Tag Archive for: writing substantively

No brevity without substance, please

“Brevity without substance is useless.” This statement in Bryan Garner’s HBR Guide to Better Business Writing spoke to me. Bryan Garner: HBR Guide to Better Business Writing

 

If you regularly read this blog, you know I’m a big fan of writing concisely, and observing the rule of 42-14-2. However, sometimes a longer sentence is easier to understand than a shorter sentence. And, a paragraph may be easier to understand than a single sentence.

Garner sums up your goal as follows; “Provide only the information the reader needs to understand the issue—no more and no less.”

 

Disclosure: If you click on the Amazon link in this post and then buy something, I will receive a small commission. I link only to books in which I find some value for my blog’s readers.

 

The image in the upper left is courtesy of Nick Youngson  [CC BY-SA 3.0