IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, VOL. PC-26, NO.1, MARCH 1983

Some Tips for Clear WritingH. F. LIPPINCOTT

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Abstract-Making sense is the hallmark of purposeful writing, yettoo few people take the time necessary to revise what they havewritten. No one should be satisfied with a first draft. Writing is aprocess and, as such, requires taking whatever time is necessary toproduce worthwhile writing. Included are seven tips to consider in therevision process: (I) keep subjects, verbs, objects, and complementsclose together; (2) maintain an average sentence length of less than 20words; (3) prefer the active voice; (4) eliminate the indefinite "this";(5) simplify verb tenses; (6) ensure that all paragraphs have cleartopic sentences; and (7) avoid --this is" and .. there are" construc­tions.

WRITING is a highly complex process that most peopleunfortunately do not know enough about. The act of

writing has an effect on the way we think, because only inputting our thoughts down on paper can we see themclearly. The writing process transforms ideas into sense.What we end up with is not necessarily what we startedwith. The person who laments "How do I know what I wantto say until I write it down?" is probably right. Moreover,many people find it hard to write because they do not haveenough ideas to start with. They attempt the writing processbefore they are prepared. If we do not know our subject,writing makes us vulnerable. The fact that we are notprepared becomes evident immediately.

Too often we do not allow the writing process to work for uscompletely. Sometimes we are satisfied with a first draftthat may not express all we think or feel about a matter. Thefirst-draft syndrome is also the excuse of busy people whothink they have no time to revise. But if the report or thearticle or the letter is worth writing, it is always worthrevising until it makes sense.

Making sense is what writing is all about because only sensecommunicates. Often the difference between a good writerand a poor one is not native ability but the fact that a goodwriter takes the time to be clear. Hard writing makes easyreading, as the saying goes.

TRANSLATING TECHNICAL JARGON

Another problem with writing today is that our world hasbecome so complex that most of us must be content withfairly narrow specialties-subject areas we really feel com­fortable with. When we are writing for others in our spe­cialty, we can afford to take shortcuts and use initials oracronyms (words like radar or sonar, formed from initials)and the special vocabulary of our field that we call jargon.But any time we write for a wider audience-and that is

Reprinted with permission from Logistics Spectrum, vol. 16, no. 1pp.43-45, Spring 1982; copyright 1982 by the Society of LogisticsEngineers, Huntsville, AL.

The author is retired from the U.S. Air Force, P. O. Box 11281,Montgomery, AL 36111, (205) 263-2375.

most of the time-we have to keep in mind that our jargondoes not make sense or communicate to others. The follow­ing sentence might be appropriate when writing for diehardcomputer buffs: "Implementing DDP will make maximumuse of the mainframe computer. " However, even in aspecialized journal, ~~DDP" should be spelled out as"distributed data processing," then defined; and some inthe audience might even need "mainframe" computer ex­plained.

The real expert in a field is one who can take the complexjargon dealt with daily and translate it into generally un­derstandable terms. To attempt to communicate using justthe jargon is elitist and insulting to the general reader. Moreimportant, jargon simply fails to communicate clearly, evenwithin a field.

In this process of translating technical material, two thingsare obvious: The first is that translation takes time andeffort; it's much easier to get the jargon down on the pagewith no regard for who will read it or for its lack of claritythan it is to translate it. The second is that in the process oftranslation some subtleties may be lost.

These tasks, revising drafts and translating jargon, canmake reports and articles clear. Here are some specific tipsfor improving your writing:

• Keep subject, verb, and object or complement closetogether. The subject and verb acting on an object (or

complement) are the essential parts of a sentence that helpexpress a complete thought. Every other sentence element isa modifier or a "hedger." Consider this sentence:

A comprehensive evaluation of the operational retrainingprogram and of the progress and performance of the 10,000to 15,000 airmen who change specialties annually is under­way.

Technically, we call this a suspended sentence, for thecompletion of the thought is suspended until we get to theverb and its complement at the end. Recast the sentence as~ ~ A comprehensive evaluation is underway . . ." or, evenbetter, tell us who is eval uating. Revising to put subject,verb, and complement as close together as possible tre­mendously enhances readability.

• Write sentences averaging less than 20 words.Rudolf Flesch's studies of readability in the forties

show that sentence length is a most important factor. If youknow that you have a tendency to be verbose, consciouslywrite shorter sentences. Do not be afraid to be curt orchoppy at the start. You can always combine or, better still,revise some by using subordinate clauses or phrases.

