How to write better sentences in English

By Iryna Zayats, with help from many books :)

People who think well, write well.

Woolly minded people write woolly memos, woolly letters, and woolly speeches.

~ David Ogilvy

Rule #1:

Use short words, short sentences,

and short paragraphs

We keep acquiring technical debt with each new release, which is actually quite normal, but we

cannot assess the impact properly until we do a code review.

We are increasing our technical debt with each new release. What’s the impact? We’d

have to do a code review to assess.

It will not be long before we are sorry that we did not write unit tests.

We will soon regret not writing the unit tests.

Currently Now

Attempt Try

Numerous Many

Utilize Use

the question as to whether

there is no doubt that

the reason for this is

hold a meeting

I don’t mean to suggest that

for the purpose of

due to the fact that

whether

no doubt

because

meet

I don’t mean that

for

because

To be or not to be?~Shakespare

These are the times that try men's souls.~Thomas Paine

Jesus wept.~The Bible

Jason, who is a developer at our firm, suggested that we hold a meeting to discuss all

the various challenges that may arise in the implementation of the task at hand.

Jason, a developer at our firm, suggested we meet and talk about potential challenges of

this task.

Rule #2:

Write the way you talk

Bob, if you have more questions,just ask me for the manuals.

Dear Bob,

Should you happen to have any further questions or require any sort of assistance, do not hesitate to contact me…

It is raining.

At the present time we are experiencing precipitation.

“In the unlikely possibility that an aircraft should

experience such an eventuality, oxygen masks

will drop down.”

*Also known as “Our rocket crashed and burned”

Rule #3:

Use active voice

Active voice (активний стан):

Passive voice (пасивний стан):The pen was broken by me

I broke the pen

He should be told

Get Alice to tell him

It is recommended

We recommend

When sacrifices like these are being made, technical debt is being acquired

By making these sacrifices, we are acquiring technical debt.

The work on the error log will be scheduled for next week.

I will work on the error log next week.

Unfortunately, many bugs were discovered in testing and the release

had to be postponed.

We discovered many bugs in testing and had to postpone the release.

Rule #4:

Put sentences into positive form

Ivan is usually late for meetings.

Ivan does not usually come on time for meetings

Maintaining this legacy codebase could be a waste of our time.

Maintaining this legacy codebase may not be an efficient use of our

time

Rule #5:

Forget adjectives and adverbs. Use nouns and verbs instead.

Bill is losing control of the project.

Bill is handling the project very badly.

I read the instructions quickly and briefly

I skimmed through instructions

I am rushing to get the project done.

I will do my best to complete the project quickly.

basically accurate

awfully nice

very good

vitally important

tall skyscraper

Lazy adjectives / adverbs:

instantly accepted

short meeting

tiny raise

baffling instructions

botched version

Useful adjectives / adverbs:

Choose the most specific verbs

Don’t set up the business that you can start or launch.

Don’t say the president of a company stepped down.

Did he resign? Did he retire? Did he get fired?

Rule #6:

Avoid qualifiers

pretty

a little

rather

very

quite

a bit

sort of

tookind of

“Don’t say you were a bit confused and sort of tired and a little depressed and somewhat annoyed. Be confused. Be tired. Be depressed. Be annoyed. […] Good writing is lean and confident.”

~ On Writing Well.

I wasn’t happy with the offer because the price was high.

I wasn’t too happy with the offer because the price was pretty high

Rule #7:

Keep related words together

He noticed a large stain right in the center of the rug.

He noticed a large stain in the rug that was right in the center.

For your review, I am attaching monthly reports and other materials

I am attaching monthly reports and other materials for your review

Rule #8:

Use definite, specific, concrete language.

In the past week, our servers went down twice for up to 20 minutes at a time.

Our servers have not been performing very well lately

Our adult program was a great success. We attracted more students from more places than

ever before.

Our enrollment doubled to 560. Students came from Wyoming and twenty-seven other states, and from

Germany and Canada.

Two days late

Slightly behind the schedule

I will report back by Wednesday night.

I will come back to your shortly

A few extra rules for emails

Don't MumbleStart selling with your very first sentence. Try to make it and every sentence that follows simple and declarative. Factual. And short.

Stop when you are through

Be specific about next steps

Use numbers to outline your points / questions

Use line breaks between paragraphs

Рекомендую почитати:

Або для лінивих:

The class I'd like to teach by Jason Fried https://signalvnoise.com/posts/2647-the-class-id-like-to-teach

Write Like You Talk by Paul Graham http://paulgraham.com/talk.html

Thank you.

iryna.zayats@gmail.com