Why Good Writing is Bad Writing!

Writer's can be an elitist bunch. We love nothing more than to show off our inflated vocabularies and complex understandings of oft times antiquated semantic or grammatical constructions that… hmmm. Case in point.

But recent studies have shown that this pretension is harming our ability to communicate effectively with our core audience.

Whether you are a copywriter, scriptwriter, journalist, novelist or blogger, the goal is to be read. If you are writing solely for your own satisfaction, you aren't a writer, you're a literary masturbator. Writing is about the communication of ideas from your brain to the reader, and if your message becomes garbled through misinterpretation or incomprehension, you've failed.

Therefore, a 2006 study into the literacy and comprehension skills of US students came as a shock to many who make their living by writing. The study revealed that more than 50% of students at four year schools and over 75% of students at two year colleges lacked the ability to interpret and understand certain literary tasks.

The students were unable to:

• interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure
• understand the arguments of newspaper editorials
• compare credit card offers with different interest rates and annual fees

Remember, these were students and are therefore more literate than the average US adult.

Although this may be good news for certain credit card companies, it does have ramifications for those of us who live by the written word.

Brian Clark, in his essential Copyblogger, regularly makes the point that clear, effective writing has to be simple. It has long been established that a conversational tone is the easiest to read and understand and that complex sentence structures should be avoided if possible.

George Orwell is often quoted in this context, having created six rules for writers in his "Politics and the English Language".

• Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
• Never use a long word where a short one will do.
• If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
• Never use the passive voice where you can use the active.
• Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
• Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Yet pretentious and verbose text can still be found in all writing disciplines. If you want your writing to stand out and be more successful than those around you, it actually pays to avoid showing off. Forget the high language, break the grammar rules and don't be afraid to undersell your abilities. As it turns out, the cleverest writing is actually the simplest.