5 Ways To Make Your Writing More Readable
You may be one of those lucky people who have the natural “gift” of writing. Every word, sentence, and paragraph on your page turns to platinum. Articulate. Interesting. Charismatic. You were born to dazzle the world with your razor sharp wit.
Well, for the rest of us - including me - writing is just plain HARD work.
But here’s the good news...
You don’t need to be a “brilliant” writer to write good copy.
For those who like to waffle, and who pride themselves on their vocabulary muscle, listen to this - using long words and long sentences will only hinder your message.
Quintessentially and unequivocally verisimilitude.
I'm not just making this up. Have a look at these 5 simple writing techniques based upon research conducted by Rudolph Flesch.1 These straight-forward tips will help anyone who wants to communicate more effectively.
- Make your sentences short with an average of 16 words. No sentence should be longer than 32 words. The easiest sentence to read is 8 words long.
- Make your paragraphs short, particularly the first. Have one thought in each paragraph.
- Words should be short and lively, not long and dull. i.e. ‘Love’ not ‘affection’, ‘buy’ not ‘purchase’, ‘free’ not ‘complimentary’.
- Cut out needless words because they slow down reading. E.g. “miss out on” to “miss” “crisis situation” to “crisis” and “for free” to “free”
- Beware of stale expressions. E.g. ‘At the end of the day’, ‘to be honest with you’, ‘frankly’ and ‘when push comes to shove’ These phrases slow down reading and usually add nothing to the meaning of a sentence.
© Jon Ireland Dip IDM, Flying Kite, 2009
Jon Ireland has a post-graduate diploma from the Institute of Direct Marketing and the Institute of Copywriting.
1 - Flesch is famous for his ‘Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease test’, which can be found in Microsoft Word’s Grammar check. He also wrote the bestselling book “Why Johnny can’t read: And what you can do about it”.
Questions and Answers
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