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.

Good writing is direct, clear and precise. It sends your thoughts and ideas directly to readers.

Concrete nouns keep your writing on track. They are unambiguous, specific and to the point. Use concrete nouns to pin things down and inform readers.

A noun is concrete when it refers to something you can touch, smell, see, taste or hear. They are things you sense directly.

Banana, chair, piston engine, trumpet, pterodactyl are all concrete nouns.

I like to think of concrete nouns as crunchy, but they could be squishy, smelly, loud or colourful.

On the other hand, abstract nouns are things you can't form a picture of. They are ideas, conditions and qualities, such as courage and happiness.

Many abstract nouns started life as verbs or adverbs, but become abstract nouns with suffixes. So fascinate, becomes fascination, credible becomes credibility and so on.

If you are reporting on events, it's best to steer clear of abstract nouns.

Abstract nouns are useful when you want to generalise or when writing about ideas. However they make it hard to figure out exactly what the writer means and writing is often open to misinterpretation.

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.

Exclamation marks have almost no place in serious writing.

Tabloid journalists use them in headlines. You may need to use exclamation marks in reported speech or where they form part of a name or title.

And that’s about it.

It’s no accident many newspapers and publishing companies ban exclamation marks.

They don’t add drama. They don’t improve poor writing.

They don’t tell readers a sentence was funny – although they may tell readers a sentence was supposed to be funny.

In the newspaper business, the exclamation mark is sometimes known as a shriek or screamer. This gives a clue to why they are disliked.

It is often used to add emphasis to sentences. It’s versatile, you’ll see it used to show surprise, anger or joy.

The exclamation mark is the punctuation equivalent of raising your voice – maybe hysterically. Hence the name ‘shriek’.

Here’s why you should consider avoiding them altogether:

• They distract readers.
• They are an excuse for lazy writing – funny or dramatic writing doesn’t need propping up.
• Once people start using exclamation marks, they usually overuse them – which makes writing look amateur.
• They hint at a gushing bygone world of “what-ho Jeeves!”,  “lashings of ginger beer!” and “golly gosh!”. Your readers will wonder if they’ve stepped into a time warp.
• They make your writing appear unauthentic.

When I was an editor, I told a reporter who used one in a story that was his year’s allocation gone. I was only half joking. If you must use exclamation marks, use them rarely.

I hate seeing the word aplenty in headlines.

At first I thought my reaction to seeing the word in a news headline was a matter of personal taste. Or perhaps prejudice. To me the word feels old-fashioned and pompous.

After a moment's thought, I realised aplenty offends me because the word is an adjective masquerading as a verb.

The best, clearest writing mainly uses nouns and verbs. Only use adjectives when they make the meaning more precise.

Headlines are a concentrated form of writing crunching meaning into a handful of words.

There's less room for adjectives in headlines than in everyday sentences. Good headlines use nouns and strong verbs.

A headline like 'iPads aplenty' doesn't include a verb. The word aplenty plays a verb-like role but it doesn't shout, sing or dance. It just sits there flaccid, weak and boring.

And it doesn't convey much information other than to tell use there are lots of iPads.

So what? Why are there lots of iPads, where are there lots of iPads?

If you want to tell readers there are large numbers of iPads use a verb, preferably an active one:

iPads flood Auckland

If you think flood is overused try; choke, swamp or saturate, just don't use aplenty.

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.

It’s hard to get away without using jargon when you write about technical subjects. Some ideas are easier to explain that way.

But only use technical jargon in context.

Otherwise there’s no excuse for indulging in the robot-speak used by corporations and government departments.

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

And jargon makes your words, and your meaning, harder to understand.

Remember, not every reader is a native English speaker.

Some of my pet hates:

• Ongoing – and ongoing situation is worse.
• Going forward – if you mean in the future say so.
• Ground rules.
• Upturn.
• Outcome is a particularly nasty piece of political and bureaucratic jargon for result.
• Currently.

If you find jargon in my writing please get in touch and let me know. I’m not perfect and am not beyond improvement.