How to make your writing more readable (1)

Rudolf Flesch

Many people have asked me how they can make their writing more readable; more like conversation; easier to follow. A good question and a good goal.

I’ll cover the most important tips in a moment. But first, read this extremely readable sample:

“Yes. Many of us are angry. Not all the time, not so we can’t manage daily life, not to the extent that we cannot love, not so much that we are on the verge of psychotic actions. But yes, there is cause for anger among today’s men.

“We are angry that our children are so easily taken from us, and so easily trained to believe that we abandoned them. We are angry that our sexuality and our anatomy are the butt of constant abusive jokes. We are angry that so few women take us seriously, because, well, they know they don’t have to. We are angry over being blamed for all the evil in the world, evil that harms us as much as anyone else. We are angry at being told for a lifetime that it is our fault that women cannot have everything they demand, and angry that it is never noticed how hard we try to help them with that.”

Those are the first 165 words of a 794-word essay. The rest of it is here.

On the Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) scale, the sample scores a towering 75.2, which is easier to read than Reader’s Digest, which is specifically edited for readability. In short, writing aimed at grown-ups doesn’t get any more readable than this sample.

OK. How did the author achieve it?

Short words, on average: Flesch says the average word length in the sample is 3.9 characters. That’s very short.

A good mix of long and short words: There are lots of one- and two-syllable words, a few three-syllable  words (e.g., “psychotic”), a couple of four-syllable words (e.g., “anatomy”), and one five-syllable word (“sexuality”). Note that the four- and five-syllable words are familiar words.

Short sentences, on average: Flesch say the average sentence length in the sample is 18.0 words. That’s short to medium for English.

Good composition: In the third sentence, the author makes good use of the rhetorical device anaphora, using the word not four times. This device makes the longish (31-word) sentence easy to follow. He uses anaphora again in the second paragraph to guide the reader through:  “We are angry… We are angry… We are angry… We are angry… We are angry… ”

Good tone: The opening is stark, almost belligerent: “Yes. Many of us are angry.” That certainly gets the reader’s attention, but it may make him fear the author will go into a rage. So the author wisely softens the tone immediately with the four not’s and with the circumlocution “But yes, there is cause for anger among today’s men,” which (probably intentionally) does not have man or men as the subject of a verb. This deft early maneuvering assures the reader that the author is going to speak steadily and control himself.

And he does. Read the rest of the essay.

There is more to say about this little masterpiece, but I have covered the key points and I’m running long here.

The Takeaway: It is possible to make your writing more readable. Much more. If you keep reading good writers and keep Flesch-testing the readability of your own writing, you will steadily improve. You will probably surprise yourself at how far you go. If you are serious about readability, I suggest you start your course of improvement by reading all my posts about readability (scroll down to the LABELS and click on “READABILITY”). Then start getting into the habit of using Flesch every day. You can do it!

See disclaimer.

"And the Fair Land"

In 1961, Vermont Royster (pictured), then editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal, wrote a Thanksgiving editorial titled “And the Fair Land.” The Journal has run this editorial annually ever since.

The prose is elevated but not pompous; it is stirring but not sentimental. It is clear and straightforward. It is masculine.

He begins:

Any one whose labors take him into the far reaches of the country, as ours lately have done, is bound to mark how the years have made the land grow fruitful.

This is indeed a big country, a rich country. . .

And continues:

And a traveler cannot but be struck on his journey by the thought that this country, one day, can be even greater. . . .

So the visitor returns thankful for much of what he has seen, and, in spite of everything, an optimist about what his country might be. . . .

And ends:

But we can all remind ourselves that the richness of this country was not born in the resources of the earth, though they be plentiful, but in the men that took its measure. For that reminder is everywhere – in the cities, towns, farms, roads, factories, homes, hospitals, schools that spread everywhere over that wilderness.

We can remind ourselves that for all our social discord we yet remain the longest enduring society of free men governing themselves without benefit of kings or dictators. Being so, we are the marvel and the mystery of the world, for that enduring liberty is no less a blessing than the abundance of the earth.

