baekenough/writing-clearly-and-concisely
templates/.claude/skills/writing-clearly-and-concisely/SKILL.md
Apply Strunk's timeless writing rules to ANY prose humans will read—documentation, commit messages, error messages, explanations, reports, or UI text. Makes your writing clearer, stronger, and more professional.
$ install --global
skillsauthnpx skillsauth add baekenough/oh-my-customcode writing-clearly-and-conciselyInstall this skill globally with one command. Works with Claude Code, Cursor, and Windsurf.
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TrivyContainer and dependency vulnerability scanner
95%
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SemgrepStatic code analysis for vulnerabilities
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mcp-scan (Snyk)Model Context Protocol security validation
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Snyk (dep)Open source security scanning
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Socket.devSupply chain security analysis
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Last scanned: Apr 3, 2026, 8:18 PM8.3s1 file scanned
SKILL.md
- name:
- writing-clearly-and-concisely
- description:
- Apply Strunk's timeless writing rules to ANY prose humans will read—documentation, commit messages, error messages, explanations, reports, or UI text. Makes your writing clearer, stronger, and more professional.
- scope:
- core
- user-invocable:
- false
Writing Clearly and Concisely
Overview
William Strunk Jr.'s The Elements of Style (1918) teaches you to write clearly and cut ruthlessly.
Source: Internalized from elements-of-style plugin (superpowers-marketplace v1.0.0)
WARNING: The full reference (templates/guides/elements-of-style/elements-of-style.html) consumes ~12,000 tokens. Read it only when writing or editing prose.
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:
- Write your draft using judgment
- Dispatch a subagent with your draft and the reference guide
- Have the subagent copyedit and return the revision
All Rules
Elementary Rules of Usage (Grammar/Punctuation)
- Form possessive singular by adding 's
- Use comma after each term in series except last
- Enclose parenthetic expressions between commas
- Comma before conjunction introducing co-ordinate clause
- Don't join independent clauses by comma
- Don't break sentences in two
- Participial phrase at beginning refers to grammatical subject
Elementary Principles of Composition
- One paragraph per topic
- Begin paragraph with topic sentence
- Use active voice
- Put statements in positive form
- Use definite, specific, concrete language
- Omit needless words
- Avoid succession of loose sentences
- Express co-ordinate ideas in similar form
- Keep related words together
- Keep to one tense in summaries
- Place emphatic words at end of sentence
Section V: Words and Expressions Commonly Misused
Alphabetical reference for usage questions — see templates/guides/elements-of-style/elements-of-style.html
Bottom Line
Writing for humans? Read the reference guide and apply the rules. Low on tokens? Dispatch a subagent to copyedit with the guide.
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