3 Tips to Improve your Writing by 2,069% (How about That!)

I made the statistic up.

However, these three tips will improve your writing and readability in articles and blog posts.

First, eliminate overuse of that.

Excessive use exhausts your readers. For example, always eliminate the word when attributing to something someone said: My teacher said that I did very well on the test v. My teacher said I did well on the test. After writing, hit control-F and pare down everywhere you can.

Second, consider the medium.

Most of what we read is on a screen. Clunky paragraphs exhaust readers. Use Nicolas Cole’s 1/3/1 or 1/5/1 technique. One sentence, three or five sentences, one sentence. Readers can skim your article and dive deeper where they see fit.

Third, eliminate extra words.

I learned this from Scott Adams. We’ll repurpose our first example: My teacher said I did very well on the test v. My teacher said I did well on the test.

If you only consider one tip, I beg you to adopt the first one.