Words of Wisdom!

I read a great post, Wisdom On Writing By The Great Drayton Bird over on the Sell! Sell! Blog at the weekend. Now I'm normally all about the pictures, but I found it really interesting and great advice for anyone that writes, be it for a living, for pleasure or just when blogging.

I highly recommend everyone reads the full post, but here are some of the top tips:

Read any popular novel, newspaper or magazine. They are written for people who are not clever, or not concentrating. Words, sentences and paragraphs are very short. And here are some other suggestions.

1. A heading must make the reader want to find out more, and not reveal so much they might not feel they need to read it.

2. Try to avoid 'we' instead of 'I' - the writing most likely to be read is me to you. People don't relate to organisations.

3. Count the number of "you" words - yours and your - versus "me" words - I, us, our, ours and we. The ratio should be at least 2:1, preferably 3:1.

4. Use "carrier" words and phrases at the beginnings of sentences to keep people reading. Such as Moreover, That is why, In addition, What's more, On top of that, Also and And. These tell your reader there is more to come. And forget what your teacher told you: "And" is often used to start sentences in The Bible.

5. You can also use questions at the ends of sentences or paragraphs. Why is this?

6. Because which you have to read on to get the answers (and if you notice, the end of point 5 and start of this point demonstrate what I mean).


George Orwell's "1984" and "Animal Farm" were gripping parables about the nightmare of totalitarianism. In an essay he gave six rules for better writing.

1. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

People get used to them and they fail to take them in. Say something fresh or different. Don't say "at the end of the day" - say "in the end"; don't say "put it to the acid test" - say "test thoroughly". "Cutting edge" or "state of the art" mean "newest"

2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.

Complimentary - Free
Anticipate - Expect
Expectation - Hope
Authored - Wrote
Transportation - Car
Purchase - Buy
Ameliorate - Improve
Lifestyle - Life
Marketplace - Market

3. If you can cut a word out, always do so.

"Miss out on" should be "miss"
"Male personnel" is "men"
"For free" is "free"
"Crisis situation" is "crisis"
"Meal solution" is "meal" or "recipe"
"Research process" is usually "research"
"Station stop" is "station" or "stop"

4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.

Active is always shorter. A biblical example is "Esau was slain by Jacob" - better as "Jacob slew Esau".

5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

"Interface" works better as "talk with"
"Core competencies" means "what we do best"
"Easy to use" beats "user-friendly"
"Mission statement" is "our aim"
"This is a non-smoking environment" is "No smoking"

6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.


I have two suggestions besides making sure you write as simply as possible.

Before you start, write a simple, logical structure for what you want to say. Then draft - and revise until you're 100% sure anyone can understand it.

A friend once gave me a recipe for this which delighted me. "Show it to an idiot," he instructed, "Get them to read it, and ask if they understand".