How to write clearly
Edward T. Thompson · article · 1979 Reader 🖥️
Writing clearly is a learnable discipline rather than a gift, and it rests on first thinking clearly: because muddy prose is really muddy thinking, the writer who does the hard work of settling and ordering what to say before writing — then prunes, simplifies, and calibrates everything in the reader's service — can make almost any idea understood with the least possible effort from the reader.
practical · Prescriptive how-to essay — a numbered set of guidelines with worked before/after rewrites (the fish, the FDR speech, the cherry tree, windy-phrase and first-degree-word tables); reassuring, second-person imperative rhetoric aimed at a general, non-professional writer. — Written by Edward T. Thompson, then Editor-in-Chief of Reader's Digest, as part of International Paper's 1979-82 public-education advertising series 'The Power of the Printed Word' (© 1979 International Paper Co.). It is the METHOD/clarity companion to Kurt Vonnegut's VOICE/style piece 'How to write with style' in the same series. The 'harmonize.com/probe/BulletinEditors' links in the text are only the reprint host (a barbershop-harmony bulletin-editors' manual appendix), not the source.
Structure
| Part | Role |
|---|---|
| Opening reassurance and thesis: clarity is attainable, not a matter of fancy words | Tells the afraid or overawed writer that clear writing needs only that ideas 'get across simply and clearly', and reduces the whole enterprise to three requirements: you must WANT to write clearly, you must be willing to WORK HARD ('Thinking means work'), and you must know and follow basic guidelines. |
| The governing criterion: cut the frills | Concedes that lovely, dramatic phrases may come and may be kept — but only after asking with 'cold, objective eyes and mind': 'Do they detract from clarity?' If so, 'grit your teeth and cut the frills.' |
| Guideline 1 — Outline what you want to say (before you start) | The core move: 'you can't write clearly until, before you start, you know where you will stop.' The 3x5-card method — one point per card, group related points into piles, sequence the piles by importance and prerequisite order, then order the points within each pile — front-loads the thinking and produces a flexible outline. |
| Guideline 2 — Start where your readers are | Calibrate to the readers' existing knowledge; do NOT write above it, and do NOT condescend ('writing to a 12-year-old mentality' is insulting). Your prime purpose 'is to explain something, not prove that you're smarter than your readers.' |
| Guidelines 3-5 — Word-level simplicity: avoid jargon, use familiar combinations, use first-degree words | Replace specialist jargon ('the biota exhibited a one hundred percent mortality response' -> 'all the fish died'), prefer familiar word-combinations (FDR's 'a country in which no one is left out') without lapsing into ambiguous grammar, and choose 'first-degree' words that raise an image instantly and are usually the most precise. |
| Guideline 6 — Stick to the point | The outline now 'saves you work': test every sentence against it ('Does it relate to a point in the outline?') and either add the point or cut the sentence as off-track. |
| Guideline 7 — Be as brief as possible | Condensing 'almost always makes it tighter... easier to read and understand' via learnable techniques: logical ABC order (A makes B understandable), don't tell people what they know, cut excess evidence and unnecessary anecdotes, kill windy phrases ('at the present time' -> 'now'), make passive verbs active ('George Washington chopped down the cherry tree'), cut the negative — and 'when you've finished, stop.' |
Key terms
- clarity
The single overriding goal of non-literary writing: getting your ideas across so the reader understands them with the least effort. It is the criterion to which everything else — ornament, cleverness, even lovely inspired phrases — is subordinate; if something 'detracts from clarity', it goes. - outline
Not a grade-school formality but a THINKING instrument used BEFORE writing: the physical 3x5-card process of naming, grouping and sequencing every point so that, before you start, you already know where you will stop. It front-loads the hard thinking and later functions as a relevance filter that 'saves you work.' - first-degree words
Thompson's coinage for words that raise an image in the mind immediately and without translation (face, stay, book) — usually also the most precise words. 'Second/third-degree' words (visage, abide, remain; volume, tome, publication) must be mentally translated back through the first-degree word before the image appears. - condensing / be brief
Deliberate shortening that makes writing 'tighter, straighter, easier to read and understand' — 'to write in a straight line is to say something clearly in the fewest possible words.' Explicitly 'in large part artistry', yet reducible to techniques 'that anyone can learn and use' (windy-phrase cuts, active verbs, dropping the negative, deleting redundancy). - simple (vs. simplistic)
Plain and precise, pitched at the reader's actual level of knowledge. Thompson pointedly distinguishes this from condescension: writing 'to a 12-year-old mentality' is 'insulting' and wrong, and 'familiar combinations of words' must not mean incorrect grammar, which 'can be unclear'. Simple is precise-and-accessible, not dumbed-down or sloppy.
