When I edit business and academic files, one of my goals is to remove unnecessary words. This creates a clean and sparkly document that readers can really engage with. Taming unwieldy and complex sentences is one of the principles of plain English, a writing style that uses clear, concise and accessible language to communicate an idea.
That said, variety is the spice of life ~ and I like to mix it up. Longer sentences are fine, as long as they are crystal clear, but throw in plenty of short ones to stop the reader falling asleep 😴.
Which of the snippets below do you find clearer, the apples 🍎 or the bananas 🍌?
🍌 They contributed to higher productivity.
🍎 They increased productivity.
🍌 It experienced substantial growth.
🍎 It grew substantially.
🍌 During the period between 2000 and 2001...
🍎 Between 2000 and 2001...
🍌 We provide a description of...
🍎 We describe...
🍌 X puts a limit on Y.
🍎 X limits Y.
I 🍎 know 🍏 what 🍎 I 🍏 think.
Need someone to lovingly slice through your nominalisations and redundancies?
Let me do it for you: www.perfectwordsbyamandageorge.com
Photo by Juan Ellul on Unsplash
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