Category Archives: clarity

Find the flaw

Posted on August 6, 2025 | Leave a comment

All of the following sentences have the same minor flaw.  Can you find it?

  • On the drive into the city from the airport, we encountered an accident.
  • The teacher scowled after she saw the robot.
  • The bird stopped singing as soon as it saw the cat.

Here’s the flaw.  In each sentence, the writer puts the later action first and the prior action second.

  • Which happens first, driving into the city or leaving the airport? Leaving the airport, right?  So the sentence is better written as “On the drive from the airport into the city. . .”
  • Which happens first, scowling or seeing the robot? Seeing the robot, right?  So the sentence is better written as “After she saw the robot, the teacher scowled.”
  • Which happens first, stopping singing or seeing the cat? Seeing the cat, right?  So the sentence is better written as “As soon as the bird saw the cat, the bird stopped singing.”

The flaw in all three sentences fits under the umbrella of “clarity.”  A sentence should be understood on a literal level during the first reading.  A reader should not need to reread a sentence to figure out in what order things are happening.

One way to gain clarity is by using chronological order.  We think in terms of what happens first, next, later and finally.  Our sentences should contain what happens first, first;  what happens next, next; and so on.  Reversing the order of telling can confuse readers.  [Reversing the order comes first; confusing readers comes second.]  Why take the chance?  Make your writing clear during the first read.

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Posted in clarity, English Writing Instruction, writing tips

Revisiting eight ideas to improve your writing

Posted on April 9, 2024 | Leave a comment

In my past blog, I suggested eight ideas to improve your writing.  In my next paragraph, I will ignore those suggestions and write poorly.  See if you can find eight examples of poor writing in this next paragraph.

A reader contacted this blogger a few days ago.  She informed me that there were good ideas in my most recent blog, and moreover, she suspected this blogger could utilize that blog to compose another blog that contradicts the advice of the first blog, and thereby set up a challenge to locate the poor writing and to attract a multitude of readers like her who are puzzle aficionados.  I listened to my reader’s admonition, and this paragraph is my response.

Spoiler alert:  The following paragraphs expose the poor writing.  Are you ready?

  • “This blogger” draws attention to the writer of the blog in a way that the word “I” does not. As the writer of the blog, I need to refer to myself in the paragraph.  But I should choose an inconspicuous way to do that.

 

  • “She informed me” draws attention to the way she spoke which is unimportant. “She informed” is better written as “she said.”  “Said” is an inconspicuous word.

 

  • “There were” puts the subject later in the sentence. “There were good ideas” could be better written as “my blog contained good ideas.”

 

  • “Moreover” and “thereby” are transition words that interrupt the flow of the sentence. “Moreover” is better said as “and.” “Thereby” is better said not at all in this paragraph. It is not needed.

 

  • “Admonition” is a four-syllable word and “aficionados” is a six-syllable word. Both draw attention to themselves because many readers might not know what the words mean.  It’s better to stick to simpler vocabulary (“advice” and “fans”) in a blog meant for children as well as ESL students and adults.

 

  • The second sentence in the three-sentence paragraph is 59 words long—far too many words for readers trying to understand the writer’s message. The sentence should be broken down into three or four simpler sentences.

 

  • “She informed me that” introduces and indirect quote. Use direct quotes whenever possible so readers can hear for themselves the vocabulary, the tone, the grammar and the inferences of the speaker.

 

  • And lastly, the paragraph is five lines long.  Is that too long?  Maybe, maybe not.  It is the longest paragraph of this blog, so it might look long–and intimidating–to some readers.  This is especially true because it extends the width of the blog.  Yet because the second sentence is so long, the paragraph is hard to subdivide.

 

All these ideas about good writing are based on the fundamental rule of good writing:  Clarity is the most important characteristic of good writing.  If a word or sentence or paragraph is not clear to readers, they will not keep reading.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted in "to be", blog writing, clarity, direct quotes, English Writing Instruction, how to write better, indirect quotes, rules for writing, said, Transitions, word choice

Six ways to improve writing anything

Posted on October 13, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here are six writing practices to make your writing better:

  • Make your sentences clear during a first read, so the reader doesn’t say, “Huh?”  A reader shouldn’t need to backtrack to figure out what you’re trying to say.
  • Use varied sentence structure.  Subject—verb—direct object.  Prepositional phrase—adjective—subject—verb—adverb.  Gerund—prepositional phrase—verb—adjective.  Subject—verb—direct object—appositive.  So many combinations exist.  Why bore readers with the same old same old?
  • Keep subjects and verbs near each other.  A thought which is interrupted by prepositional phrases, clauses and other grammatical constructions leads to unclear reading.  (The previous sentence’s subject is “thought.” Its verb comes twelve words later.  This is an example of what not to do.)
  • Eliminate most adverbs, especially those ending with -ly.  Instead, choose strong verbs, so an adverb is not needed.
  • Eliminate repeated words unless you are using them for emphasis.  Some repeated words I see my students use are “start,” “then,” “so,” “like,” and “really.”  Identify your repeated words, and see if you need them.
  • Use good grammar, but don’t strive for perfect grammar.  Writing today is more conversational than in the past.  And more informal.  (Did you notice that that last “sentence” is not a sentence at all but a fragment?)  You can begin sentences with “and” and “but.”  You can use “you” instead of “he” or “she” or “one.”

