abogoyavlensky/writing-clearly-and-concisely

Writing Clearly and Concisely

Overview

Write with clarity and force. This skill covers what to do (Strunk) and what not to do (AI patterns).

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill whenever you write prose for humans:

• Documentation, README files, technical explanations
• Commit messages, pull request descriptions
• Error messages, UI copy, help text, comments
• Reports, summaries, or any explanation
• Editing to improve clarity

If you're writing sentences for a human to read, use this skill.

Limited Context Strategy

When context is tight:

1. Write your draft using judgment
2. Dispatch a subagent with your draft and the relevant section file
3. Have the subagent copyedit and return the revision

Loading a single section (~1,000-4,500 tokens) instead of everything saves significant context.

Elements of Style

William Strunk Jr.'s The Elements of Style (1918) teaches you to write clearly and cut ruthlessly.

Rules

Elementary Rules of Usage (Grammar/Punctuation):

1. Form possessive singular by adding 's
2. Use comma after each term in series except last
3. Enclose parenthetic expressions between commas
4. Comma before conjunction introducing co-ordinate clause
5. Don't join independent clauses by comma
6. Don't break sentences in two
7. Participial phrase at beginning refers to grammatical subject

Elementary Principles of Composition:

8. One paragraph per topic
9. Begin paragraph with topic sentence
10. Use active voice
11. Put statements in positive form
12. Use definite, specific, concrete language
13. Omit needless words
14. Avoid succession of loose sentences
15. Express co-ordinate ideas in similar form
16. Keep related words together
17. Keep to one tense in summaries
18. Place emphatic words at end of sentence

Reference Files

The rules above are summarized from Strunk's original text. For complete explanations with examples:

| Section | File | ~Tokens | |---------|------|---------| | Grammar, punctuation, comma rules | 02-elementary-rules-of-usage.md | 2,500 | | Paragraph structure, active voice, concision | 03-elementary-principles-of-composition.md | 4,500 | | Headings, quotations, formatting | 04-a-few-matters-of-form.md | 1,000 | | Word choice, common errors | 05-words-and-expressions-commonly-misused.md | 4,000 |

Most tasks need only 03-elementary-principles-of-composition.md - it covers active voice, positive form, concrete language, and omitting needless words.

AI Writing Patterns to Avoid

LLMs regress to statistical means, producing generic, puffy prose. Avoid:

• Puffery: pivotal, crucial, vital, testament, enduring legacy
• Empty "-ing" phrases: ensuring reliability, showcasing features, highlighting capabilities
• Promotional adjectives: groundbreaking, seamless, robust, cutting-edge
• Overused AI vocabulary: delve, leverage, multifaceted, foster, realm, tapestry
• Formatting overuse: excessive bullets, emoji decorations, bold on every other word
• Em-dashes (—) are forbidden. Use a regular hyphen (-) for parenthetical breaks, or rewrite as two sentences. Em-dashes are a strong AI tell, awkward to type on most keyboards, and inconsistent with hyphens used elsewhere in the same document. This rule overrides any Strunk guidance that prefers em-dashes - apply it to all output (prose, comments, commit messages, code documentation).

Be specific, not grandiose. Say what it actually does.

For comprehensive research on why these patterns occur, see signs-of-ai-writing.md. Wikipedia editors developed this guide to detect AI-generated submissions; their patterns are well-documented and field-tested.

Bottom Line

Writing for humans? Load the relevant section from elements-of-style/ and apply the rules. For most tasks, 03-elementary-principles-of-composition.md covers what matters most.