For even the best writers
Writing is challenging for many of us. We have good ideas, but putting them to paper can be harder than we anticipate. I’ve seen many smart people produce very hard-to-understand texts.
We can do better. Follow these 5 tips to improve your English writing:
- Less is more. If you can say it in 500 words, you can say it better in 400 words, or even 300 words. There’s often a misconception that the longer something is, the better it is. The opposite is true. Having a TV journalist for a father – a ruthless editor – and learning the art of writing short policy memos in graduate school helped me hone this skill.
You can practice this on your own. In Michael Smart’s excellent “Write Like a Journalist” course, he trains public relations professionals to write simple, direct sentences. This should be the gold standard for everyone, even those who think it doesn’t apply to them (I’m looking at you, lawyers and academics!)
Before: At this point in time, long sentences are beloved by many academics.
After: Academics love long sentences.
Freelance writer Aaron Burnett recommends native German speakers in particular look out forthe overuse of genitiveoverusing genitive
Before: the tactics of the coalition
After: the coalition’s tactics - Don’t be passive. Passive voice makes for longer, harder-to-read sentences and can obscure who is doing the action in the sentence. Also, using it too much is just bad style.
Before: The report was published by the foundation.
After: The foundation published the report.
Learn more about reducing passive voice here. - Don’t bury the lead. This is a golden rule of journalism and it means, say the most important stuff in the beginning. Remember to address the “who, what, when, where and why” in the beginning of your writing. This goes for press releases, of course, but can really be adapted to nearly all writing. I am a huge fan of executive summaries in policy papers, and succinct and to-the-point abstracts and discussions in academic writing.
We all realize people are distracted and don’t take the time to fully read things these days. So get your message across first thing, before they click away or have to scroll down. - Writing in a learned language? Beware false friends and common language mistakes. Every learner of a new language makes common mistakes. It can take years to understand when to use words correctly. Non-native English speakers need to look out for “false friends”: words that sound similar to one in your native language but mean something quite different.
For German/English speakers, a few examples are:- Aktuell vs. actually: The English translation of aktuell is current/currently. And the German translation for actually is eigentlich.
- “Not later than” can usually be replaced by the word “by.” “Until” answers the question “how long?”
Correct: I finished the report by 3pm.
Also correct: I worked on the report until 3pm.
- Eventuell vs. eventual/eventually: eventuell means maybe, possible/possibly or potential/potentially. The English eventuall/eventually means schließlich, leztendlich or irgendwann.
- Here are other common English mistakes Germans make.
- Proofread, proofread, proofread. You know this one already. But it’s always shocking how many errors I find in my own and others’ writing. Be ruthless in editing your work, and if possible, ask a native-speaking colleague or friend to review your writing.
Barber Communications specializes in writing in English, proofreading and translating from German to English. As native English speakers who speak multiple foreign languages, we get how challenging writing can be in your non-native tounge. Those of us who are native speakers, even the good writers among us, sometimes need external support to make a text shine.
We’d love to help you write a text from scratch or polish/translate an existing text. We all want to be professional. That means producing succinct, well-written and proofread texts. Get in touch.
First published in July 2019
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