If You Only Have Two Minutes

Shorter is better than longer.

Short sentences are not always the best sentences, but a shorter sentence is always better than an unnecessarily long sentence. If your sentence is longer than three lines, cut it. If your sentence seems very complicated, or you can’t understand it when you first read it, cut it down. For the most part, try to use short words rather than long words (remember, most short words are more immediate and exciting than long words). Use long words to dress up a sentence that can already be easily understood.

Active is better than passive.

The passive voice is a form of the verb “to be,” plus a helping verb that could be a verb on its own (for example, “a sentence that can already be easily understood,” which could be “a sentence people can understand easily”). We write in the passive voice chronically, all the time. In science, it’s the accepted form (“the experiment was performed”). Try not to use the passive voice unless it’s absolutely necessary. Look for forms of the verb to be, and look for “ing” or “ed” word forms: these are often signs of the passive, and you can alter them.

Make things do things.

If things are being done, you have the passive voice. If things do, you have the active. Make things do things.

Elements in a sentence that go together belong next to each other.

This is probably the second-most-common error in writing: “James Hill, in his book, writes that…” You have separated your subject and verb. Subjects go with verbs; verbs go with direct objects. Don’t separate them. Remove phrases that separate elements in a sentence that go together and put them somewhere else.

And this brings us to…

Introductory phrases go at the start of a sentence.

Phrases like, “In his book,” “As a result” – basically any short explanatory phrase followed by a comma, is called an Introductory Phrase, and it goes at the beginning of the sentence (because it introduces it).

If you have “not only,” you must have “but also.”

That one’s pretty simple.

Boldness of attack!

Good writing gets your point across at the first reading. Complex writing does not sound smart or academic: it sounds complex. Be direct. Be clear. Be firm. Don’t make your readers work any harder than they need to.