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Posted in active verbs, adverbs, clarity, English Writing Instruction, fragments, grammar, lack of appeal to readers, lockstep sentence patterns, needless words, sentence structure

Coherence, the most important element in writing

Posted on December 13, 2020 | Leave a comment

Writing well requires following certain steps in sequence:

  • Narrowing your topic
  • Organizing your information, including writing an overarching topic sentence or thesis and subtopic sentences or plot lines
  • Writing a first draft
  • Revising, revising, revising
  • Editing

Once your first draft is complete, revising becomes most important.  So many tasks comprise revising—checking for complete sentences, tightening wordiness, analyzing ideas for logic, honing vocabulary, fixing grammar errors, adding figures of speech and style.  Students wonder where to begin.

Begin with coherence, the most important element of writing.  Coherence means making sure all your sentences make sense and flow from one to another.  Coherence means making sure your readers understand what you mean—easily, at first read, without an interpreter.

How do you do that?  Some ways include:

  • Make sure every sentence in the body paragraphs supports the thesis. If you use an anecdote, make sure it is an example of the ideas in the thesis.  If you use a simile or metaphor, make sure it fits with the topic.  If the topic is igneous rock, for example, the simile “as hot as the steam from a steam boat” is off topic, whereas “as hot as a lava lake” is on topic.
  • If you use numbers (three kinds of rocks, five members of my family, one favorite memory), check that you have named all the numbers and no more.
  • Use logical transitions. “Because” means something causes something else.  Make sure you have named a cause and an effect if you use “because.”  “Finally” means the last one in a series or the last point.  If you have only two or three points, you shouldn’t use “finally.” You should use “secondly,” or “next,” or “third.”
  • If you use a pronoun, make sure you have named the noun the pronoun refers back to. And make sure you have named that noun before you use the pronoun (not “When she fell, Mary broke her arm,” but “When Mary fell, she broke her arm.”  If you use “this,” make sure your reader can know in a word or phrase what “this” refers to.  If “this” is vague or complicated, add a noun after “this” (this situation, this erosion, this loss of interest).  If you have two women talking, make sure if you use “she,” the reader knows which one you are referring to.  Otherwise, use her name or title or position.
  • Check that your sentences are complete thoughts–not fragments or run-ons.  Make sure your complex sentences contain no more than two dependent clauses so readers needn’t hold multiple ideas in their minds at once.  Check that your sentences vary in length, with most more than ten and fewer than 20 words.
  • Change your weak, vapid verbs to active, dynamic verbs.  Eliminate the verb “to be” and passive voice verbs.

If what you write lacks coherence, no matter how specific the vocabulary, no matter how beautiful the description, no matter how lofty your aim, your writing will flop.  Your writing must make sense to a reader without you standing at her elbow explaining, “Well, what I mean is. . .”

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Posted in "to be", active verbs, because, clarity, coherence, complex sentence, English Writing Instruction, flow, good writing v. bad writing, metaphors, number of words per sentence, organizing information, passive verbs, pronouns, readability, revising first drafts, run-ons, similes, thesis, Transitions, word choice

How to increase clarity in your writing

Posted on June 22, 2020 | 1 comment

Below are three sentences from the June 22, 2020, issue of The New York Times.  All three sentences have writing problems.  Can you figure out what they are?  (Hint:  All three sentences are grammatically correct.)

Detective with a magnifying glass inspecting a newspaper.Sentence 1:  In a survey conducted this month by the Partnership for New York City, a business group, respondents from 60 companies with Manhattan offices predicted that only 10 percent of their employees would return by Aug. 15.

Sentence 2:  More riders have already returned to public transportation during the first phase of reopening than officials at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the city’s subway systems and buses, had anticipated.

Sentence 3:  A team of scientists including Sarah H. Olson, an epidemiologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society who directed the research, posted a report of their research, which has not yet been peer reviewed but has been submitted to a scientific journal, on a website for unpublished research, bioRxiv.

First problem:  length.  The number of words in the sentences is 36, 31, and 46, respectively.  The more words in a sentence, usually the harder that sentence is to understand.

Second problem:  clauses.  Sentence 1 has two clauses; sentence 2 has three clauses; and sentence 3 has three clauses.  Sometimes two or three clauses do not make a sentence hard to read.  (For example, “My son, who is three, likes to look for bugs which are dead.”)  But if those clauses are long, or are in long sentences, they can be hard to understand.

Third problem:  subject-verb separation.  In sentence 1, six words separate the subject [respondents] and verb [predicted] in the independent clause.  In sentence 2, thirteen words separate the subject in the dependent clause [officials] from its verb [had anticipated].  In sentence 3, sixteen words separate the subject of the independent clause [team] from its verb [posted].  When subjects and verbs are separated, readers find meaning harder to understand.

Fourth problem:  long words.  Sentence 1 has seven words of three or more syllables.  Sentence 2 has eight.  Sentence 3 has seven.  Long words can be good if they are specific.  But when you place long words in long sentences with multiple clauses whose subjects and verbs are separated by many words, confusion increases and understanding decreases.

Luckily, The New York Times attracts well educated readers.  They understand long words and can hold many thoughts in their minds as they read multiple clauses in long sentences.

How about your readers?  Can they understand your writing without having to stop and start over?  If not, try shortening your sentences, separating clauses into separate sentences, keeping subjects and verbs next to each other, and eliminating words of many syllables when a simpler synonym exists.

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Posted in clarity