Many writers, both experienced and beginning, believe that good writing requires fancy words and complex sentence structures. That belief is often an impediment to clarity. Without clarity, communication cannot occur. And without effective communication, writing is pointless.
As a writer, our goal should not be a demonstration of the size of our vocabulary. Nor should it be an experiment to see how many clauses we can cram into a sentence. Our goal should be communication–to express and share ideas and information. This is most effectively accomplished by keeping it simple.
Keeping it simple does not mean that we should use a very limited vocabulary. Nor does it mean that every sentence must be short and consist only of a subject, verb, and object. Such writing would be boring, and it would restrict our ability to communicate effectively. Complex and compound sentences allow us to express relationships and connections more easily and effectively than short sentences. (As an example, look at the sentence structures in this lesson. Some are short and simple. Many aren’t. The proper mixture helps us communicate clearly and effectively.)
If we try to impress the reader with the vastness of our vocabulary, our reader must continually reach for the dictionary. He will grow frustrated and his ability to understand will be impaired. While learning new words is good, it can become overwhelming to the reader if he must learn lots of new words while reading one essay. If he must frequently look up a definition, his reading and understanding are disrupted.
Similarly, overly long sentences can be difficult to integrate and understand. The reader is presented with too many ideas at once. He can’t easily connect them together. As an example, consider this sentence:
Bob, who recently graduated from law school, was applying for a job at the same firm that employed his older brother, but Bob wasn’t sure that he wanted to work with his brother because they had never been very close, and he wondered if working together would be uncomfortable.
There is simply too much information in this single sentence. The reader will struggle to connect it all and understand. He will eventually grow frustrated and give up trying to understand. And when a reader gives up trying to understand, he gives up reading what we have written. It is much better to present the information in several sentences.
Bob, who recently graduated from law school, was applying for a job at the same firm that employed his older brother. Bob wasn’t sure than he wanted to work with his brother because they had never been very close. He wondered if working together would be uncomfortable.
Presenting the very same information in three sentences, rather than one, makes comprehension much easier for the reader. We should be continually striving to make it easy for the reader to understand. Keeping it simple is one way to accomplish that.
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