Propositions
- explicitFor anyone who is not a professional poet or novelist, writing well requires only getting your ideas across simply and clearly; you do not need big fancy words or high-flying phrases.conf: high
- explicitClear writing has only three basic requirements — wanting to write clearly, being willing to work hard, and knowing and following some basic guidelines — so clarity is an attainable discipline, not a rare gift.conf: high
- explicitYou cannot write clearly until, before you start, you know where you will stop; therefore you must first name, group and sequence your points (the 3x5-card outline) so the material stands in an order the reader can follow.conf: high
- explicitStart where your readers are: pitch to their existing knowledge and never above it, because your prime purpose is to explain something, not to prove you are smarter than your readers (and 'writing to a 12-year-old mentality' is insulting, not clear).conf: highsupportsHow to write with style · p7 — Thompson's 'start where your readers are... your prime purpose is to explain something, not prove that you're smarter than your readers' is the same reader-serving stance as Vonnegut's 'pity the readers': the writer's job is to reduce the reader's effort, not to display the writer. Both put the burden on the writer.
- explicitChoose the plainest available words — avoid jargon, prefer familiar combinations, and use 'first-degree' words that raise an image instantly — because these are also usually the most precise and cost the reader no translation effort.conf: highsupportsHow to write with style · p4 — Thompson's word-level simplicity guidance (avoid jargon, use familiar combinations, prefer first-degree image-raising words) is the operational, technique-level form of Vonnegut's 'keep it simple' -- both hold that plain words, not fancy ones, are the right vehicle. Companion pieces in the same International Paper series making the same simplicity case from method (Thompson) and disposition (Vonnegut).
- explicitBe as brief as possible: condensing almost always makes writing tighter and easier to understand, and it is achieved by learnable techniques (logical order, cutting the known, cutting excess evidence and anecdotes, killing windy phrases, activating passive verbs, dropping the negative) — 'when you've finished, stop.'conf: highsupportsHow to write with style · p5 — Thompson's 'be as brief as possible' -- condense, cut excess evidence and anecdotes, kill windy phrases, and 'when you've finished, stop' -- is the same discipline as Vonnegut's 'have the guts to cut': delete whatever does not earn its place. Thompson supplies the concrete condensing techniques for the courage Vonnegut demands.
- implicitUnclear writing is really unclear thinking: because 'thinking means work' and clarity depends on first knowing and ordering what you want to say, writing is a tool that forces and exposes thought, not a neutral pipe that merely transmits ideas already fully formed.conf: highextendsHow to write with style · p7 — Vonnegut's p7 asserts clarity as a DUTY owed to the struggling reader ('ever willing to simplify and clarify') but gives no method for producing it. Thompson extends the same claim by supplying the missing mechanism: clarity is achieved by thinking first -- 'you can't write clearly until, before you start, you know where you will stop', because 'thinking means work.' He adds the causal engine (clear writing = clear thinking, done via the outline) that Vonnegut's disposition-level appeal lacks.
