A report from a consumer association might heavily criticise a
product for one reason or another, but if it contains just a single
sentence of praise, this is likely to find its way into promotional
literature.
A report from a consumer association might heavily criticise a
product, but if it contains just a single sentence of praise, this is likely
to find its way into promotional literature.All this means that as you write you should constantly censor your-
self and monitor your choice of words, asking yourself, ‘Is this word
or phrase necessary and does it convey my meaning exactly?’ Although
this is difficult at first, it will get easier. And you’ve always got the
revision stage to come when you can clean up your work.Style in practical terms – the dos and don’tsAll of this makes sense in general terms – it gives us a clear idea
of what we need to do throughout our work to avoid heavy, unread-
able prose. But it still helps to have some simple practical rules by
our side to help us produce work that is light, concise and interesting;
work that grabs the reader ’s attention and keeps it to the end of the
essay.
To help you do this, try using the following as a simple practical
guide. It may not be possible to apply each rule all at once – you might
need to concentrate on two or three of them, until they become estab-
lished. Then you can move on to the others, until you’re applying all
of them in every piece of work. But you must try to keep your inner
editor at bay as you write, so you can release your creativity. If you find
the fluency of your writing begins to break up as you check on these
things, remind yourself that you’ve still got the safety net of the
revision stage.1 Choose the short simple word over the
long obscure oneIf the short simple word carries the same meaning as the long obscure
one, use it, otherwise you’re in danger of producing prose that sounds
unnecessarily pompous. But whatever word you choose, your primaryStyle – Economy 217HTW28 7/27/01 8:40 AM Page 217