And we might remind ourselves also, that if those men setting out from Delftshaven had been daunted by the troubles they saw around them, then we could not this autumn be thankful for a fair land.

The Takeaway: I wish my fellow Americans a happy Thanksgiving.

See disclaimer.

Don’t worry about big, conspicuous errors

Do you worry that someday you’ll make a big, conspicuous error and embarrass yourself publicly?

Stop worrying about that.

If you write a lot, you almost certainly will make such an error someday, but you shouldn’t feel too embarrassed when it happens. You see, if you have made a habit of clear writing, your loyal readers will chuckle at, and immediately forgive you for, the occasional big error.*

If you must worry about something, worry about leaving a residue of small errors in every paragraph, bogging down your reader. Most readers do not forgive that.

A recent article, “Arne Duncan vs. Oklahoma,” illustrates what I mean. Here are the first four paragraphs of the article (minus the links), with my comments:

“In yet another stunning example of his lack of knowledge about life outside the elitist Washington bubble, [United States Secretary of Education] Arne Duncan came out swinging at Oklahoma governor Mary Fallin during a press conference yesterday (6/9) for signing the bill (HB3399) to end the Common Core State Standards initiative in Oklahoma.”

The phrase “came out swinging” is ambiguous: What exactly did Mr. Duncan say or do?

“Apparently, pure politics caused the governor (current Chair of the National Governor’s Association, who along with the Council of Chief School Officers propelled a set of education standards into national lexicon) to abandon Common Core for her state.  Apparently the thousands of parents who wrote letters, sent emails and called Governor Fallin’s office urging her to sign HB3399 during the interim between passage (5/23) and signing (6/5), have been downgraded to political widgets in a game of chicken between a state and the federal government.”

The reader has to read quite a lot of this paragraph before he recognizes that the author is being ironic.

“It’s interesting how quickly the anti-Common Core forces, once vilified as ‘conspiracy theorists’, ‘fearmongers’ and ‘liars’ have become vindicated since – and by Duncan’s own hand no less.  Duncan’s latest temper tantrum can’t help but make it readily apparent to even the passing skeptic that there must be something to the legions of arguments connecting Common Core and federal overreach into public education.”

The reader wonders how these “anti-Common Core forces” are related to “the thousands of parents who wrote letters…”

“Truly, no one (including the Fordham Institute or Bill Gates) has been able to effectively mount an argument supporting the stake the U.S. Department of Education has in Oklahoma’s education standards. Really, what does Arne Duncan care what standards Oklahoma uses to educate its children? What difference can it mean to Duncan?”

It is difficult for the reader to infer a connection between the first sentence and the second and third sentences. My guess is that the author is trying to say, “The U.S. Department of Education has no stake in Oklahoma’s education standards, so Mr. Duncan should mind his own business and stop threatening Governor Fallin.”

The rest of the article is similarly confusing. In almost every paragraph, something impedes the reader: an awkward sentence, an overloaded sentence, an ambiguous verb, a confusing transition, a misplaced modifier.

The Takeaway: Put your energy into making every paragraph readable and clear. Your reader will notice and appreciate it. If you leave a residue of small errors in paragraph after paragraph, your reader will tire of slogging through it. He may even vow never to read another piece with your name on it.

See disclaimer.

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*I relate this personal example in all modesty: Decades ago I was a PR man for Honeywell. One day, while I was visiting with the editor of a trade magazine, I noticed a Honeywell press release posted on a bulletin board. Looking more closely, I recognized it as a release in which I had made a grammar error – in the headline! I groaned. The editor smiled, shook his head, and said, “We see errors like this every day. This one was worth posting because it was from you.”

The "Ten Best Sentences"

In case you missed it: The editors of The American Scholar selected the “Ten Best Sentences” in English-language literature and published their selections.

Writing teacher Roy Peter Clark wrote a blog post offering “brief interpretations... on how and why these sentences work.”

The Takeaway: Read the ten best sentences silently. Then read them aloud. Then read Mr. Clark’s interpretations. Keep the URLs handy and review the sentences and interpretations from time to time. This kind of reading will slowly and steadily make you a better writer.