- implicitThe burden of clarity falls on the writer, not the reader: it is the writer's job to do the ordering, simplifying and condensing so that the reader spends the least possible effort to understand.conf: high
- explicitThe writer's own eloquence and cleverness must be sacrificed to clarity: a phrase's beauty is no defense if it detracts from being understood ('grit your teeth and cut the frills').conf: high
- explicitGrammatical correctness matters because it serves understanding, not for its own sake: 'familiar combinations of words' must not slide into incorrect grammar, because ambiguous constructions ('John's father says he can't go out') leave the reader unable to tell what is meant.conf: highsupportsHow to write with style · p11 — Both subordinate grammatical 'correctness' to being understood. Vonnegut's p11 uses the principle to deflate prestige-conformity (the point of correctness was never to sound like a cultivated Englishman, only to be understood); Thompson uses the same principle to defend a floor of grammar (incorrect grammar 'can be unclear' -- 'John's father says he can't go out' is ambiguous). Shared principle (correctness serves understanding), opposite emphases -- Vonnegut loosens, Thompson tightens.
- implicitClarity is functionally and almost morally obligatory: to fail to do the work of being clear is to waste the reader's effort and to substitute self-display for service, which the writer has no right to do.conf: medium
Arguments
Anyone willing to do the work can learn to write clearly; clarity is a discipline, not a talent. strength: high
Explicit premises:
- Clear writing needs only that ideas get across simply and clearly, not fancy words.
- It reduces to three requirements: wanting to, working hard, and following basic guidelines.
- The guidelines are concrete, teachable techniques ('techniques that anyone can learn and use').
Implicit premises:
- The obstacle to clarity is unwillingness to do the thinking-work, not lack of innate gift.
- The reader's understanding is a reliable, checkable test of whether the writing succeeded (unlike ineffable 'style').
Inferences:
- If clarity is fully teachable and testable, it belongs to a different category than 'style' or 'voice' (which Vonnegut treats as rooted in inborn character and origin) -- Thompson implicitly carves writing into a learnable clarity layer and a separate, un-taught voice layer, but never says so.
You must outline -- name, group and sequence your points -- before you write. strength: medium
Explicit premises:
- You can't write clearly until, before you start, you know where you will stop.
- The card method lets you group related points and sequence them so each makes the next understandable.
- A finished outline later saves work by serving as a relevance filter for every sentence.
Implicit premises:
- The thinking can be substantially completed before the writing begins -- thought and its expression are separable stages.
- The message you want to convey exists, whole and knowable, prior to writing it down; writing transcribes a destination already fixed.
Inferences:
- He does not consider writing in which you do not yet know your destination -- exploratory or discovery writing, where the point emerges only through drafting -- for which 'know where you'll stop before you start' is not advice but an impossibility.
Simplify and condense relentlessly -- plain words, short sentences, nothing that does not earn its place. strength: medium
Explicit premises:
- First-degree, familiar, jargon-free words raise the image instantly and are usually the most precise.
- Condensing almost always makes writing tighter and easier to understand.
- Excess evidence, anecdotes, windy phrases, passive verbs and negatives can be cut without loss.
Implicit premises:
- The essence of the subject survives simplification -- verbal economy does not falsify content.
- The reader's limited effort is the scarce resource the writing must conserve.
Inferences:
- He treats every subject as reducible to plain words and does not consider subjects whose complexity, ambiguity or uncertainty is essential and would be misrepresented by being flattened into a single clean surface reading.
Narratives
- A scientist wrote 'The biota exhibited a one hundred percent mortality response'; he could have written 'All the fish died.'
→ Worked example of the jargon guideline -- specialist vocabulary as a barrier the writer must remove, dramatizing how far plainer wording can travel while losing nothing. - A speechwriter drafted 'We are endeavoring to construct a more inclusive society' for FDR, who changed it to 'We're going to make a country in which no one is left out.'
→ Authority-endorsed example of preferring familiar combinations of words -- a revered communicator choosing the plain phrasing, lending the guideline prestige. - 'The cherry tree was chopped down by George Washington' (passive, nine words) becomes 'George Washington chopped down the cherry tree' (active, seven words).
