Writing Well

William Strunk Jr: “The Elements of Style” and Bryan A. Garner “HBR Guide to Better Business Writing”

Two very insightful books on how to write well. Perhaps a dry subject, but also an important one. Rather than critically reviewing the two books, I here aim to provide a “cheat sheet” of Strunk’s and Garner’s most pertinent recommendations.

First published in 1918, Cornell University Professor William Strunk's book has become a classic. This English professor's book offers a lot, but, above all, his “elementary principles of composition” are timeless:

• The paragraph is the basic unit of composition. Each paragraph, in turn, should have one topic. With a new paragraph, the writer signals to the reader that he/ she developing a new topic.
• Each paragraph should have a beginning, a main part, and an end. A paragraph should begin with a topic sentence describing the paragraph's purpose. The writer may then proceed to develop the topic in several forms, he "may make the meaning of the topic sentence clearer by restating it  in other forms, by defining its terms, by denying the converse, by giving illustrations or specific sentences; he may establish it by proofs; or he may help develop it by showing its implications and consequences." Finally,  a paragraph's final sentence should either put an emphasis or state a consequence.
• Use the active voice because it is more forceful (well, unless the passive voice is necessary or more convenient). Strunk points to two cases in which the passive voice should definitely be avoided: two passive constructions should not depend on one another (“Gold was not allowed to be exported”) and what was originally a passive construction should never become the subject of a sentence ("A survey of the region was conducted in 2001").
• Put statements in positive form. Otherwise, the writer risks producing colorless and non-committing language. It is better to say “dishonest” instead of “not honest”; “trifling” instead of “not important”; “forgot” instead of “did not remember”; “ignored” instead of “did not pay attention”; “distrusted” instead of “did not have much confidence”.
• Omit needless words. "Used for fuel purposes" should be "used for fuel; "in a hasty manner” should be hastily", etc. Strunk also argues against the expression "the fact that". "In spite of the fact that" could for instance be better expressed as "though” or “although”, while "the fact that he had not succeeded" better as "his failure". 
• Avoid successions of loose sentences only connected by “and” or “but”. 
• Express coordinate ideas in similar form. Expressions do not constantly need to vary. Instead, it may be appropriate to use parallel constructions to express similar content and function. An example of parallel construction: "Formerly science was taught by the textbook method, now it is taught by the laboratory method.” Importantly, this means that correlative expressions such as “both ... and”; “either ... or”; “first, second, third" etc. should be followed by the same grammatical construction.
• Keep related words together. Subject and verb of a sentence should not be separated (e.g. “God, by virtue of his powers, judges”). Moreover, relative pronouns should follow immediately after their antecedents ("in his eyes was a look that" rather than "there was a look in his eyes that"), so to avoid confusion what those pronouns refer to.
• In summaries, authors should keep one tense. Using multiple tenses creates, as Strunk puts it, "the appearance of uncertainty and irresolution". Antecedent action is expressed in the perfect if the summary is kept in the present and in the past perfect if the summary is in the past. Also, expressions like "he said/ added/ expressed" are of no use, once the reader knows that he/ she is reading a summary.
• Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end. This usually means placing the new element of a sentence- usually its predicate- at the end. Subjects can also be emphatic when placed at the beginning; however, to receive proper emphasis, subjects must take the place of the predicate ("Through the middle of the valley flowed a winding river"). 

Equally usefully, but perhaps a bit more modern and application-oriented in approach is Bryan Garner's "Better Business Writing". At the core of Garner's book stands his distinctions between four different stages of the writing process:

• The "madman" gathers materials and generates ideas.
• The "architect" takes what the "madman" has gathered and organizes it into an outline. Garner recommends for the “architect” to first generate a list of topics and then organize each topic into sets of three points.
• The "carpenter" puts together the text with its sentences and paragraphs based on the “architect's” plans. The “carpenter” should write as quickly as possible rather than waste time on achieving perfection.
• The "judge" conducts the quality control and will have to play first a revising, then an editing role. When revising, the judge should reconsider the text written in its entirety and evaluate whether it comes to the point and is fair, complete, truthful; whether there is an opener, a middle, and a closer; whether points are proven with specifics; whether headings are informative; and whether the closer is consistent, but fresh. The editor, in turn, enquires if there are better or more interesting ways of expressing an idea; if the overall expression could be described as relaxed, yet refined; and if sentences neatly glide into one another.

Similar to Strunk, Garner also lays out his own “principles of composition”. 

• Clarity is best achieved by keeping it simple- a sentence should not be any longer than 20 words-and persuasive- the text should offer evidence rather than "pre-cooked” conclusions.
• Brevity. Vital information should be summarized at the beginning of a document. Each section, in turn, should begin with a sentence summarizing the 5 w's (“who, what, when, where, why”).
• Delete superfluous wording. Every proposition possible, especially "of", should be replaced. Verbs should substitute for every "ion" noun whenever possible ("protected" instead of "provide protection"). Writers should also replace "to be" with stronger verbs and eliminate padding such as "in terms of" or "the purpose of".
• Avoid business speak. Just like when speaking, we should use language as direct as possible. Garner advocates using the Flesch Reading Ease scale. This scale relies on the length of sentences and syllables to derive what level of education somebody needs to understand a text. Developed as part of the “Plain English” movement, the scale measures a text’s accessibility from 0 to 100. Higher values signify that a text is more understandable. Texts that score above 60 can be called as written in plain English. Microsoft Office offers a built-in Flesch scale.
• Use chronology when delivering a factual account.
• Establish continuity through well-joined sentences. Garner offers a whole series of connecting words which allow to add ("further"), underscore ("above all", "chiefly"), concede  ("admittedly", "doubtless", "granted") or return to a point ("even so", "nontheless"); but also to set up conclusions ("on the whole") and contrasts ("conversely"). Also, subheadings may come in handy to establish continuity.
• Learn correct grammar.  Various recurring grammar and wording which tend to vex writing: subject-verb disagreements (“there is risk and danger considerations”); noun-pronoun disagreements (“a citizen may cast their vote”); double negatives (“I couldn’t help but); and non-standard English (“where is the meeting at”).  

Garner also discusses approaches how to avoid annoying one’s readers off.

• Avoiding to anesthetize one’s readers: Garner advocates the use of personal pronouns to pull the reader into a document and the use of contractions where possible (e.g. “remember:” instead of “We would like to remind you”). Further, language should be simple, but varied. Passive voice is to be avoided, and the writer should vary the length and structure of sentences. Acronyms tend to put readers off.
• Watching one’s tone: Hyper formality, sarcasm, and a non-collegial tone all have the potential to offend one’s readers.

Garner concludes his book with recommendations for various forms of business writing, to include memos, e-mails and letters. His suggestions for memos, in particular, stood out to me:

• Develop a short and clear title.
• Summarize key specifics up front.  A memo should start with a summary, which states the issue, the recommended solution, and the reasoning behind it in plain terms. Writing a memo also means constantly readjusting body text and summaries so they are in synch with each other.
• Focus on three audiences at the same time: executives, subject matter experts assessing the soundness of your document, and future readers, who, sometime down the road, may be required to understand your memo .

In conclusion, and just for the fun of it: this text scores 54.8 on the Flesch Reading Ease scale. This score means that the text is "fairly difficult to read" and at 10th to 12 grade school level. I used the passive in 10 percent of the sentences, intentionally so and just for the fun of it in at least two sentences. The average sentence length is 17 words.