Plain Writing
Eliminate “Necessary” and “Unnecessary” for Better Communication in Writing
Get rid of these two major sources of uncertainty and ambiguity for better communication and to become a better writer… I forgot the number of times in private and corporate communications that I came across expressions, directions, or statements that went something like this: “All unnecessary travel requests should be postponed until further notice.” Even…
Read MoreHow to Write a Great Topic Sentence for a Paragraph
© Ugur Akinci A TOPIC SENTENCE is the first lead sentence in a paragraph consisting of multiple sentences. The topic sentence summarize the main idea of the paragraph. It sets the expectation about what is to follow in the rest of the paragraph. You can even say it’s a “commercial” so to speak that “sells”…
Read More2 Methods to Avoid Gender Ambiguity
One of the hardest things in writing English is to avoid using the third person singular pronouns, unless you are writing for an exclusively male or female group. Every time I see a document with a sentence like “the operator must configure his or her machine according to…” I cringe. Some writers switch back and…
Read MoreUsing "In Question" in Plain Writing
I have a confession to make. I have a bad habit. Once in a while I emphasize an object with the qualifier “in question”. For example: “Save the variable in question to the database.” What I really mean, in terms of plain writing, is very simple: the pronoun “this”. I could easily say “save THIS…
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