→ Demonstration that activating a passive verb shortens the sentence -- brevity technique shown as a near-mechanical, learnable transformation. - The repeated 'Notice how we edited this...' and 'Condensing, as Reader's Digest does it...' -- before/after rewrites of a credit-scoring lede and a 'carelessness or incompetence' sentence.
→ Self-demonstration: the essay enacts its own condensing on live copy, using Reader's Digest's editorial practice as proof that the techniques work -- while incidentally revealing that this 'condensing' is an institutional, collective act, not a lone writer's.
Questions addressed
- ✅ Do you need talent or fancy language to write well?
No -- for non-literary writing you need only clarity, which is a learnable discipline resting on wanting to, working hard, and following teachable guidelines. - ✅ Where does clear writing actually begin?
In clear thinking done before you write -- naming, grouping and sequencing your points in an outline so you know where you will stop before you start. - ✅ How do you make prose itself simple and clear at the level of words and sentences?
Start at the reader's knowledge level; avoid jargon; use familiar combinations and first-degree image-raising words; then condense ruthlessly with a set of specific techniques and stop when you're done. - ⭕ What if writing is how you discover what you think, rather than transcribing something you already know?
Not addressed; the method presupposes a fixed, already-known message to be ordered and transmitted, and offers nothing for exploratory writing where the point emerges through drafting. - ⭕ Can every subject be made clear by simplification, or do some resist it?
Not addressed; the essay assumes simplification always preserves the essence, drawing only on examples (dead fish, cherry tree) where nothing complex is lost.
Gaps
- incompleteThe method assumes a single, fixed message that already exists, whole, before writing begins -- 'you know where you will stop before you start.' It has no place for exploratory or discovery writing, in which the point emerges only through the act of drafting. This is in tension with Thompson's own implicit 'clear writing = clear thinking': he treats thinking as prior to and separable from writing (think via the cards, then transcribe), whereas the writing-as-thinking tradition holds that writing IS the thinking, and that outlining-first can only help once the hard cognitive work is already done.
Read next: Read Peter Elbow 'Writing With Power' and Sonke Ahrens 'How to Take Smart Notes' (Zettelkasten) on writing as thinking-to-discover, and Franco 'What we lose when AI writes for us' on writing as constituting (not merely reporting) a view -- against Thompson's think-first-then-write separation. - incomplete'Clarity' is treated as always achievable by simplification, but some subjects are irreducibly complex, uncertain, or essentially ambiguous, and faithful writing must preserve that -- flattening them into one clean surface reading can falsify. Every Thompson exemplar (all the fish died; the cherry tree) is a subject where nothing complex is lost; none tests the claim against genuinely conceptual or contested material.
Read next: Read Ousterhout on essential vs. accidental complexity and deep-simple vs. simplistic, and technical-writing / explanation-theory work on rendering irreducible complexity without falsifying it -- to see where 'be clear' shades into 'oversimplify.' - incompleteThe essay is pre-digital and pre-collaborative: it prescribes clarity as a solo writer's individual discipline, yet its own proof texts ('Notice how WE edited this', 'Condensing, as Reader's Digest does it') reveal that the exemplary clear prose is the product of a collective editorial apparatus. It says nothing about writing with editors, collaborators, revision tooling, or (now) AI drafting assistants -- the very machinery that actually produces the 'condensed' Digest style it holds up as the model.
Read next: Read on editorial process and collaborative revision (how Reader's Digest condensing actually worked as a pipeline), and current work on AI-assisted drafting where the outline-first and condense steps are negotiated with a machine rather than performed alone. - incomplete'Start where your readers are -- how much do they know?' assumes a single, knowable audience with an identifiable common level of knowledge (natural for a mass magazine with an imagined 'average reader'). It gives no guidance for heterogeneous or unknown audiences -- the default condition of digital publishing -- where readers span wildly different priors and there is no one level to start from.
Read next: Read on writing for mixed audiences and layered/progressive-disclosure documents (letting expert and novice readers each take the path suited to them) rather than a single pitched level.