Harvard Management

Communication Letter
A NEWSLETTER FROM HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PUBLISHING TOOLS, TECHNIQUES, AND IDEAS FOR THE ARTICULATE EXECUTIVE

Article Reprint No. C0302B

Brevity Isn’t Enough—

You Need to Write Tight
by Kathy Henning

This document is authorized for use only in Prof. Dibyadyuti Roy, Prof. Aditya Deshbandhu, Prof. Madhusri Shrivastava, Prof. Shweta Kushal, Prof. Swatantra's PGP/TERM-I/MC/2020-21 at
Indian Institute of Management - Indore from Aug 2020 to Oct 2020.
 Harvard Management
Communication Letter
A NEWSLETTER FROM HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PUBLISHING TOOLS, TECHNIQUES, AND IDEAS FOR THE ARTICULATE EXECUTIVE

Harvard Management Communication Letter Harvard Management Communication Letter

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HARVARD MANAGEMENT UPDATE • HARVARD MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION LETTER • BALANCED SCORECARD REPORT
This document is authorized for use only in Prof. Dibyadyuti
HARVARD BUSINESSRoy, Prof. Aditya
REVIEW • HBSDeshbandhu,
CASES • HBSProf. Madhusri
PRESS Shrivastava,
• HBS VIDEOS AND Prof. Shweta Kushal, Prof.
INTERACTIVE MEDIA Swatantra's PGP/TERM-I/MC/2020-21 at
Indian Institute of Management - Indore from Aug 2020 to Oct 2020.
 WRITING BY KATHY HENNING
Brevity Isn’t Enough—
You Need to Write Tight
Cutting out words won’t guarantee
clarity—you need to cut out wordiness.
What’s the difference? Read on.
great deal has been written over
A the last few years about the need
for brevity on the Web. Whether Web
writing has improved as a result is
debatable, but one thing is certain: the
word has gotten out. These days one
can’t gather three people in a room to
plan a Web site without someone’s
sounding off about the need for
brevity.
That’s a good thing. Our collective
consciousness has been raised.
But there are at least two downsides to
this Web-brevity mania. First, perhaps
following Newton’s third law, it has at
times caused the opposite reaction in
It may be counterintuitive, but
mistakes in larger type are
easier to overlook.
print. It is as if writers, reeling from
the constraints imposed by the Web,
can’t help but pour forth in print. Sec-
ond—far worse—it has put the cart
before the horse: brevity has begun to
supersede clarity in importance in our
eyes. Striving for brevity isn’t enough.
We need to write tight.
Clarity
Clarity is far and away the most
important attribute of tight writing.
For if the purpose of writing is to
communicate a particular message,
then no matter how concise your writ-
ing, how impeccable your spelling
and grammar, how interesting your
topic—if what you’ve written isn’t
This documentCopyright
is authorized for use
© 2003 only in Prof.
by Harvard Dibyadyuti
Business SchoolRoy, Prof. Aditya
Publishing
Indian Institute of Management - Indore from Aug 2020 to Oct 2020.
clear, you might as well have written it
in a foreign language.
So how do you determine whether
your writing is clear? Simple: let
someone else read it—preferably
someone from your target audience.
Don’t rely on your own intuition.
Because you know what you meant to
say, you’ll likely be blind to any ambi-
guity that has crept in. What you
meant to say doesn’t matter—all that
matters is what you wrote.
Here’s a sentence written by the CEO
of a now-defunct Web-development
company who relied on his own intu-
ition to affirm its clarity:
Our method provides the flexible inte-
gration points required for working
on complex system integration proj-
ects where effective deployment and
engagement with specialized vendors
is critical.
Had he asked others to read this before
he published it, perhaps someone
would have told him it was a mess of
corporate blather. But he didn’t. He
knew what he meant, and that was
good enough for him.
Accuracy
The accuracy of your writing can spell
the difference between success and
failure. Overlooked mistakes can have
far-reaching consequences ranging
from a reputation for carelessness to
the financial ruin of your company.
Because copyediting requires a strong
command of English grammar and
usage, which are constantly evolving,
Deshbandhu,
Corporation. Prof. reserved.
All rights
Madhusri Shrivastava, Prof. Shweta Kushal, Prof. Swatantra's PGP/TERM-I/MC/2020-21 at
it’s best to hire a professional copy-
editor. Whoever reviews your writing
should understand that a mistake in a
phone number is far more serious than
a misspelled word or an extra space.
If you have to proof your own work,
here’s how to minimize oversights:
■ Shut your door, turn off your phone
and computer monitor, and take your
time. Rushing through copy is like
vacuuming too fast: you miss stuff.
■ Don’t try to find every mistake in one
reading. First concentrate on mechan-
ics—spelling, punctuation, and spac-
ing. Then review for meaning, looking
for ambiguities and gaps in logic.
■ Proof all display copy, such as head-
ers or text in all caps, separately. It
may be counterintuitive, but mistakes
in larger type are easier to overlook. If
there’s an outline or a table of con-
tents, proof it separately also.
■ Finally, proof your corrections.
Relevance
To be effective, text needs to be rele-
vant. Relevant text accomplishes two
goals: it speaks directly to the readers
and it relates directly to the topic.
To write relevant text, then, you must
understand your readers. Try to envi-
sion them as real people with specific
needs, objectives, and preferences.
And make sure that all the information
relates directly to the topic. If you’re
writing about a product, write about
the product—what it is and what it
does. Don’t waste readers’ time with
claims about how the product will
change their lives; such writing is
rarely relevant and usually comes
across as insincere hype.
Which brings me to my next point:
Sincerity
“The secret of success,” said the
French novelist, essayist, and drama-
tist Jean Giraudoux, “is sincerity.
3
 Writing Tight, continued