See disclaimer.

A soldier who wrote like a professor

Most professors write exhausting prose. They exhaust their readers by continually forcing them to decode circumlocutions, euphemisms, evasions, ambiguities, misplaced modifiers, vague antecedents, and logical fallacies. They make the readers endure passive voice, elegant variation, and sheer nonsense. They make the readers slog through long sentences.

But professors are not the only vexers. Many non-professors exhaust their readers, too. Consider, for example, the British soldier Frederick J. Veale (pictured), who died in 1976. In his revisionist history Advance to Barbarism, Veale claims that the Allies thought up the idea of deliberately bombing civilians and the Axis merely followed suit. But after enticing his readers with this provocative thesis, Veale exhausts them with prose like this:

“It would not indeed be correct to say that what was officially termed ‘the strategic bombing offensive’ was carried out to the last day of the war without opposition, protest or misgivings. Questions were asked in Parliament as to the character of this air offensive which were fully reported in the Press with the answers given. Certainly it cannot be said that the Ministers of the Crown upon whom fell the duty of answering these questions, resorted to evasion or equivocation.

“In accordance with the British tradition they kept a stiff upper lip and gave clear and emphatic replies, without any signs of embarrassment such as might have been expected from them having regard to the fact that as recently as March 1942 Mr. Churchill’s War Cabinet had accepted the plan laid before it by Professor Lindemann by which ‘top priority’ as an objective for air attack was in future to be given to ‘working-class houses in densely populated residential areas.’ ” (161 words)

Analysis

There are many things wrong with these two consecutive paragraphs; for the sake of brevity, I’ll just hit the highlights:

Long sentences (average 40.2 words).

Passive voice; for example: “Questions were asked in Parliament as to the character of this air offensive which were fully reported in the Press with the answers given.” (Boldface added.)

An egregious, grotesque circumlocution: “...such as might have been expected from them having regard to the fact that as recently as March 1942 Mr. Churchill’s War Cabinet had accepted the plan laid before it by Professor Lindemann by which ‘top priority’ as an objective for air attack was in future to be given to ‘working-class houses in densely populated residential areas.’ ” 

A suggested rewrite

In just over three minutes, I did this rough rewrite:

Several government officials opposed, protested or at least questioned “the strategic bombing offensive.” For example, Members of Parliament asked the Ministers questions about the character of the offensive. The Ministers answered clearly and emphatically, and the press fully reported both the questions and the answers. The Ministers did not appear to be embarrassed that the War Cabinet had decided to deliberately bomb “working-class houses in densely populated residential areas.” (68 words)

My rewrite is 58 percent shorter than the original, and it is much easier to follow. (Note: I felt it was fair to delete the mention of Professor Lindemann, because two paragraphs later a quotation describes the professor’s role in the offensive.)

The Takeaway: Try not to fall into the bad habits of the typical professor. As you edit your drafts, watch for circumlocutions, euphemisms, evasions, ambiguities, misplaced modifiers, vague antecedents, logical fallacies, passive voice, elegant variation, and sheer nonsense. Keep your sentences mostly short; vary the sentence length. And always check your prose for readability; if your Flesch Reading Ease score is consistently below 30, you probably are writing like a professor. Ask a capable editor to look at samples of your work and advise you on how to break your bad habits.

See disclaimer.

Readability: characters per line

We have previously discussed several ways in which poor typography and design (reverse type, weird typefaces, italics, and all caps) can make your text difficult to read. Another way is line length: too few or two many characters per line can cause eye strain. A comfortable range is 50 to 75 characters per line.

To help prevent eye strain while you are writing and editing drafts, make sure that the type size and line width in your normal word-processing template produce an average somewhere between 50 and 75 characters per line. For example, my normal template produces an average of 53.

This may sound like a small matter, but if you do a lot of writing and editing (for example, I average four to six hours per day), the effect on your eye muscles can be significant.

