This time of year, corporate sustainability reports bloom like algae in a lake.
These reports show the efforts a company makes to do the right things for the environment and the community. However, the language that describes what they do is often thick with jargon. And there’s no getting around multi-syllable words like “sustainable” and “environment.” It can make for a dense, hard-to-understand document.
The April issue of my newsletter, Wordnerdery, gives before-and-after examples of four ways to more clearly explain this complicated topic:
- Use the active voice
- Cut out unnecessary words
- Use short, familiar words
- Avoid jargon.
You can also make these reports easier to read by:
- Writing to the reader (“you”)
- Breaking long, complicated sentences into shorter ones (aim for an average 14 words or less)
- Breaking paragraphs into fewer sentences (averaging just two or three)
- Using bullet points.
Read more in the April issue of Wordnerdery!
Related reading:
Fight for readability with five easy fixes
Writing for the web? Follow these tips to help impatient readers
Confusing to the max: A 105-word sentence
Image: “franky242” and FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
Wordnerdery is a quick read about words, effective/expressive writing, newsletters and more. Are you a subscriber yet? If yes, thanks for reading! If not, you can sign up right now. In keeping with Canada’s anti-spam laws, you can easily unsubscribe any time; well, as long as you don’t mind breaking my heart.