Writing for clarity

My previous article described measures for writing clarity and how they should be set for audiences with different language skillsets. These systems define a language level but do not tell you how to adjust your writing to achieve that level. 

There are few penalties for using language that is too simple. You might be perceived as talking down to your audience and will have to use a larger number of words and sentences to get your points across. However, your points will be understood. 

The penalty for using language that is too complex is that your intended meaning is lost when your writing is read by your audience. Improving the clarity of your writing will help you to win more work. In this article, I will discuss some techniques that you can use to improve the clarity of your writing. 

Get the level right

No document should be written without a first having a plan in place that describes the intended structure. Techniques for outlining and storyboarding are deserving of articles in their own right. Suffice it to say here that having a clear plan in place before starting to write is vital. That plan should include the level at which the document should be written. 

It is a weakness in Word’s implementation of Flesch-Kincaid that it only provides a score for the document as a whole. This can hide areas of excessive complexity in an otherwise simple document. The Hemingway Editor, by contrast, provides its automated readability index analysis sentence-by-sentence. This is of great help when trying to maintain a consistent level of complexity in a long document. 

For most business documents, the audience will have a native level understanding of the document language but will not be technical specialists in the topics being discussed. Where this is the case, aim for a CEFR level of B2 or lower, or a Flesch-Kincaid of 60 or higher.

Use simpler structures

One of the first things to do when trying to write clearly is to use short sentences with few subclauses. This reduces the volume of information that needs to be understood in one go. Bear in mind that, in most cases, this will make the document longer than it would otherwise be. When working under word or page count restrictions you will need to be careful to still cover all necessary points when writing in this way. 

If your audience is not aware of a term then they will fail to follow your meaning. Jargon, colloquialism, simile, idiom and metaphor should all be absent from business documents. This is a particularly large pitfall where your audience is from a different culture to your own, or is not using their mother tongue, or both. 

Standardise your terms

When writing about something, always use the same term for it. Resist the temptation to introduce synonyms, as these increase the opportunity for confusion in the mind of your audience. Given the choice between two synonyms, use the one that is more common. Build a glossary for yourself (and share it with your fellow authors), noting down the alternatives that arise and what term should be used instead. 

Benefits over features

Every document should have a clear purpose. Every sentence should assist in moving towards that purpose. Sentences that do not move things forward distract from those that do, reducing clarity and so should not be included. In sales documents like bids, the purpose is to encourage a decision on the part of the audience to select your particular product or service. 

Features describe aspects of the product or service, whereas benefits describe the impact that has on (or for) the audience. Generally, it’s easier to write the former. Features imply (rather than state) the thing that you want the audience to believe. Benefits leave your audience completely clear as to what the product or service will mean for them, and so you should describe the benefits wherever possible.

Use formatting to help

This is another topic that is worthy of an article in its own right. Use visual aids to improve the clarity of your writing, such as:

• A greater number of paragraphs where each paragraph conveys a single point
• Breaking longer sentences into bullet lists 
• Tables and infographics to support and illustrate your ideas
• Headings and captions to help your audience navigate the document

Make sure that these are applied in a consistent way throughout your document so that the “visual language” of your document is as clear as the writing itself. 

Don’t trust autocorrect or spelling and grammar checks

These are a safety net rather than a trusted tool. They can introduce errors as well as remove them. They encourage you to only examine issues that they have found and so miss issues elsewhere. It is also worth noting that numerical analysis tools will award good readability scores to documents that make no sense. 

Writing with clarity is not easy. It takes thought, care and practice. Follow these tips and your writing will communicate with your audience and your sales performance will improve. 

In the last of this series of articles, I will discuss techniques that can be used when reviewing the writing of an author whose language skills are not perfect, or who is writing in a second language. Look out for that in around a week’s time. 

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