第274页 | 300 Days of Better Writing | 阅读 ‧ 电子书库

Day 282: Write what you mean, simply and clearly.

In literature, the ambition of every novice is to acquire the literary language; the struggle of the adept is to get rid of it.
(George Bernard Shaw)

I was asked recently why so many students write in a convoluted, pretentious manner typified by the excessive use of modifying phrases and nominalizations. For example, a student may write

“The result of our marketing analysis of red ink is a questionable understanding of its commercialization potential.”

Huh?

Ask this student what he means, and he may respond,

“We conducted a marketing survey to determine whether or not we could make any money selling red ink, but we don’t know.”

Ok, that’s better. So why didn’t he write like that in the first place? He had fallen into the trap of trying to impress with his word use and sentence complexity—instead of impressing with his ideas.

Here’s the point: Nothing is wrong with writing simply, concisely, and plainly. Impress your readers with your ideas, not your delivery. By focusing on the ideas, your delivery may also impress. However, if your delivery is poor, neither your delivery nor your ideas will impress.