You may or may not be in a position to affect the finished appearance of the words you write. Your company’s designers or your clients’ designers may or may not be amenable to outside advice, and they may or may not be obliged to conform to pre-established templates or other corporate standards anyway. But if you do have some influence, you may wish to advise the designers on line length.

The Takeaway: Too few or two many characters per line can cause eye strain; 50 to 75 characters per line is a comfortable range.

See disclaimer.

Long sentences are OK, if...

In general, long sentences are harder to read than short sentences. However, it’s OK to use long sentences if you do it carefully. Here’s a good example:

In the novel Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks (pictured), a sociology professor is wondering aloud why some men become sex offenders. His wife, Gloria, suggests that maybe they’re programmed or hardwired to be sex offenders. Here is part of the professor’s reply:

“These men are human beings, not chimpanzees or gorillas. They belong to the same species as we do. And we’re not hardwired to commit these acts. If, as it appears, the proportion of the male population who commit these acts has increased exponentially in recent years, and it’s not simply because of the criminalization of the behavior and a consequent increase in the reportage of these crimes, then there’s something in the wider culture itself that has changed in recent years, and these men are like the canary in the mine shaft, the first among us to respond to that change, as if their social and ethical immune systems, the controls over their behavior, have been somehow damaged or compromised. And if we don’t identify the specific changes in our culture that are attacking our social and ethical immune systems, which we usually refer to as taboos, then before long we’ll all succumb. We’ll all become sex offenders, Gloria. Perhaps in a sense we already are.”

Analysis

I tested the readability of this 166-word paragraph by using the Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) test. The FRE score was 51.2 (highly readable). This is in spite of a very long sentence, the fourth (“If, as it appears...”), with 94 words; and a long sentence, the fifth (“And if we don’t identify...”), with 33 words.

There are three things that compensate for those two long sentences:

One. The two long sentences are preceded by three very short sentences (nine, nine and eight words respectively) and followed by two very short sentences (six and seven words respectively). The reader experiences an easy warm-up before the long jog through the two long sentences and enjoys a rest after the jog.

Two. The average word length is 4.7 characters: short. That helps readability.

Three. Unlike novelists such as Dan Brown and Stephenie Meyer, Russell Banks is a craftsman. Although the two long sentences are about a fairly technical topic, most readers will not hesitate or stumble. Read those two sentences again and you’ll notice how logically and smoothly they flow. You’ll also notice how the author’s repetition of the heavy phrase “social and ethical immune systems” actually helps rather than hurts the clarity.

We as readers may agree or disagree with the fictional professor’s argument. But either way, we understand his argument. He stated it clearly.

The Takeaway: To improve the clarity of your writing, spend at least ten minutes a day reading aloud from writers who write clearly, such as Russell Banks. You will see, hear and feel the stark contrast between careful diction and the careless, vague, infantile diction (sample here) that besets us every day. The topic you select for your reading doesn’t matter, because you’re reading for style not content. If you would like a list of recommended writers and works, please email me at the address shown in my profile. Ask for my “List of Writers to Absorb.” I will respond via email.

See disclaimer.

How to write for the Internet

If you’re looking for guidance on how to write for the Internet, the place to start is this 756-word article. It’s from the incomparable writing coach Daphne Gray-Grant and it contains crucial information that is known by fewer than one-tenth of one percent of writers.

For example:

“Furthermore, the width of a standard column on the Internet is often too wide for the human eye. (When I worked in the newspaper biz, I was always told that you should multiply the point size you used by two to determine what should be the maximum column width in picas. Thus, anything in 9 pt type should be no more than 18 picas wide, or about three inches.) Many Internet sites have columns far wider than three inches!” (Boldface in original. Italics in original. Link in original.)

Like everything Daphne Gray-Grant writes, the article will help you save time and avoid frustration.

The Takeaway: Read Daphne Gray-Grant’s brief guide to writing for the Internet. Then follow it and make it a part of you.

See disclaimer.

Writing skills require maintenance

A new study shows that the readability of legal briefs significantly declined between 1969 and 2008. The study suggested that the lawyers believed their writing was not bad enough to affect the results of their cases and that they saw “no benefit to the time-consuming and difficult task of changing their writing styles.”

