The_Four_Cs

I’ve ready many books on writing, and I recommend two. Joseph Williams’ Style: Ten Lessons In Clarity And Grace identifies important principles and has lots of useful exercises. Roy Clark’s Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies For Every Writer is a bit more contemporary, incorporates Williams’ principles, and has other useful tips for writing.

These books address how to write with what I call the “4 Cs”—three of which are summarized in this useful slide deck.

• clarity (you communicate what’s intended),
• concision (in as few words as possible),
• cohesion (such that sentences and paragraphs flow), and
• coherence (paragraphs, sections, and the whole each have a core topic).

An excellent website that complements many of Williams’ principles is Explorations of Styles.

Williams’ principles

Principles for Clarity

1. Use subjects to name the characters in your story. (See Subjects.)
2. Use verbs to name their important actions. (See Verbs.)
3. Open your sentences with familiar units of information.
4. Begin sentences constituting a passive with consistent topic/subjects.
5. Get to the main verb quickly.
   • Avoid long introductory phrases and clauses.
   • Avoid long abstract subjects.
   • Avoid interrupting the subject-verb connection.
6. Push new, complex units of information to the end of the sentence.
7. Be concise. (Practice with Removing Fluff From Your Writing.)
   • Cut meaningless and repeated words and obvious implications.
   • Put the meaning of phrases into one or two words.
   • Prefer affirmative sentences to negative ones.
8. Control sprawl.
   • Don’t tack more than one subordinate clause onto another.
   • Extend a sentence with resumptive, summative, and free modifiers.
   • Extend a sentence with coordinate structures after verbs.

Principles for Coherence

1. In your introduction, motivate readers to read carefully by stating a problem they should care about.
2. Make your point clearly, the solution to the problem, usually at the end of the introduction.
3. In that point, introduce the important concepts that you will develop in what follows.
4. Make it clear where each part/section begins and ends.
5. Make everything that follows relevant to your point.
6. Order parts in a way that makes clear and visible sense to your readers.
7. Open each part/section with its own short introductory segment.
8. Put the point of each part/section at the end of that opening segment.
9. Begin sentences constituting a passage with consistent topic/subjects. (See Reverse Outlines)
10. Create cohesive old/new links between sentences. (See Transitions.)