Tailor your writing

Tailor your writing to who will be reading it, and the situation they will be reading in. There may be things you want to communicate, but are they things that the reader needs to know, or even wants to know?

Be clear and concise

• Consider how each concept can be rewritten to be clearer. Shorter and more direct writing will be easier to understand and faster to read, increasing the likelihood it will be read at all.

• Limit text to three consecutive nouns.

• Look at the nouns in your sentence--can any be verbs instead?

• Can any of your verbs be made active?

• Consider reading a guidebook on concise writing in your language even if you are already fluent--for American standard English, try the Bedford Handbook or A Plain English Handbook.

Speak directly to your audience

Make the audience connect with your writing by focusing on writing to them with the use of "you."

Use the word "you" to connect to your audience.

Remove unnecessary words

The goal is not to be as short as possible--just as clear as possible. Remove words that do not add meaning, or replace them with more precise language.

You want to say: In order to write more clearly, a person would have to make several changes to the online writing guide's writing in a way that makes the sentences less long and more clear. Instead, say: Shorter sentences are clearer.

Only use one word to represent one concept

This is not middle school English where you are penalized for repetition.

Do not define obvious words, phrases, or abbreviations

If you are writing a blog post on your website, people reading it probably know the acronym for your organization.

You want to say: The USA, the United States of America, is a democratic nation in North America which... Instead, try: The USA...

Conversely, define words, phrases, or abbreviations when you first use them, if they are necessary.

You want to say: The GRID Toolkit will help you communicate better. Instead, try: The GRID (Generally Readable Informative Documents) Toolkit will help you communicate better. OR The Generally Readable Informative Documents (GRID) Toolkit will help you communicate better.

Write in an inverse pyramid pattern

Write the most important information first, and then move on to more specific details. This allows your readers to quickly determine if they need the rest of the information or not. It also makes it more likely they will read the most important information before stopping.

💡 GRIDBit: People only spend 10-20 seconds looking at a page. That is how long you have to convince them you have something to offer!

References

Attention Web Designers: You have 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression!. Gitte Lindgaard, Gary Fernandes, and Cathy Dudek, Behavior and Information Technology, 2006.

Bedford Writing Handbook. Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers, Integrated Media, 2014.

Dyslexia Friendly Style Guide. British Dyslexia Association.

Federal Plain Language Guidelines. The Plain Language Action and Information Network (PLAIN), 2011.

Writing for Strategic Communication Industries: Inverted Pyramid Style. Jasmine Roberts, Ohio State Press Books.