I would add: The lawyers, having decided not to do anything to improve their writing, wrongly assumed that their writing would not deteriorate because of that decision. They did not realize that all kinds of skills deteriorate unless maintained. This is why, for example, musicians practice every day of their lives.

The Takeaway: Like every American, you hear and read thousands of words of bad English every day. Unless you apply a little conscious effort, you will unconsciously assimilate more and more of that bad English as time goes by. Eventually you will sound indolent, effeminate, semi-literate and childish, like most Americans today. That may be good enough for Boobus Americanus. However, you and I are writers; it is not good enough for us. We have pride of craftsmanship.

See disclaimer.

Thanks to Cheryl Stephens for pointing out the article about the study.

The costs of unclear writing

We all know – at least intuitively – that clear writing promotes efficiency and unclear writing impedes it. Here’s an article from Northern Ireland about some clear and unclear government writing samples and a couple of estimates of the costs of unclear writing. The article stars Chrissie Maher (pictured), a famous U.K. advocate of the use of plain English.

Notes for U.S. readers: “Stormont” is shorthand for the government of Northern Ireland. One British Pound (£) equals approximately $1.59 as of this morning.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

In the 1980s Royal Mail postal redirection forms had an 87% error rate and cost £10,000 a week to reprocess. They were rewritten using plain English principles and the postal service estimated that introducing a more clearly worded form saved it £500,000 in the first nine months.

The Takeaway: This is just one example of how the use of clear writing can increase efficiency. When corporations and governments focus on better writing, the gains are typically substantial.

See disclaimer.

Mysterious messages (1)

Once when I ordered a book online, I received this unhelpful error message:

Server Error in '/' Application.

Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

Source Error:

The source code that generated this unhandled exception can only be shown when compiled in debug mode. To enable this, please follow one of the below steps, then request the URL:

1. Add a "Debug=true" directive at the top of the file that generated the error. Example:

  <%@ Page Language="C#" Debug="true" %>

or:

2) Add the following section to the configuration file of your application:

Note that this second technique will cause all files within a given application to be compiled in debug mode. The first technique will cause only that particular file to be compiled in debug mode.

Important: Running applications in debug mode does incur a memory/performance overhead. You should make sure that an application has debugging disabled before deploying into production scenario.

Stack Trace:

[NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.]

   _ASP.step2_aspx.__RenderfrmConquer(HtmlTextWriter __output, Control parameterContainer) +68

   System.Web.UI.Control.RenderChildren(HtmlTextWriter writer) +27

   System.Web.UI.HtmlControls.HtmlForm.RenderChildren(HtmlTextWriter writer) +44

   System.Web.UI.HtmlControls.HtmlForm.Render(HtmlTextWriter output) +397

   System.Web.UI.Control.RenderControl(HtmlTextWriter writer) +243

   System.Web.UI.Control.RenderChildren(HtmlTextWriter writer) +72

   System.Web.UI.Control.Render(HtmlTextWriter writer) +7

   System.Web.UI.Control.RenderControl(HtmlTextWriter writer) +243

   System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain() +1900

Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:1.0.3705.209; ASP.NET Version:1.0.3705.0

Analysis: Why was this message sent to me? Clearly, it was not intended for the layman who wishes to order a book online (me).

The Takeaway: If you write copy that will be used online, test your copy before it goes online. Work with your website people and step through the very process a customer will step through. Make sure everything your customer will see is clear, relevant, and layman-readable. If the techies have inserted extraneous copy into the process, tell them to get it out of there; they are impeding the company's revenue. Think of this test as part of your proofreading.

See disclaimer.

Thanks to SJ Cuthbertson for improving the Takeaway.

Use reverse type sparingly, if at all

Two days ago, bitly displayed this message on its home page:

“Hi there! As you may have heard, we’re rolling out some exciting changes today. We’re hard at work flipping giant candy-colored switches to turn this thing on — we should have you all set up soon, so check back here in a bit!”

The message was in reverse type (light letters against a dark background), which is difficult to read.

