It is best not to use jargon. You may think otherwise, but it makes your writing harder to understand.

After writing about the virtues of snappy, easy-to-read writing, I re-read earlier stories on this site and found shocking examples of mangement-speak jargon.

For example, in Managing change: keeping a lid on panic I wrote about 'participative management'.

Are these jargon terms avoidable?

They should be. 'Participative management' is a horrid term.

Ambiguous language is bad languge

It is ambiguous – it could mean a number of things. And the five syllable word 'participative' is troublesome on a number of fronts.

The phrase is typical of the highfalutin jargon-laden nonsense empty-headed bosses puff themselves up with.

Yes, I confess it is bad. Yet I don't think it would be possible to write about the subject without using the term.

I thought of going back and changing the term to 'open management'. The term is still a tad wanky and ambiguous, but 'open' is miles better than 'participative'.

Let me be understood

The problem is, nobody understands what the term 'open management' means. You could almost say the same about 'participative management'. But the term is understood by management experts and academics.

Google lists 170,000 entries for 'participative management'. They mainly refer to the same thing.

There are 73,000 Google entries for 'open management'. One look at the first page of entries shows the term is used in a variety of different ways – in some cases for complicated information technology things.

So, it looks as if we are stuck with 'participative management' and hundreds of other management terms. In my next post we'll look at how to use them and not lose our readers.

Your job as a writer is to get your message across clearly and quickly.

One way you can sabotage your communication is by laying traps for readers. They stop a reader's flow as their eye scans over text.

Punctuation – as the name suggests – stops flow. This is why, for example, I leave out all optional commas.

You can also slow down a reader's flow when you use capital letters incorrectly. For the same reason you should never write a word entirely in capitals.

Likewise I don't use the '&' symbol – instead I write 'and'. The exception to this rule is when the '&' forms part of a company's name.

The same applies to '+'. I've used it at the top of this page, but it doesn't count because it's not a piece of flowing text.

It is also better to write out percent in full than use %. Although some newspapers, including one where I work, insists on using the symbol.

Never resort to phone text-style language in anything written for a wider audience. It's not funny, clever or useful.

1. Start straight away. Don't waste time warming up.
2. Reduce barriers between your ideas and your audience.
3. Write clearly. Use readily understandable language. Be unambiguous.
4. Learn grammar. Forget what teachers said about long words making you look smart. It's not true.
5. Instead use simple words, grammar and sentences. It's harder to go wrong.
6. Go easy on adjectives and adverbs.
7. Spellcheck.
8. Try to imagine your reader – an ordinary bloke or woman. Write for that person.
9. Use 'be' verbs sparingly to make your writing more interesting. Use them even less in headlines.
10. "I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time." Most people think it was Mark Twain; it was Blaise Pascal, a French Mathematician.
11. Keep sentences short; up to 20 words. A 15 word sentence limit is better.
12. Keep paragraphs short; usually one to four sentences. Only use more if you need to.
13. Use plenty of full stops and line breaks. Use lists and bullet points. Be generous with crossheads (secondary headings).
14. Highlight keywords with bold or italics.
15. Writing is story telling.
16. Summarise your story in the headline.
17. If you write an introduction use it to tell readers what your story is about. Expand on your ideas in the following paragraphs.
18. Write so the story can be cut at any point yet readers have the maximum information.
19. Aim for short and crisp. Online readers will tire after 200 words and start dropping out at around 300 Keep most stories below this length although you can write some longer pieces.
20. You can find longer explanations of all these points elsewhere on this site.

My presentation from WordCampNZ in 300 words.

Students and academics assume people will think they’re dumb and won’t take their ideas seriously if their writing isn't complex, dense and difficult to read.

The problem is real. As Rachel Toor writes, bad writing and bad thinking go hand in hand.

I prefer to turn this idea on its head: Crisp writing is a sign of neatly ordered thinking. Or as I said in a previous post: Good writing is direct, clear and precise. It is also unambiguous.

Much of Toor’s piece is about passive language – which she rightly condemns. Scientists and engineers sometimes need to use the passive voice, but for the most part the active voice is best.

She pulled much of the remainder or her piece from an  essay by George Orwell.

