So you wanna be a very good writer, eh?
Paula LaRocque / Writing Coach
The following guidelines promote clearer writing. They needn’t be treated as rules, but generally observed, they’ll bring our work greater clarity, brevity and precision.
• Keep sentences short. The period is one of the clear writer’s best friends. Sentence lengths should vary to avoid tedium, but average sentence length should be below 25 words.
• Keep to one idea per sentence. That doesn’t mean one fact or figure, but one idea.
• Avoid jargon and formula. But know your audience. The use of specialized jargon is sensible when you have a specialized audience. Avoid language, however, that your audience does not share – usually a given in media writing. Avoid formula writing and trite expressions in all cases.
• Avoid having more than three numbers in one sentence. The following example shows how too many numbers can fuzz up a sentence:
The 9th grade students did well on most of the 3-part test with at least 85 percent of the students at more than two-thirds of the schools passing seven of the 28 test objectives.