The Takeaway: Don’t make your text difficult to read. Don’t put large amounts of text in reverse type, weird typefaces, italics, or all caps.

See disclaimer.

An online readability calculator

In many posts, I have advised writers to test the readability of their drafts. Readability testing is a fast, free and reliable way to learn how to increase readability, which in turn increases clarity.

The world’s favorite readability test, Flesch Reading Ease (FRE), is included in Microsoft Word. You can run FRE as part of a spell-check. For details on how to interpret FRE scores, read this.

And there’s an online readability calculator that does even more. After it calculates the readability of your draft, it identifies the least-readable sentences in the draft. That’s a tremendous help, especially if you are a beginning writer. 

The Takeaway: The fastest way to improve the clarity of your writing is to improve the readability of your writing. Get in the habit of checking the readability of every draft. You’ll be surprised and delighted to see how quickly your writing improves. I wish you the best of success.

Thanks to Daphne Gray-Grant, a great writing coach, for pointing out the online calculator.

See disclaimer.

Product communication

If your job involves writing, editing or approving product communication, you may wish to read the blog post, Five Best Practices for Building Great Product Communication. It was written by Cliff Medling, a technical communications person at Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corp.

It is a brief and concise post, loaded with good advice. The overarching idea is: Use more pictures and fewer words. I spent many years in product communication at Honeywell, and I agree with Mr. Medling.

The Takeaway: Some kinds of writing – including product communication – require more pictures and fewer words than we “word people” are accustomed to. It is good to remind ourselves of this truth. One good way is to recall our own experiences as product users: We know we want a lot of pictures. Clear and helpful pictures.

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The power of specificity (1) -- David Brooks

As we mention often on this blog, one way to improve your writing is to keep reading examples of good writing. David Brooks (pictured), a columnist for The New York Times, recently provided a superb example of a hard-hitting essay. In this piece, he satirizes Americans’ beliefs about inequality.

I especially call your attention to one characteristic of the piece: specificity. Instead of using a lot of generalities, he relentlessly pounds away with example after example.

He organizes the examples into pairs. For instance,

“Fitness inequality is acceptable. It is perfectly fine to wear tight workout sweats to show the world that pilates [sic] have [sic] given you buns of steel. These sorts of displays are welcomed as evidence of your commendable self-discipline and reproductive merit.

“Moral fitness inequality is unacceptable. It is out of bounds to boast of your superior chastity, integrity, honor or honesty. Instead, one must respect the fact that we are all morally equal, though our behavior and ethical tastes may differ.”

He goes on: Acceptable, unacceptable. Acceptable, unacceptable. Soon the reader recognizes that Americans are, to put it kindly, inconsistent on inequality.

This is a writing technique worth emulating.

The Takeaway: If you want to be persuasive when arguing or debating a point, use specificity. A sustained barrage of specific examples in plain language can be more powerful than the most beautifully worded generalities.

See disclaimer.

Update, Wednesday, November 30, 2011: Prompted by a comment from Anonymous, I changed liberals to Americans. Thank you, Anonymous.

The periodic sentence (5)

A periodic sentence is a sentence in which essential information comes late. In other words, the reader has to wait a long time before he can understand where the writer is going.

The opposite of a periodic sentence is a loose sentence, a sentence in which essential information comes early. A loose sentence is what we tend to think of as a normal sentence.

There is nothing inherently wrong with using a periodic sentence. However, it does make your reader work harder than a loose sentence does. In everyday writing, you should use periodic sentences sparingly if at all.

Example of a periodic sentence

Here’s an example of a periodic sentence:

“This government has decreed those who believe in the rule of law; the right to self-determination; the right to defend themselves; veterans who have or might awaken to the tyranny; those who support political candidates who oppose criminal government and those who believe killing a living being to be murder, the enemy.”

Analysis

It is a 52-word sentence. The reader must read all 52 words, especially the last two words (“the enemy”) before he understands the meaning. That’s too long to make the reader wait.

The sentence is also cumbersome.

