Comment by btilly | Hacker News Reader

Comment by btilly | Hacker News Reader

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Judging by this sample, Mary Dash should be receiving writing tips, not giving them.

Do you doubt me? Consider the opening paragraph:

Readers prefer active voice sentences, and we should try to use the active voice in most of our business writing to communicate our message most effectively. Active voice clearly identifies the action and who is performing that action. Unfortunately, much of government writing is in the passive voice, giving documents a wordy, bureaucratic tone. Over time, writing in the passive voice simply becomes a habit, one we should all work to change.

Here is a quick redraft:

We should use the active voice in most of our business writing. Readers prefer it, and will better understand our message. This style clearly identifies what the action is, and who is doing it. Unfortunately most government writing is in the passive voice. This gives documents a wordy, bureaucratic tone. We need to break that habit.

The message has not changed, but readability improved a lot. Use https://app.readable.com/text/ to test that. The required reading level went from grade 10 to advanced grade 5, and other measures of readability also improved.

This is a big difference. https://www.wyliecomm.com/2019/03/us-literacy-rate/ reports on a broad survey of adult literacy rates. Only 2% of US adults read and write at a grade 11 or better level. By contrast 48% read and write at a grade 6 or better level. My redraft is readable by an order of magnitude more people.

What did I change?

1. Break up complex sentences.

2. Shorter is better.

This isn't hard. But it really makes a difference.

This is very effective in my experience.

This kind of simplicity always gets praise in work environments, without explicitly being identified as "simplicity".

Your rewrite was particularly skilled. Sometimes, it's hard to see that some things aren't adding value.

Another tip:

-In Emails, liberally use new paragraphs. Sometimes, even one sentence paragraphs are ok.

I think this is because any way of compartmentalizing writing in non-trivial ways improves comprehension. It gives cues on how to digest the ideas in the writing.

> Sometimes, even one sentence paragraphs are ok.

They're more than ok -- they're a great attention management device! Don't worry about stuffy rules of prose when writing an email.

I write guides for people who do not speak English fluently. I keep my sentences short, I use simple words, and I use the Oxford comma. It helps a lot.

I moved to Germany when I didn't speak German. The government uses complex language to talk to people who don't speak German. It made me angry, and I wanted to do better.

In my opinion, sentences that start with the condition are easier to read. You already know if they are relevant to you.

For example, "If you meet condition A, you must do B" is easier to parde than "You must do B if you meet condition A".

I also avoid idioms. They are fun, but they are hard to understand.

I have many other tricks, but your two tricks are the most important.

do we really need to be putting all our writing down to grade 5 level

You do if you want to understood by the average American.

Please remember that simple words do not imply simple ideas. As Hemingway said when criticized for his simple language, Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.

I'm sure the average Non-American reader appreciates it as well. Even more so all English as a second language readers like myself.

Not all, but if you're trying to convey complex ideas you probably want to save the readers mental bandwidth for the substance. Kentucky's healthcare exchange website targeted a 6th grade level and did well.

It helps. There is a place and a time for clever language. You don't have to make complex topics more complicated with language.

If you are a government service, you will serve people who are not native speakers.

There are two commas you can remove and one you can add (after "unfortunately"). Overall great edit.

> There are two commas you can remove and one you can add (after "unfortunately"). Overall great edit.

I have come to appreciate over time that most people have an inbuilt, highly intuitive command of where commas should go, and that any two people will disagree mightily over it. To me, those commas can be removed, but doing so disrupts the readability of the sentence since they are usefully signalling where one might pause—but I know from experience that plenty of people, including fluent native speakers of English, use way fewer commas than I do.

Commas are required between two independent clauses. However, in this case the commas in question don't separate two independent clauses. There is only one subject in each sentence. They are not necessary (maybe even incorrect) and create distance between the subject and verb, decreasing readability. For this reason I suggested removing them.

Excellent post! I've never heard of readable.com before. What a fantastic resource.

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