I write a lot of texts, mostly nonsense, but usually even haters say that the text is easy to read. If you want to make your texts (letters, for example) easier, run here.
I didn’t invent anything here, everything was from the book “The Living and the Dead Word” by Nora Gal, a Soviet translator, editor and critic.
There are two rules: verb and no clerical.
A verb is an action. The verb makes the text dynamic, interesting, and alive. No other part of speech can do this.
The antonym of a verb is a verbal noun. This is the worst evil. A verbal noun is a noun formed from a verb.
For example: implementation, implementation, planning, implementation, application, etc.
The only thing worse than a verbal noun is a chain of verbal nouns. For example, planning, implementing implementation.
The rule is simple: where possible, replace verbal nouns with verbs. Or normal nouns that do not have a synonym verb.
Now about the office. To find out, or rather, remember what a clerk is, read some law, regulation (including internal company documents), or your diploma.
Stationery is an artificial complication of the text so that it seems smart or fits into some framework (business, scientific-journalistic style, etc.).
To put it simply, if you try to appear smarter than you are when writing a text, you create clericalism.
The use of verbal nouns is also clerical. Participial and participial phrases are a sign of clericalism. Especially when there is a chain of revolutions, additions, complex and complex sentences (come on, remember the school curriculum).
Participial and participial phrases differ in that they have, let's say, a base word. For example: Irina solving a problem. It already sounds a little nasty, but, if desired, it can be made completely unreadable.
Irina, solving the problem, resembles a small child who does not understand anything, who, thinking that he knows something about this life that has come into his head from nowhere (so, he is already confused...), sincerely believes that the computer belongs to him by right, he will forever endure and endure, silently, without ever baring his teeth, like a dog stinking from yesterday’s rain (damn, what did I want to say with this sentence...).
On the one hand, you can dig in and understand these rules and write, like Leo Tolstoy, page-long sentences. So that the schoolchildren would suffer later.
But there is a simple way out that will prevent you from ruining the proposal. Keep your sentences short. Not “Evening.”, of course - I think sentences one or two lines long, no more, will be enough. If you follow this rule, you won't get confused.
Yes, and it’s better to keep paragraphs small. In the modern world there is a so-called “clip thinking” - a person is not able to assimilate large pieces of information. You need to, like a child, divide the cutlet into small pieces so that he can eat them himself, with his fork. And if you don’t share, you’ll have to sit next to him and feed him.
Well, then it’s simple. Next time you write a text, re-read it before sending it, and look for: verbal nouns, participial and participial phrases, sentences longer than one line, paragraphs thicker than five lines. And redo it.
Source: habr.com