Loose version

Here’s my suggested loose version:

This government says you are its enemy if you believe in the rule of law, the right to self-determination, or the right to defend yourself; or if you believe it is murder to kill a living being; or if you support political candidates who oppose criminal government; or if you are a veteran who has awoken – or who may awaken – to the tyranny.

My version is less cumbersome, but still cumbersome.

The Takeaway: Use periodic sentences sparingly, if at all, in business writing, technical writing and most other non-fiction writing. The more words the reader has to take in before understanding the sentence, the more likely he is to become confused. But keep in mind, loose vs. periodic is not a matter of right vs. wrong. It is a matter of context; periodic sentences are good for building suspense, and many writers use them effectively in poetry, drama and oratory.

See disclaimer.

How Steve Jobs resigned

To resign the CEO position at Apple, Steve Jobs wrote this letter to the board of directors:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.

I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.

Analysis

This letter is wonderfully concise. In only 142 words, Mr. Jobs:

Resigns his position
Explains why
Says what he would like to do next
Recommends a successor
Predicts increased success for the company
Says he will be pleased to take part in that success
Expresses his feelings about his many years with the company

The letter also is very easy to read; it scores an amazing 72.6 on the Flesch Reading Ease test (a 12-year-old could easily understand it). The typical CEO has never, in his entire career, written anything this readable.

The Takeaway: Take inspiration from Steve Jobs. Always strive to write concisely and simply. And keep getting better.

See disclaimer.

An award for conspicuously unclear English

The BBC reports “The Northern Ireland Civil Service has been given the dubious honour of a prize in the Plain English Campaign’s annual ‘Golden Bull’ awards.” In other words, the Campaign cited the Civil Service for conspicuously unclear English.

Read the full story here.

If you would like to read further about the Plain English Campaign, see this 2009 Wall Street Journal profile of Chrissie Maher, the charming founder of the campaign.

The Takeaway: Clear writing doesn’t just happen; it takes attention, empathy and diligence. Readers appreciate clear writing – at least the intelligent readers do, and they are the only readers who matter.

See disclaimer.

Alfred E. Kahn and plain English

If you missed it, see the inspiring New York Times op-ed piece about the late economist Alfred E. Kahn (pictured), a man who tirelessly and successfully campaigned for plain English.

The column contains pithy quotations about diction and overuse of the passive voice.

The Takeaway: Mr. Kahn famously wrote, “If you can’t explain what you’re doing in plain English, you’re probably doing something wrong.”

See disclaimer.

The periodic sentence (4)

A periodic sentence is a sentence in which essential information comes late. In other words, the reader has to wait a long time before he can understand the sentence.

The opposite of a periodic sentence is a loose sentence, a sentence in which all essential information comes early. A loose sentence is what we tend to think of as a normal sentence.

Grammatically speaking, a periodic sentence is perfectly acceptable; however, it makes the reader work harder.

Example of a periodic sentence

Here’s an example of a periodic sentence:

“Because whether it’s fueled by economic privilege or simply a matter of choice, the rate at which Bay Area parents, regardless of ethnicity, send their children to private schools has historically been higher than most other places in the country, say researchers who have studied the issue.”

Analysis

The reader must read 40 words (up to the word “country”) before he understands the sentence.

The dependent clause “whether it’s fueled by economic privilege or simply a matter of choice” is gratuitous. Readers will assume that (unless otherwise specified) the study includes all Bay Area parents who chose private schools, regardless of their motives.

Similarly, the phrase “regardless of ethnicity” is gratuitous. Readers will assume that (unless otherwise specified) “Bay Area parents” includes all Bay Area parents of school-age children, regardless of the parents’ ethnicity.

Loose version

Here’s my suggested loose version:

Historically, a higher percentage of Bay Area parents have sent their children to private schools than have parents in most other places in the country, say researchers who have studied the issue.

In this version, the reader understands the sentence after only 25 words (up to the word “country”).

The Takeaway: Use periodic sentences sparingly, if at all, in business writing, technical writing and most other non-fiction writing. The more words the reader has to take in before understanding the sentence, the more likely he is to become confused.

See disclaimer.