Writing Clearly by Zarah Boyer

Writing clearly is extremely important for your message to be communicated effectively. It facilitates the understanding of the reader and is necessary to make your point.


The first step in writing clearly is to organize your ideas into a logical outline. This process allows you to see what is important in communicating to the reader. This is probably the most important step because you can lay out what you want your reader to know. The important thing to know about making an outline is that you don't have to follow it verbatim, it can change as you write and it is completely malleable.


Secondly, you want to make sure that your ideas are getting communicated so you have to tell the reader what you're going to tell them, tell them again, then tell them what you told them. This may seem a little redundant or excessive but it is important to let the reader know what you are trying to say. You can start by telling the reader your topic in the introduction, then continue throughout the body paragraphs and finally tell them what you told them in the conclusion paragraph.


Another thing that is important is to stick to your point. Try not to stray away from your main idea because that can cause confusion with your reader. It is also important to make it interesting. A reader is more likely to stay focused and want to read a piece if it is interesting.


Some more important things to remember are:

• Write for your target audience.



• Assume that your readers are intelligent but do not assume they know the subject matter as well as you do.



• Write cohesive paragraphs structured around a main idea.



• Avoid slang and jargon.



• Use familiar words and combinations of words.



• Use active voice.



• Avoid weak verbs.



• Use parallel sentence construction.



• Use positive terms.



• Avoid acronyms and abbreviations and if they are necessary explain all acronyms and abbreviations.



• Ensure that every sentence and paragraph is necessary.

These steps faciliate that writing and understanding of the written work and aid in the readers ease assessment of it. If you follow these simple instructions you are sure to have a clear idea and essay.

Below is a video dipicting how damaging, if not funny, unclear writing can be:

"WebAIM: Writing Clearly and Simply." WebAIM: Web Accessibility In Mind. 28 Mar. 2009 http://www.webaim.org/techniques/writing/#guidelines.