Make Your Writing Clearer

Writing is hard, especially under the deadline. Many writers waste precious minutes making minor edits here and there, remove a word, etc., but if the message is not clear then nothing can save you. 

You will get the best results if you prioritize edits that will sharpen your message and focusing on the big picture. 

Try these 3 strategies:

Cut the lengthy intro and get straight to the point:  When you lead with your main point, you focus the attention of the reader where it should be. You may keep the background information that is important to the message and cut out the rest.

Turn descriptive sentences into sentences that make claims: The first topic of the sentence tells the readers what to expect in the rest of the paragraphs. A descriptive sentence offers potentially useful information but the readers wouldn't know why it is important. But the claim sentence focuses the readers' attention and they know what is to follow in the paragraph. 

But even if you want to describe a product, meeting, conversation the claim based topic sentence should inform the readers where to focus. If you make this your routine then you will have less editing to do in the future.

Make sure people are doing things in sentences: Essentially you should be using active verbs and remove any confusion about the action steps by using active voice. 

Do not make this a rule. You should use active verbs only when you want people to do things. There may be occasions when you convey important news but you do not want to draw attention to who made the decision.

eg: Decision was made to close the branch

The closings may be important but you do not want to draw the attention to the fact that the CEO did that.

However, if you are talking about the achievements of the CEO you may change the sentence using active voice to highlight the same.

Please use these strategies before you submit the writing and if you make a habit of doing this regularly you would not need to do any last-minute changes in the future.

3 Ways to Make Your Writing Clearer

by Jane Rosenzweig HBR April 09, 2020