Improve Your Writing With Word Limits
Art Carden is an Assistant Professor of Economics and Business concern at Rhodes Higher in Memphis, Tennessee. Read full profile
Hither'south a scenario that might audio familiar: yous are listening to a speech or presentation, or peradventure you lot are reading an commodity, an essay, or a report, and it becomes clear that the author is using words without communicating. Some essays, manufactures, and books might be pleasant to read because the language is colorful, and a speaker might brand pleasant, sincere-sounding noises. No uncertainty some of your my writing or speaking can be described this way. If yous don't think yours can, just wait. Equally you improve, you will expect more of yourself. I way to improve is to practice writing with word or graphic symbol limits.
This matters in the idea-driven economy. Consider George Orwell'due south 1946 essay "Politics and the English Language." Words mean something. Words are important. Orwell argues that language should be "an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought." Much could exist achieved with meliorate writing, and nonetheless quantitative social scientists, for example, try to earn condition past 1-upping one another with technical and mathematical sophistication. Humanists try to out-jargon i some other. Important ideas are obscured past the bulletproof clouds of unclarity.
What can you exercise about it? Try writing with hard word limits. Give yourself a lower give-and-take limit than you might detect comfortable. Permit yourself to write a rough draft that is as long as you lot want it to be. So, when yous're editing, try to cut it down beneath the maximum give-and-take count. If you're writing a 10,000 discussion article, try to cut it to 9,000 words. If you're writing an 800-word op-ed, aim for 700 words. Trim an essay with a 1500 discussion limit to 1200 words.
There are a couple of reasons for this. First, your readers' fourth dimension is valuable. 2d, it forces you to confront merchandise offs in every judgement. If you're trying to trim a 1500 word essay into a 1200 word essay, y'all have to ask yourself at every juncture whether you tin can brand the point with fewer words. You will be shocked at how much you can tighten your prose without losing annihilation. Indeed, tighter, punchier prose will meliorate the quality of your exposition.
An do might aid. Consider that concluding sentence: "Indeed, tighter, punchier prose will better the quality of your exposition." I wrote it on a airplane from Omaha to Memphis while my brain was toast, and it shows.
Let's improve it. Commencement, drop "Indeed" considering it adds nothing. "(I)mprove the quality of your exposition" is a long mode of saying "make you write better." Then allow'southward endeavor some revisions:
"Tighter, punchier prose improves your writing." (better)
"Tighter, punchier prose makes yous write ameliorate." (awkward and clunky—it sounds like a lesson plan for the Derek Zoolander Center for Kids Who Tin't Read Skilful and Who Desire to Acquire to Do Other Stuff Skillful Besides)
Perhaps this: "Punchy prose makes good writing."
There's no objective right answer. You have to play effectually with it, just as the cliché says, easy writing makes for hard reading.
You lot might also want to experiment with grapheme and syllable limits. Orwell said to avoid using large words. In the sentence we were critiquing above, "exposition" was a clunky, four-syllable way of maxim "writing." Always use the easier word.
To write well requires dedicated effort. I don't claim to have mastered it. Arroyo it like topiary. Or bonsai gardening. Or sculpture. Or painting. Or any. Equally a writer, you are a skilled artisan. Words are your medium, and you use hem to communicate information, evoke passions, and stir the consciences of your readers. Become to piece of work. Alter the globe. And accept heart: you're always improving.
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