Shorter sentences and shorter words

Your common sense says so. And psychological research has proved it. In general, long sentences are harder to read than short sentences. And long words are harder to read than short words. So, another easy way to produce clear writing is to keep your sentences and words short.

Here’s what not to do. It’s a paragraph from the web site of SiRF:

“SiRF capitalizes on its architectural innovations, system design and silicon expertise, RF capabilities and state of the art semiconductor manufacturing technology to make GPS capabilities accurate, affordable, power efficient and compact enough to be used in consumer applications. SiRF’s extensive patent and intellectual property portfolio improves on conventional GPS by providing location awareness where other approaches cannot, including under dense foliage, in steep ravines, in ‘urban canyons’ and even in some indoor environments. In the constant tension between lost and found, SiRF’s GPS solutions tip the odds in favor of being found.”

Words per sentence: 30.6
Characters per word: 5.9
Flesch Reading Ease score: 2.8 (much harder than a tax form!)

Without losing any important content, you could revise it like this:

SiRF makes GPS accurate, affordable, power efficient and compact enough to be used in consumer applications. We do this by drawing on our architectural innovations, design expertise, RF capabilities and advanced chip-making technology. Our many patents improve on conventional GPS. We provide location awareness where other approaches can’t. Under dense foliage, in steep ravines and in “urban canyons.” Even in some indoor environments. In the constant tension between lost and found, SiRF tips the odds in favor of being found.

Shorter sentences and shorter words.

Words per sentence: 13.0
Characters per word: 5.3
Flesch Reading Ease score: 41.1 (as easy as The Wall Street Journal)

The Takeaway: Try to get into the habit of using short words and short sentences, even in your first draft. In your second draft, try to shorten or break up any sentences that are longer than 20 words. Replace a few long words with shorter words. Yes, that’s hard to do if you work in the networking industry (as I do) or other industry that uses long names for concepts and products. But you can still make a big difference just by changing represents to is and so on. Your readers will feel the difference immediately.