you can cut it out, do cut it out.

3. Break up long sentences
Sometimes, we find that we have to include a lot of information in a short period of time and we end up writing long, ongoing sentences (like this one) to make sure we have covered all the necessary bases, including several explanatory clauses along the way, and have given the reader all of the required information. This is generally confusing and overwhelming. As a general rule, try to keep sentences to fewer than two lines. If you can’t, make sure you break up the sentence with commas, parentheses and semicolons.

4. Avoid repetition
Often, it’s possible to group words or phrases together and cut out repeating words. For example:

• I packed my brown shirt, my green shirt and my red shirt for the trip.
• I packed my brown, green and red shirts for the trip.
• We revised our work assessment plan and our productivity assessment plan.
• We revised our work and productivity assessment plans.

This shortens sentences, cuts down on unnecessary words and improves clarity. This trick doesn’t always work (sometimes the resulting sentence doesn’t sound right), but keep an eye out for words that you can group together.

5. Use simple words
Finally, don’t use a complex, confusing word when a simple one will do. For example,

• Serenity > peace
• Accomplish > do
• Approximately > about

This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but try to use simple synonyms whenever possible.

Related articles
Commas and semicolons
Hyphenating adjectives


This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution license.