12 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, VOL. PC-26, NO.1, MARCH 1983

• Prefer the active voice to the passive. The natural formof the ,English sentence, refined through the centuries,

predominantly uses the active voice (John saw the dog),which has the subject acting through the verb on the object.The frequent use of passive voice (The dog was seen byJohn) is a relatively recent phenomenon-perhaps influ­enced by German scientific writing of the 19th century. Itsuse is usually artificial, because the actor in the sentence iseither missing or buried in a prepositional phrase. The argu­ment that you must throw in a passive sentence from time totime for variety is hokum. If you use more than one or twopassive sentences in each page of writing, you are notconsciously thinking in active voice. Find the actor andmake him or her the subject of your sentences whereverpractical. A great writing teacher at Michigan, SheridanBaker, says, "Avoid the passive. Avoid the passive. Avoidthe passive. "

• Eliminate the indefinite "this" at the beginning of asentence. Consider this passage:

The UDB will make logistics and HR data available to thedesigners, logisticians, and engineers at an earlier stage ofthe WS design process. This will allow logistics and HRfactors to impact design to a much larger degree.

Quite apart from the meaning of the two sentences (they arefar from clear), the floating "this" at the start of the secondhas no identifiable antecedent. It refers to an abstraction­the whole idea expressed in the previous sentence. Often thefix is to insert a noun after "this," such as "this change" or4'this innovation." Sometimes the fix is more difficultbecause 44this" hides a shift in thought and the secondsentence does not actually follow from the first. Carefulwriters always make antecedents clear and avoid a floating44this."

• Simplify verb tenses. Whenever possible, keep to thesimple present (he goes), simple past (he went), or

simple future tense (he will go) . Avoid compound tenses (heis going, he would have gone). "Today we feel" is clearerthan, "Certain conditions facing the nation today are beingfelt severely. " Remember that when ,Youcite from a book,the fact that someone has written the passage should usuallybe expressed in the present tense (as Rosenstein says in hispreface, or Aristotle reminds us continually in his Poetics).The fact that in one case the author is living and in the otherhe is dead has nothing to do with how we cite him. But whenspecifying a point past in time use past tense: 44 As early as1934, Sarnoff expressed interest in .... "

• Avoid "there is" and "there are." These expressionsare lifeless because they substitute for a finite verb and

lead only to simple enumeration. They also lead to sen­tences like" "There are several universities around the coun­try which are striving toset up a logistics academic specialty.... " Notice that the italicized words can be deleted en­tirely, making the sentence more concise.

• Write a clear topic sentence for every paragraph (orgroup of paragraphs). Be continually aware of the 44 S0

what?" of writing. If you force yourself to establish para­graph direction in the topic sentence and extend from itlogically to a conclusion, the reader will follow your ar­gument more easily. The same goes for forecasting. Avoidempty statements like 4"The purpose of my paper is .... "Instead tell the reader what to expect in a solid declarativesentence with an action verb such as, "Dirninishing manu­facturing sources (OMS) for older defense systems willplague the DOD logistician the next decade." With asentence like this readers know exactly where they areheaded, and if they do not want to read further, they do nothave to. Psychologists tell us that adults, especially, likeclear direction both in the classroom and in dealing withwritten material. There can be no more reprehensible crit­icism of a piece of writing than to have its readers con­tinually ask, "What's this article about? What's the point?"

WHERE TO GO FOR HELP

Here are some books that may be helpful: A classic is H. J.Tichy's Effective Writing for Engineers, Managers, Scien­tists (New York: John Wiley and Sons; 1966). Buzz wordsand jargon to avoid are found in Rudolf Flesch's, The ABCof Style: A Guide to Plain English (New York: Harper andRow; 1964), recently republished in a paperback (PerennialLibrary P83). Although not specifically concerned withtechnical writing, a book of the "underground grammar­ian" Richard Mitchell, Less Than Words Can Say (Boston:Little, Brown; 1979), is an eye opener on how language canbe misused.

Although books on writing can help us, in the long runnothing substitutes for thinking clearly and expressingthoughts as simply as possible. A person who speaks pomp­ously probably writes pompously, too, and may not thinkclearly. Writing is a transparent process. Poor writing failsto communicate and also casts doubt on our basic com­petence. Sir Ernest Gowers, a distinguished British civilservant, reminds us: 44To be clear is professional; not to beclear is unprofessional."