Guides
Practical, carefully checked guides to writing clearly, with examples you can test in the tools.
Readability
What the scores measure and how to use them
Readability scores explained: what they measure and what they miss
Every readability formula boils down to two counts: how long your sentences are and how long your words are. That makes them useful smoke alarms and poor judges of quality.
Flesch Reading Ease: what the score means and how to raise it
Flesch Reading Ease turns sentence length and syllables per word into a score where higher means easier. Here is the arithmetic, a worked example, and what actually moves the number.
Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level: the formula and what a grade means
Flesch–Kincaid turns sentence length and syllables per word into a US school grade. It is easy to read, easy to misread, and not quite the same as Flesch Reading Ease.
Gunning Fog Index: formula, complex words, and its gray areas
The Fog index adds average sentence length to the share of long words, then scales the result to a grade. Its rule for 'complex words' is simple to state and surprisingly hard to apply.
SMOG Index: the 30-sentence readability formula
SMOG estimates a reading grade from one count: words of three or more syllables across 30 sentences. It is quick, deliberately strict, and shaky on short text.
Coleman–Liau Index: readability from letters, not syllables
Coleman–Liau estimates a school grade from letters per word and sentences per 100 words. Counting letters is exact, which makes the score steady from one tool to the next.
Automated Readability Index (ARI): formula and worked example
ARI was built so a machine could do the counting: characters per word and words per sentence, no syllables. It is simple, steady, and blind in the same ways as every other formula.
Counting syllables: why software disagrees and how much it matters
Most readability formulas depend on syllable counts, and no two programs count syllables quite alike. Here is where the disagreements come from and how much they move your score.
What readability score should you aim for?
There is no official perfect score. There are useful conventions by audience, and one rule that matters more than any of them: write for the reader, then use the score to check.
Style
Sentences, voice and word choice
How to write shorter sentences without sounding choppy
Long sentences make readers hold too much in their heads at once. Here are six reliable ways to cut them down, and why the goal is variety, not uniform shortness.
Active vs. passive voice: how to spot it and when to switch
Passive voice is a grammatical structure, not a mistake. Learn exactly what makes a sentence passive, how to spot one fast, and why the active version usually reads better.
When to use passive voice (and why it is not always wrong)
The advice to avoid passive voice is a default, not a ban. These are the situations where the passive is the better choice, and how to tell them apart from habit.
Words to cut: filler, wordy phrases, and redundant pairs
Most drafts carry words that add length but no meaning. Here is how to find the common ones, what to replace them with, and when a longer phrase is worth keeping.
Adverbs: when they help and when a stronger verb is better
Adverbs are not the enemy. Many carry facts you need. The ones worth cutting prop up a weak verb or repeat what the verb already says.
Hedges and weasel words: say what you mean, with care
Hedges, weasel words, and intensifiers all adjust how strongly you claim something. Used well, they make writing accurate. Used by habit, they make it vague.
Avoiding clichés: what they are and what to write instead
A cliché was once a fresh image. Repetition wore it down until readers stopped seeing anything. The fix is rarely a better phrase; it is usually a more specific fact.
Nominalizations: how to wake up zombie nouns
When a verb is turned into a noun, the action of the sentence goes into hiding. Restoring the verb usually makes the sentence shorter, clearer, and easier to follow.
Plain language principles: writing anyone can use
Plain language is writing your reader can find, understand, and use the first time they read it. The US federal government has published guidelines on it for years, and they apply to almost any document.
Put the main point first: front-loading and BLUF
Readers decide in the first few lines whether to keep reading. Tell them the point there, and let the details follow for those who need them.
An editing checklist: how to self-edit in five passes
Trying to fix everything at once means fixing little. Editing in separate passes, from the big picture down to commas, catches far more and takes less effort.
Repeated words: when to vary and when to repeat
A word that echoes too soon can distract. But swapping in synonyms to avoid it can confuse. Here is how to tell an accidental echo from a repetition that does real work.
Length and counting
Words, characters, pages and time
How words are counted, and why word counters disagree
Every word counter has to decide what a word is. Here are the hard cases, how common tools handle them, and the exact rules our counter follows.
How many pages is 1,000 words?
There is no single answer, because six settings change it. Here is what each one does, plus a table computed by laying out real text in common fonts.
Reading time: how estimates work and why 238 words per minute
A reading-time estimate is word count divided by an average reading speed. The useful part is knowing which average to use and when it stops applying.
Speech length: how many words for a 5-minute talk?
At a measured 130 words per minute, a 5-minute talk is about 650 words. Here is the arithmetic, the range around it, and how to check your own pace.
Average sentence length: what it tells you and what to aim for
Average sentence length is the simplest readability measure there is. It is useful, but only alongside a look at the spread: a good average can hide a 60-word monster.
Paragraph length: how long should a paragraph be?
A paragraph should hold one idea, no more. How many sentences that takes depends on the idea and on where the text will be read.
Character limits: social posts, titles, and why emoji count double
Platforms count characters in different ways, and not always the way you would. Here are the common limits, the counting rules behind them, and how to trim.
SMS character limits: 160, 153, 70, and the curly-quote trap
A text message holds 160 characters only if every character is in the GSM-7 alphabet. One character outside it, like a curly quote or an emoji, drops the limit to 70.
Title tag and meta description length: what actually gets cut
Search engines cut titles and descriptions by how wide they are on screen, not by a character count. Character ranges are a good guide, but the words matter more than the number.
Word count guidelines for essays, abstracts, cover letters, and more
Most documents have a customary length, but few have a universal rule. Here are the usual ranges, and the one habit that matters more than any of them.
Mechanics
Case, numbers and conventions
Title case vs. sentence case, and when to use each
Sentence case capitalizes like a sentence; title case capitalizes the main words. Style guides disagree on the details. Here is how each case works and where it fits.
Numbers in writing: when to spell them out and when to use numerals
Style guides disagree on where to switch from words to numerals, but they agree on consistency. Here are the main conventions and when to break them.