What would Ernest do?
Ever wonder how Ernest Hemingway, the master of tight prose, would have handled your blog post?
Ernest Hemingway, of course, was an American novelist, short-story writer, journalist, and sportsman.… Read the full article
Concise Writing
Measure readability with STORYToolz readability analyzer
Get 33 metrics about your clarity
There are a million readability tools out there. Among my favorites: STORYToolz readability analyzer.
Plug in a chunk of copy, and STORYToolz will deliver a wealth of readability information — 33 pieces of data in all, from the words you use to start your sentences to the number of “to be” verbs.… Read the full article
How do you define readability?
Measure, monitor and manage your message’s reading ease
How do you define readability? Readability measures how easy your message is to read. That measurement is based on factors like sentence and word length.… Read the full article
Break up copy with sidebars, boxes
Think packages, not pieces
Readers would rather read 800 words if you delivered it in a package of shorter bites — say, a 400-word main story, a 300-word sidebar and a 100-word resources box — than if you ran it in one long river of text.… Read the full article
How to write concisely for tight copy
Polish your message to make it short and sweet
Too often, we cut our copy the hard way: a word at a time. If we need to cut 600 words, we peer through our prose until we find a candidate for cutting.… Read the full article
What is the literacy rate in the U.S 1993?
27% of Americans can’t write simple messages or letters
What reading grade level should you hit on the Flesch-Kincaid, Gunning Fog or other readability indexes?… Read the full article
What’s the United States literacy rate in 2003?
33% of U.S. adults can’t calculate the cost of office supplies
Just 12% of Americans read well enough to review search results from a library website to identify a book suggesting that claims made both for and against genetically modified foods are unreliable.… Read the full article
What is the world literacy rate in 2003?
8% of adults have ‘a severe literacy deficit’
A “severe literacy deficit” haunts the world’s most developed countries. Between one-quarter and three-quarters of the world’s adults don’t have a “suitable minimum skill level” for coping with the demands of modern life and work.… Read the full article
What readability level makes sense for your audience?
Even rocket scientists and brain surgeons don’t want it to be harder
It never fails.
When I talk in my writing workshops about the importance of making copy easy to read and understand, there’s always one person who can’t believe the advice applies to her.… Read the full article
Write about people doing things
To cut your syllable count, make subjects characters
“It is good to write clearly,” wrote Joseph M. Williams, “and anyone can.”
Williams developed “The Little Red Schoolhouse” writing course at the University of Chicago.… Read the full article