Writing, Clear and Simple

I like contractions—the kind you use in writing and speech, that is. So I was happy to find this little tidbit on the PlainLanguage.gov website:

Contractions make your writing more accessible to the reader. Research shows that that they also enhance readability.

Go ahead, use contractions. Your readers will thank you. 

For more guidelines for using contractions, see my article “Contractions and How Not to Abuse ‘Em.”

Using numbers to express dates is a common practice, so you don’t have to worry about people being confused when you write something like “Our annual meeting will be held on 5/6/2008.” Right? Everyone knows that bit of shorthand translates to May 6th, right?

Not so fast. If you show that date—5/6/2008—to someone from Europe, and they might tell you that it means June 5th, not March 6th. Where the American convention is Month/Day/Year (MM/DD/YYYY), the European convention is that the day comes first, followed by the month, and then the year. (They frequently do the same even when spelling out the months; today’s date would be expressed as 6 March, 2008.)

So if you can, write dates using the names of the months. If you use a numeric format, explain which one you’re using, MM/DD/YYYY or DD/MM/YYYY.

I’ve been far too sluggish in publishing new content here, so how about a preview of an upcoming article? My article about the gobbledygook that passes as business writing will be in the May issue of The Editorial Eye. Here’s a snippet that describes one characteristic of bad writing:

Abstraction—Using language that is abstract rather than concrete. It is usually riddled with passive voice and verbs and participles that have been converted to nouns by adding suffixes such as -tion, -sion, -ence, and –ment (for example, writing the establishment of rather than establishing). The Cornish writer Arthur Quiller-Couch described the abstract noun as “a vile thing… It wraps a man’s thoughts round like cotton wool.” (On the Art of Writing, 1943.)

What about you, dear reader? What do you think is the worst characteristic of a piece of poor writing?

For most general writing, try to keep your paragraphs short.

Look at the paragraphs in any daily newspaper, and you’re most likely to find that they’re quite short. For example, in today’s edition of The Forum, none of the paragraphs in this local, front-page story are more than one sentence.

If you look at the stories coming from the wire services, such as AP or Reuters, you’ll find the same pattern. Here’s an AP story that has mostly one- and two-sentence paragraphs, and with only a couple of three-sentence paragraphs.

Of course, there is room for variation here. Other publications use paragraphs longer than the one- or two-sentence wonders of newspapers and news services. Take a look at OpinionJournal.com (the online editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal) for an example. These are still not long paragraphs, however, averaging 3 or 4 sentences long (admittedly a rough estimate).

Why write short paragraphs?

William Zinsser puts it this way in On Writing Well:

Writing is visual—it catches the eye before it has a chance to catch the brain. Short paragraphs put air around what you write and make it look inviting, whereas a long chunk of type can discourage a reader from even starting to read.

This is especially true of “practical” writing—newspapers, business documents, instruction manuals: people tend to scan the page, rather than reading word-for-word. And short paragraphs make that scanning easier, breaking the text up visually.

Remember, though, that a paragraph is a unit of thought, and as such, “the subject does not admit to precise guidance,” says Sir Ernest Gowers (author of The Complete Plain Words). “Each paragraph must be homogeneous in subject matter, and sequential in treatment of it.” That may require a long paragraph, or a short one.

Thus, “Keep sentences short” is rather like the Pirate Code, as described by Captain Barbossa in Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl: “The code is more what you’d call “guidelines” than actual rules.”

I occasionally occassionally browse through my referral logs to see what sort of search terms people used to find this site. Some of the time, it’s clear that they find an article that answers their questions. For example, I constantly see people searching for “bad news messages,” and Google takes them directly to my article, “Delivering Bad News.” It’s clear, however, that they haven’t always found what they were looking for on my site—not until now, anyway. This post will attempt to answer some of those unanswered questions. 

1. What does the word exodus mean?

Before I answer that, one little point: If you can’t or won’t buy yourself a good dictionary, bookmark this site: www.thefreedictionary.com. Use a dictionary or go to a dictionary site, rather than googling a word when you want the definition. “The right tool for the job,” and all that.

Now, to the definition (from thefreedictionary.com, by the way):

1.  A departure of a large number of people.
2. Exodus

a. The departure of the Israelites from Egypt.
b.  Abbr. Ex or Exod.

Usage note: Never write mass exodus. An exodus is already a “mass” event. Mass exodus is a pleonasm. (Exercise for the class: go look up “pleonasm.”)

2. starting a sentence with if

That’s easy: If you think you shouldn’t start a sentence with “if,” you’re wrong. See?

3. what does “a little song a little dance a little seltzer down your pants” mean

That phrase goes back to the Mary Tyler Moore show, in which it was said to be the catch phrase used by Chuckles the Clown. You can read more here on Wikipedia. 

4. Grammar question is it all your or all of your?

 Both. No, really. As far as I know, either one is fine, grammatically speaking, so trust your ear to let you know which one sounds better in a given situation.

5. can i use semicolons to list things

I find paper and pencil works better. As far as punctuation goes, a colon is more appropriate to set off a list, like this: 

Here is a list of stuff: Item A, Item 2, and Cranberries.

You can also use it to introduce a bulleted or numbered list. Find out about the uses of the semicolon here.