Perhaps 95% of basic sentence-level edits are straightforward and rote—repeatable, habitual, even Pavlovian.

Editors often can’t turn those reflexes off. That’s why you may find your editor friends grousing about playbills and restaurant menus.

The good news is that you can learn the patterns of editing (what we call standard edits)—not to annoy your friends by critiquing the church newsletter, but because doing so is the fastest way to write clearly and quickly.

That’s the foundation of the ClearWriter system. And we’ve already done much of the work, by compiling the standard edits we’ve discovered in our daily work as writers and editors.

Consider phrases like the field of (as in “the field of economics”), the area of (“the area of education research”), the problem of (“the problem of poverty”), and the like.

These phrases are fat that lards your writing.

Economics is a field; education research, an area; poverty, a problem.

Cut them.

Also easily fixed with standard edits is the tendency to use overweight words—words that are long, abstract, or obscure—where simpler words will do. So change component to part, lengthy to long, and utilization to use.

Such changes may seem to make little difference, and it’s true that they reflect preferences rather than rules. But you’ll be amazed at the results when you iterate these edits over a manuscript.

In future blog entries, we’ll talk more about the patterns we’ve found in editing. The best places to learn about them, however, are in our online writing training and in Edit Yourself, by ClearWriter founder Bruce Ross-Larson. Another good resource is our editing software, ClearEdits, which puts an editor inside your computer—taking advantage of the repeatability of our standard edits.

Most people use three or four basic sentence constructions—the simple, compound, and complex sentences taught in all composition books.

• I came to New York to write. (simple = one independent clause)
• I came to New York to write, but it took decades to find a publisher. (compound = two independent clauses)
• Because I was naive and optimistic, I came to New York to write. (complex = one dependent clause and one independent)

What most people do to give their sentences variety is merely to multiply their subjects, verbs, objects, complements, phrases, even clauses:

Because I was naive and optimistic, because I wanted to make a dent in literature, and because I needed a change in the direction of my life, I came to New York, which is a font of inspiration for artists of all types, to taste reality, to test limits, to write about both, and to hope for recognition.

Grammatically correct, but . . .

How do you get from the common to the stunning? Not by diagramming sentences, though that’s a good start toward understanding a sentence’s pieces. And certainly not by viewing sentences as simple, compound, or complex. We tried both, but neither led us to understand how good writers use sentence structures to make their writing sing. It was only when we began trying to identify what was unusual about a sentence—a dramatic flourish, an elegant repetition, a conversational injection—that we began to see patterns.

So, to move from the common to the stunning, look for patterns in good writing that you can emulate. The idea is to build an arsenal of such patterns. Careful composition of each sentence may seem painstaking, but it is fundamental to developing an individual style. And it gets easier as you go. In a single sentence you can convey tone, style, and message.

But follow the dictum that spare use is superior to frequent use, which can quickly careen into cliché.

In future blog entries and in our online writing training, we’ll show you how to strike that balance—and how to use dozens of patterns for writing stunning sentences.

What are the building blocks of writing? Letters, words, sentences? Arguments can be made for each.

But if you write to argue, persuade, or explain, the best answer is paragraphs.

Many writers think of a paragraph as collection of sentences framed by an indent and a carriage return, running perhaps 10 or 12 lines. Few have the language to describe what’s good—or bad—about a paragraph. Our techniques show you what it means for a paragraph to be unified, coherent, and well developed.

A paragraph is unified if each sentence is clearly related to the point. It is coherent if you make it obvious to your reader how each sentence is linked to the point. And it is well developed if its sentences unfold in a way that makes your argument perfectly clear to the reader.

The difficulty is putting these ideas into action. The key is recognizing and imitating the patterns of good paragraphs, which we’ll show you in future blog entries and in our online writing training.

Consider an example:

One of the best ways to make sure that a paragraph is well developed is to express the point in the first sentence and then to support it with details and examples in subsequent sentences. This method is as effective as it is popular—perhaps two-thirds of all sentences in expository writing are of this form.

But using other paragraph models (judiciously) can give your writing greater pace and power. Conclude with your point. Ask a question and answer it. Undermine a premise to make the opposite point. 

These are just a few possibilities.

Do you floss daily? Eat your vegetables? Work out?

Here's another: Do you plan before you write?

We know that these things are good for us.Whether we do them is less certain.

Just like dental care, healthy diet, and exercise, good planning will save you in the long run. The idea is to separate thinking from writing, for to do two things at once is to do both badly.

Most writers start by assembling details, examples, and comments in paragraphs—sporadically making points, rarely conveying a message. Our approach is to do the reverse—to start with your messages, to support them with points, and to use those points to assemble your details, examples, and comments.

We suggest that you begin by answering a few basic questions about your topic, audience, and purpose. Next, come up with your main message and three or four supporting messages. Then use those messages to develop an outline, and move beyond that to formulate a detailed paragraph-by-paragraph plan for your first draft.

That may seem simple, but doing it well takes practice. Take, for example, a planning session we held for an international financial organization’s flagship report. We started with a simple question.

Who’s your audience?

The answers dribbled out. First: “government officials.” After a pause: “people in the development community more broadly. And then a flood: “The press, graduate students, those in nongovernmental organizations, the public.”

In just a few sentences, the audience mushroomed to 6 billion people, too large to help with planning.

So the key isn’t just asking the right questions. It’s also knowing the answers to look for. Our techniques show you how to go beyond the simple outlining you learned in school with powerful planning tools, useful for whatever your field and whomever your audience.

For more information, visit our online writing training page.