Academics need to read this. For the rest of us it is a wake up call.

See Bad Writing and Bad Thinking – Do Your Job Better – The Chronicle of Higher Education

Erin Brenner at the Writing Resource asks: “Does spelling still matter?”

It does. It matters a lot.

Some people think worrying about spelling and grammar is anal and backward. They are wrong.

There are two non-anal reasons why spelling and grammar are important and will remain important for as long as people still read printed words:

First: Well-written, properly spelt (I’m British, this is allowable), grammatically correct English is unambiguous.

Poorly written English is more open to misinterpretation.

If being understood is important, then worry about spelling and grammar.

Second: Well-written text flows, it’s a pleasure to read. It sends readers a message about your professionalism and wisdom. It is credible.

Poorly-written English jerks around, causes readers to stumble, they may not realise why this sets off alarm bells in their heads, but it does.

Too much poor English and they’ll question the message. This may not happen on a conscious level. It may not happen with all readers. It will happen enough for it to matter.

Americans use more commas than the British*.

You often find long, asthmatic, comma-packed sentences in American newspapers. They don't make for easy reading.

I prefer using plenty of full stops — periods to Americans — and sparing the comma. I only use commas where they aid understanding. Writers often underrate the comma's use as an aid to sense.

It can be hard keeping track of who does what to whom in long, comma-laden sentences. Breaking sentences into smaller units of meaning makes your writing easier to follow.

Some Americans put commas between all clauses and sub-clauses. British-trained writers avoid them between short clauses at the start of sentences.

Americans use commas before and at the end of a sequence of items. In Britain the final comma only gets used when one of the sequence items includes an and.

Some experts report American writers are slowly moving towards British patterns and commas are now less common on both sides of the Atlantic.

When training younger journalists, I used to joke about Americans using lots more commas than the Brits because they are so much richer and can afford the extra ink.

*Australians and New Zealanders follow the British pattern.

Winston Churchill said: “Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.”

He was right.

Short words are best because they don’t get in the reader’s way. They are familiar. This makes them easy to understand and easy to spell.

They are also easier to pronounce

Most short words come from Anglo-Saxon, not Latin. They tend to describe real world objects and actions rather than abstract concepts.

Short words get straight to the point.

Good clear writing is readily understandable and unambiguous.

Great writers make sure there are as few barriers as possible between their message and their audience. They help ideas flow smoothly.

I don’t claim I'm a great writer, but I’ve made a decent living for the last 30 years from being a competent journalist.

Along the way I’ve learnt a thing or two. Most of my writing is in what we in the trade call newspaper style.

Newspapers and magazines or publishing companies usually have their own style books which lay out a set of rules – mainly for the sake of consistency. They differ from paper to paper, town to town and country to country, yet many of the best ideas are common to most, if not all, style books.

I've written a series of tips to help you become a better writer.

You don’t have to follow them all. You don’t have to agree with any of them. But reading them will help you think about your writing and that will improve matters.

How to write like an old-time journalist. You can learn a lot about writing from old-school newspaper journalism.

Said will do. Never use a verb other than “said” when reporting speech.

Forget company history. Focus on the important stuff.

First, second, third. How to handle lists.

Writing tips: Avoid and/or and slashes. Slashes aren't just an ugly distraction, they also make your meaning unclear.

Prepositions at the end of sentences. Most of the grammar you learnt at school is helpful. The rule about prepositions at the end of sentences isn't.

Apostrophe errors undermine your credibility

Snappy writing works best online

Capital letters. Use capital letters for proper nouns. Avoid them for common nouns.

Better writing: Go easy on the adjectives

Better writing: Keep it simple

Better writing: The inverted pyramid

Better writing: And

The active voice: Better writing

Companies are singular

In defence of clear, crisp communications

Ten tips to make sure your press release fails

Minimise jargon Jargon doesn’t make you look smarter. It tells your readers you’re a pompous wind-bag.

To be or not to be If you want to make your writing clearer and more interesting, use be verbs sparingly.

Headline writing for online copy. The first in a series showing how you can write great headlines to turn browsers into readers.

If you need a freelance writer to help communicate your message, please contact me.