14 Tips for Clarity in Writing

Writing Something Important? Want to be Sure it’s Very Clear? Here are 14 Clarity Tips!

Why does it matter if your writing is clear or not? Surely, anyone with half a brain can make out what you’re trying to say!

Well, when what you’re saying is not very important to you or to your reader, you don’t need to write with much care.

But when your message is important enough to make you want to get it across clearly, and when it’s important to the reader that he or she understand it fully, clarity is obviously essential. Importance calls for understanding on the recipient’s part; achievement of the understanding that both writer and reader want is possible only in the presence of clarity. If this sounds really obvious to you – it is. Just think, though, of how much garbled nonsense pours into the world every day, in every form of speech.

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Here are some tips to help you keep your important writing clear in order to accomplish your desired impact, whether you’re writing for publication, for a client, for a speech, or just for yourself:

Be very clear about what it is you want to convey.
Have a good understanding of who you want to convey it to Focus on that audience (and no other), and get some accurate idea of how to introduce your subject to that audience so they will willingly read your writing or listen to you.
Decide on an approach to your reader or audience (such as: formal, informal, academic, poetic, journalistic, adversarial, persuasive, explanatory, satirical, ironic, dramatic, familiar, casual, buddy-buddy, and so on) and match your writing style to that approach; avoid mixing approaches and styles.
Plan out the presentation of your ideas from a beginning that is (a) acceptable to your audience, (b) encourages their interest, and (c) helps them track with you while they read on.
In your designing, clearly envision the end result or objective or product of your writing, and build up to it connectedly and as strongly as you can, and put it in place like an anchor for the whole piece. If you’ll be wanting the readers to take some action, then prepare the ground for asking or directing them to take it in such a way as to leave them in no doubt about what you are asking them to do. And build up the flow of your piece so that as many as possible will be minded to agree with your request or direction.
When your design and objective are clear to you, start writing. As you write, envision a reader’s response to what you are writing; see if you can pick up any questions the reader might have, or some element of your persuasion that might make an un-smooth progression of thought for the reader as he or she follows you along.
Although I’ve emphasized writing according to prepared design and plan, I also advise that as you start writing, you be alert for the possibility that your writing might just decide to go off in a direction you hadn’t envisioned. In some circumstances, such as personal writing, essays, op-ed pieces, term papers, short stories, or novels, and others, this writing can be far more authentic and interesting than the design would ever be. To succeed in this way of writing, you must (a) keep sight of your original objective – or you must restate it as soon as you can, and (b) avoid violating any contractual or other agreements with another for the piece you are writing. If your task is to sell a trip to Italy and you find yourself at the outset wanting to rhapsodize about Algeria, by all means get the Algeria trip out of your system – but go back and complete your Italy assignment. It will flow more smoothly and interestingly after your enthusiastic work on Algeria.
Whichever way you do it, employ words whose meanings and uses you clearly understand. If you have any question about what a word means or how to use it correctly, look it up in the dictionary before including it. Choose words that are themselves clear. When you find yourself writing words like “awesome,” “unbelievable,” “great,” “cool,” and so on, recognize that you’re introducing distracting fuzz into your flow – and cut it out. Look for the words that clearly convey what you want the reader to grasp. If fuzz is part of your design, though, keep it in.
There is no substitute for correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Some people will not be offended by errors in these but they may misdirect themselves away from your message because, for example, the placing of one comma can completely change the meaning of a sentence. A person who is familiar with grammar, spelling, and punctuation might reject your message (even though your message is valid and valuable) if he or she considers that your errors undermine trust in your judgment.
Use words and expressions that your audience is familiar with; if you need or want to use a term, abbreviation, or phrase outside of their presumed vocabulary, use it -- but give a helpful definition in parenthesis.
Design your paragraphs and sentences for greatest impact as your actual writing builds up to the climax and completion of your message and request for action. Here are some techniques to help you increase impact:

* In your sentences, try to use the passive mood as little as possible.
* See if you can put the important idea of the sentence at or near its end.
* Vary your sentence lengths and do not be afraid of the occasional long sentence. It is quite all right to have people think about what they’re reading.
* Ideally, you build up your paragraph so that its most important point comes out in its last sentence; sometimes it’s better to put the point in the first sentence. In the latter case, be sure that you end the paragraph with one of your strongest arguments for that point, and put it in a strong sentence.
* Review your paragraph for smoothness by reading it out loud, listening for any awkward sounds or rhythms, and for any jumps in your logic, any excess verbiage, and possibly for a more inspiring phrase. See if your paragraph follows smoothly from the one before it, and if it needs to offer a lead into the next paragraph.
If you come to the point of not seeing clearly where you should go next in writing your build-up to your climax, take a break. When you come back, read your piece from the beginning. If you don’t see clearly where you go next, read over your outline and your notes. Should the way forward still not be clear, examine your last paragraph or two to see if one of them is a little too condensed and needs to be fleshed out, perhaps even fleshed out into two separate paragraphs. Make sure the flow of your words proceeds unbrokenly from your beginning to where you have become stuck. If still no clarity, call it a day, sleep on it, and take a fresh look at it in the morning.
When you’re all done, put the piece away for at least a day. After the break, read it, mark all the errors you see and the improvements you think of as you read, look to mercilessly slash everything that is not closely relevant, note any questions that come up for you -- but don’t make any major revisions yet. Once through the first time, consider the questions and notes you made, and determine how much substantial editing you will do, and do it. Write your new draft. Put the piece away for at least a day; share your manuscript with a friend who will give you an objective pair of eyes and ears and perhaps very helpful comments. Review your piece yet again. Repeat this procedure (#13) until you know in your bones that you’ve done enough, that the piece is as good as you can make it for its purpose, and that it contains all the words it needs for its purpose, but no more. Be prepared to let this process take as many days as it needs to. One of the biggest mistakes a writer can make is to underestimate the value of intensely scrutinized, repeated revision. Around 80 -- 90% of the quality of your writing comes not from the composition but from ruthless, disciplined polishing.
Publish! Or deliver! Or read your speech! Observe how it goes down. Note how you can do better next time, and take all your lessons from the experience to heart. Use them!