Clear Writing Makes for Easier Reading

Although you can avoid paying much attention to grammar and spelling in your first draft, ultimately you have to have what an editor calls "clean copy." Besides, if you are going to the trouble of writing something, you want your readers to understand it easily.

Two keys to writing clearly are using a straightforward vocabulary and using active voice instead of passive voice. You don't need to worry about these choices so much in your first draft, but as you become more familiar with clear writing habits your first draft will get easier to write.

A Straightforward Vocabulary

Your readers will appreciate your writing more if you say what you mean directly and concisely. They can read faster because it takes less work to comprehend what you are saying and your work may simply be shorter than if you use a lot of flowery language or ponderous phrases. For example, you don't need to "make an adjustment to" the bed, you need to "adjust the bed." You don't need to be "in agreement with" your neighbor over who shoveled snow the last time, you just need to agree.

You want to avoid jargon and clichés.

Jargon is specialized or technical language. It may be appropriate to fill an internal company memo with it, since all the readers may be familiar with the terminology. Generally, you want to stay away from this "in-the-know" language, as it makes your readers feel left out if they are not familiar with it.

Clichés are overused or pat phrases, such as "nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs" or "neat as a pin." For most of your writing, it is better to say someone is nervous or describe that a room or desk looks neat. If you are writing fiction, you may create a character whose speech is full of clichés. For most nonfiction writing, you want to avoid clichés like the plague (so to speak).

A Direct Writing Style

Some people like to take long country drives, unworried about their destination. Most of the rest of the people on the planet have places to go and things to do. Your writing is generally for them. They haven't got all day, and your writing should value their time.

Roundabout writing: Good retirement planning should have the specific goals of letting you live your life independently and making it possible for you not to have to rely on your children for financial support.

Clear Writing: Good retirement planning enables you to live independently, without relying on your children for financial support.

Roundabout writing: It is hoped that the Community Bazaar Planning Committee can come together at least a couple of times every month so that the problems associated with last year's stampede on the funnel cake stand can be avoided.

Clear Writing: I hope the Community Bazaar Planning Committee will meet at least twice a month, so they can develop ways to avoid problems such as last year's stampede on the funnel cake stand.

Why You Should Care About Active Voice

In a sentence written in active voice, the subject of the sentence is the "doer of the action," while in passive voice sentences the subject is the receiver.

Passive voice: The dog was hit by the car.
Active voice: The car hit the dog.

In this case, the reader can still get the point. However, passive voice can make it difficult to understand a writer's point. The "doer" of the action may even be missing from a sentence.

Passive voice: Each recipe should be written so that it can be understood by the reviewers.
Active voice: Each cook should write recipes so the reviewers can understand them.

You might be able to guess that a cook would write the recipe, but it could be someone else.

Passive voice: Consideration will be given to your idea and a memo will be sent to you to say what management did with your suggestion.

Active voice: The company will consider your idea and the branch supervisor will let you know whether the company will act on your suggestion.

In this case, passive voice obscured information about who would consider the idea and who would get back to the person who made the suggestion. If readers get to the end of one of your sentences and cannot tell who did what to whom, they have a problem. And so do you.

Sometimes passive voice is a deliberate choice. A good example in film is in "Star Trek VI, the Undiscovered Country." The Klingon prosecutor asks Captain Kirk if he said something particularly incriminating. Kirk hesitates a moment and then says, "Those words were spoken by me." He sure wanted to take the emphasis off himself. In bureaucracies, such wording could be called a "CYA" presentation of the facts. (So much for avoiding jargon.)