Once you can fake that you’ve got it unnecessarily long word with a 1 Focus on the reader’s viewpoint,
made.” shorter word? not your own.

Though Giraudoux was being humor- Don’t try to eliminate every needless 2 Focus on the message, not on
ous, he touched on a fundamental word in one pass, and, more impor- impressing your readers.
truth about writing—that sincerity, or tant, never sacrifice clarity by cutting
at least the appearance of sincerity, is too much—far better not to cut 3 Strive for clarity, relevance, and
crucial. Nothing alienates readers enough but remain clear! Always concision, and transparency will
faster than insincerity in any form— proof after cutting. follow.
hyperbole, hype, hypocrisy, untruth.
Don’t make the mistake of underesti- Transparency 4 Lean toward understatement;
mating your readers’ ability to recog- Writing transparently means remain- avoid hyperbole.
nize insincerity. Write honestly. ing nearly invisible so that the reader
notices the message, not the messen- 5 Reread your writing for language
Concision ger. No writer can remain completely that shows off.
In The Elements of Style, William invisible—simply by choosing the
Strunk Jr. and E.B. White tell us to words you choose and putting them in 6 Have someone else read your writ-
“omit needless words.” It’s good, oft- a certain order, you reveal something ing for language that shows off.
quoted advice, except that “omit” is about yourself. But what I mean by
the wrong word. It should be “delete” transparent writing is writing that Consistency
or “strike out.” Writing concisely isn’t doesn’t “show off,” writing that steers Consistency’s reputation has suffered
about leaving out unnecessary words clear of pretense. over the years, and consistency has
as you write. It’s about deleting lost its rightful place among the quali-
unnecessary words as you rewrite— For most writers, achieving trans- ties of good writing. This is the result,
that is, after you’ve written. parency is difficult. At times we’re all I believe, of two phenomena.
tempted to write copy that calls atten-
It’s not as easy as it sounds. Writing tion to itself, that says, “See what a First is a misquoting of Ralph Waldo
concisely takes considerably more great writer I am!” or “See how much Emerson’s statement “A foolish con-
time and effort than not writing con- I know!” sistency is the hobgoblin of little
cisely. You must consider every word, minds.” Over time, “A foolish” got left
asking yourself whether it needs to be But we must not give in! If we do, we off so often that people forgot it had
there. Can you substitute one word for risk failing to communicate our mes- ever been there.
several? Eliminate an entire sentence, sage. Here are six steps to greater
paragraph, even section? Replace an transparency in your writing: Second, misguided English teachers
have taught us to avoid repetition.
“Never use the same word twice,” they
say. “Find a synonym.”
How to Write Tight—in a Nutshell
But if we want to write tight, we must
1 Understand that tight writing doesn’t just happen. put this advice behind us and embrace
repetition. It’s a powerful tool, used
2 Don’t try to write tight on the first draft. The first draft is for organizing by poets and orators alike to powerful
what you want to say and putting it roughly into words. Tightening effect. Furthermore, if you use two
comes in subsequent drafts. different words to mean the same
thing, clarity comes into jeopardy.
3 Plan to revise at least three times.
When you mean the same thing, use
4 Have someone else read what you’ve written to point out ambiguity or the same word. It’s that simple. ❑
suggest cuts.
Kathy Henning is a Seattle-based writer and
5 Understand that tighter is always better, but shorter isn’t always better. teacher, as well as the managing editor of
CommunicationFitness, an online instructional
Remember that clarity is always more important than brevity. resource for schools, nonprofits, and businesses.
She can be reached at hmcl@hbsp.harvard.edu

4 is authorized for use only in Prof. Dibyadyuti Roy, Prof. Aditya Deshbandhu,
This document H A R VA RProf.
D MMadhusri
A N A G EShrivastava,
MENT COM Prof.
M UShweta
N I C ATKushal,
I O N LProf.
E T TSwatantra's
E R F E B R UPGP/TERM-I/MC/2020-21
ARY 2003 at
Indian Institute of Management - Indore from Aug 2020 to Oct 2020.