How can we keep our writing brief and simple? The most useful advice is to write as far as possible, as you speak. Apart from making our business writing more human and informal, the discipline of writing as you speak corrects four potential weaknesses:

• It acts as a check against long words
• It acts as a check against long sentences
• It acts as a check against long paragraphs
• It ensures that our words are concerned with action

Words of two syllables or less are obviously easier to read and understand. They are familiar to readers and they communicate more immediately, and often more powerfully. Short words are also often more precise. We do not, of course, advocate a total ban on the use of words than one syllable. Occasionally the use of long words can contribute to the impact and variety of your writing but you should not reach automatically for an impressively long word if a shorter one will serve your purpose equally well.

A sentence is a unit of thought, an idea or a concept. Each sentence should be as long as the thought requires. However, aiming to write short sentences will encourages us to think more clearly. Try, then, to keep a sentence below 20 words.

A paragraph is a collection of sentences, or units of thought, that develop a theme. Short paragraphs help the reader to read, and they improve the overall presentation of the written document.