Please, Get To The Point

I read a lot of online content through my daily life. While consuming different media, I am constantly reminded that short content is easier to digest.

The next time you decide to write something get to the point as fast as possible.

The idea of unnecessary words and abundant sentences must come from our adolescence. The current education system gives children assignments forcing them to focus on the amount of words they write. Teachers incentive students to fill the page with words rather than necessary content.

In Seth Godin’s startup school lectures he states all non-fiction books can be written in 5 pages. The purpose of writing more is that as human beings we don’t value the content unless their is an abundance of it. The value of a book is determined by it’s weight.

Great authors demonstrate their command of language by writing succinctly. In the 1920’s Ernest Hemingway wrote a short story using 6 words.

For Sale. Baby Shoes. Never Worn.

Although an unverified account, the passage demonstrates you can transfer an idea in very few words.

The Internet begs content generators to do this. The abbreviation TL; DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read) was created explicitly to summarize posts deemed unnecessarily long and extensive.

The book, On Writing Well, which explains to authors how to write non-fiction has multiple chapters on simplicity and removing clutter.

But the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that servers no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in a the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what - these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentance. And they usually occur in proportion to eduction and rank.

Stop using words to fill pages with endless amounts of unneeded language.

The next time you write an email, a reference document, or a blog post, I don’t care about your education. I care about the point you are trying to make.

TL; DR

• Get to it.
• Make it easy to consume.
• Use simple language.