Tips for the ‘pedantic’ writer

Whether or not you’ve taken our tongue-in-cheek style test, if readers need a ball of thread to find their way out of your verbal maze then please read on.

Here’s what our three ‘C’ test sentences – yes, only three! – look like when we put them together:

‘The 3.25 hour interruption to service experienced by customers on the morning of May 24th 2013, was the result of a rare but highly virulent file infector virus which entered our centralised IT system during a scheduled bi-monthly update of anti-virus software, for which we are sorry. Our terms and conditions, which were revised on 1st September 2013, stipulate that in order for us to perform all the administrative tasks that are required to process cancellation requests and update our records, we can only accept cancellations where we have been notified in writing three days in advance. We are always keen to hear our customers’ views – that is why we set up our dedicated email facility which we launched on 1st April 2010, since when we have received an impressive 3,012 responses from clients and interested members of the public – so contact us now.’

An incredible 146 words! If your intention is to decimate the tree population then you’re off to a great start. If you were hoping to impress, brace yourself for disappointment. Call us busy or lazy, the odds of us bothering to read enough to spot your brilliance are slim.

We know that being ‘transparent’ is de rigueur these days, but there are limits. Far from being admirably informative, our Pedant is more likely to be thought of as a long-winded know-it-all. So, here’s what you need to do.

• Think of your readers – Put yourself in their position. Would you want to wade through lines and lines of irrelevant information in the hope of finding something useful? Exactly. And if your readers don’t have to, chances are they won’t even try.
• Identify your point and stick to it – If your message is important enough to write about, it’s important that your readers can grasp it. Always keep the purpose of your document in mind and stick to your subject.
• Help readers get to the point – In all three sentences we arrive at the important bits – we’re sorry; cancel three days in advance; contact us now – only by following a very long, congested and circuitous route. Don’t assume that everyone will bother to make it that far. Help them by ditching the chatter and bringing your main messages to the fore.
• Leave out irrelevant details – Do readers need to know what caused the IT to fail, what goes on in the intervening three days before cancellation or how many visitors you’ve had to your website? No – none of these is relevant to the main points. Dates, lengths of time, schedules, number of responses etc. are also unnecessary here.
• Don’t talk technical – Unless you’re writing for a technical audience, avoid this urge. File infector virus, bi-monthly update, anti-virus software, centralised – all extraneous details that will turn off, rather than turn on, your readers.

Less is more – Do everything we’ve said above and the words will fall away!