writing advice series Archives - Duck Alignment Academy

Just because you write it, that doesn’t mean they’ll read it

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. What happens if you write all of those wonderful words and they don’t get read?

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We live in a time when we’re awash in tools (often free) that aid writing. You miss out when you don’t take advantage of these tools.

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Overuse of footnotes, commas, em dashes, and parentheses suggest your writing may be unclear. Keeping sentences focused helps your reader.

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Choose your words carefully. You want people to discuss the facts, not the wording.

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If you’re not clear about who is supposed to act, people will assume that it’s not them. Be clear so everyone knows what to expect.

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Your prose is not code; it will not fail because you forgot a semicolon. Prefer being understood to strict adherence to grammatical rules.

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Acronyms can be confusing when they’re unfamiliar to your reader. Err on the side of explaining, even if you don’t think you need to.

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Put the important part at the beginning of your post or email. Don’t assume people will read the whole thing.

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