Quit Trying So Hard To Impress! Simplify Your Writing.

Every content project suffers from this one problem.

Over the years, I’ve edited more than 5,000 corporate social media marketing posts, dozens of whitepapers and eBooks, countless email marketing campaigns, pages and pages of website content, numerous screenplays, and hundreds of elearning courses.

And without a doubt, there’s one singular problem they ALL suffer from.

People use too many words and too many syllables.

I can’t say why for sure… maybe they think they’re impressing someone. Maybe they think big words will hide a lack of originality or value. Maybe they just got gifted a thesaurus.

Whatever the reason, it’s like putting glasses on a dog. It might make the dog look smarter, but it doesn’t actually make him Mister Peabody. (Bonus points for referencing a classic cartoon AND finding an excuse to use a picture of a dog with glasses LOL.)

#simplifyyourwriting

Anyhow, I find myself constantly fixing the same things over and over again.

So I thought I’d put them into a list and share.

• If you can say “prior to” you can probably say “before.”
• If you can say “due to the fact that” you can say “because.”
• If you can say “having an understanding of,” you can say “Understanding.”
• I’m willing to bet that any time you write “and/or” you can get away with one or the other.
• If you can say “in order to” you can probably say “to.”
• If you’re going to start your sentence with “Additionally,” you can probably just say “And.” Or “Also.” Or “Plus.” Or maybe you don’t need it at all.
• If you can say “as well as” you can probably say “and.”
• If you can say “oftentimes”, you can say “often.” (Ooh, this one’s a real pet peeve. Sure, oftentimes is a word, but as Grammarist says, “oftentimes is an unnecessary variant of often. While using it is not an error, exactly, the word always bears replacement with the shorter word.” You know why? Too. Many. Unnecessary. Syllables.

Some might say I’m being too picky, but I firmly believe that accessible, conversational language is what makes content engaging and valuable.

So I’ll keep adding to this list every day.