Writing Clearly

A pronoun (he, she, it, their, etc.) must clearly refer to the noun it replaces. Ambiguous pronoun reference confuses readers.

Unclear: The customer complained about the clerk because she was impatient.

Who was impatient, the customer or the clerk? This sentence is not clear because she could refer to either the customer or the clerk. We should rewrite this sentence to make it clear. The following sentences make it clear that the clerk was impatient.

Clear: The customer complained that the clerk was impatient.

Clear: Because the clerk was impatient, the customer complained.

Readers prefer the active construction (doer-action) that says that someone did something– I wrote the letter–, instead of the passive construction (action done by doer)– The letter was written by me.

Unclear: The message was posted by the social media coordinator.
Clear: The social media coordinator posted the message.

Use passive voice selectively.

We should use the passive when we don’t know who did the action or when it is not important. For example, in the sentence– The check was lost in the mail–, we don’t know who lost the check. We shouldn’t just blame the mailman or another post official to write an active sentence.

The verb to be (is, are, was, etc.) does not highlight action.

Definition: A standard operating procedure, or SOP, is a set of instructions to help workers carry out complex routine operations.
Highlights Action: A standard operating procedure, or SOP, helps workers carry out complex routine operations.

Nominalizations are nouns that can be transformed into verbs.

decision decide
entry enter
movement move
failure fail

Action is easier for us to understand. We prefer a narrative structure that answers the question: who or what does what? The subject-verb-object is the simplest to read, and therefore the clearest. Nominalizations disrupt this pattern.

Some nominalizations can be identified by the -ion suffix, as in decision, migration, assumption, and intervention. Rewrite the sentence so that the -ion noun is a verb.

Unclear: The decision was to change the strategy.
Clear: We decided to change the strategy.

Nominalizations can be part of a structure that links two nouns with a preposition. For example in the phrase “failure of this project” failure is the nominalization. Rewrite the sentence so the noun is a verb.

Unclear: The key to wellness is to provide care at entry into the system.
Clear: The key to wellness is to provide care when patients enter the system.

Readers might find it difficult to understand strings of nouns that modify each other. We often have one noun modify another, as in computer technician or English major, but stringing more than two nouns together can hinder clarity.

Unclear: Make sure everyone completes the folklore student evaluation.
Clear: Make sure each folklore student completes an evaluation.

Folklore student evaluation is an unwieldy collection of stacked nouns, in which folklore modifies student and both modify evaluation. It is clearer if we rewrite the sentence to unstack the nouns. 

Using the language of the academy or fancy words we find in the thesaurus can get in the way of communication.

Look at the following two sentences. Which is more memorable?

Unclear: We are endeavoring to construct a more inclusive society.–Speech Writer
Clear: We’re going to make a country in which no one is left out.–President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR)

FDR revised the original to make it clearer for his audience. His revision is certainly more memorable. Below are some other words you should consider revising out of your writing:

ascertain find out
commence begin
expend spend
initiate begin
terminate end
transmit send
utilize use

Choosing the right word often depends on your audience, so choose them carefully. When in doubt simplify.