Writing clearly, one move per page
The twenty-four moves that get your emails read, your reports understood, and your point across.
A diagram, the classic mistake, and one thing to go try. That's a page.
Writing clearly, one move per page
The twenty-four moves that get your emails read, your reports understood, and your point across.
Set in Space Grotesk, Inter and JetBrains Mono (SIL Open Font License).
Guidance checked against the Purdue OWL concision, active voice and nominalization pages, the US federal plain language guidelines at plainlanguage.gov (digital.gov), the National Archives Top 10 Principles for Plain Language, the UNC Chapel Hill Writing Center handouts on conciseness, word choice, paragraphs, transitions and audience, and the Harvard College Writing Center's revision guidance. BLUF and the inverted pyramid are described in their standard published references.
General guidance for workplace writing. House style and legal wording in your own organisation win.
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© 2026 Steve Hodgkiss. All rights reserved. Personal use only; no redistribution rights.
Edition 1.0 · stevehodgkiss.net
Contents
Before you write
Most unclear writing was decided, not worded: who it is for, what the one message is, and what the reader does next. Five moves you make before typing a sentence.
- 01Know the reader
- 02Lead with the point
Every piece of writing has a real reader with their own knowledge, their own worries, and about twenty seconds. The move is to write for that person instead of for the topic.
Know the reader
The trap is writing for the person you just talked to: your team, your manager. The reader gets accurate answers to questions they never asked.
UNC's Writing Center: work out who will read it, what they know, and what you want them to do next.
Name the reader, name their question, answer that first.
Writing for a topic informs nobody. Writing for a person moves them.
Before your next email, write one line: who reads it, and what they must do after. Send only what serves that.
Busy readers decide in the first lines whether to keep reading. BLUF, bottom line up front, puts the decision in line one and the reasons underneath it.
Lead with the point
The term is US Army writing guidance: the greatest weakness in ineffective writing is that it does not quickly transmit a focused message. Their fix: state the bottom line first.
Context, then process, then options, and the recommendation in paragraph four, by which point the reader is gone.
Line one carries the decision, line two the deadline. Everything else is skimmable support.
Respect the skimmer. Even the reader who stops at line one leaves informed.
Find the real point of a report you sent, the line you would say if interrupted. Move it to line one.
Sentences that move
A sentence is a small machine for carrying one idea from you to a reader. Five moves that stop the machine stalling in its own opening words.
- 01Cut the throat-clearing
- 02Active voice
Throat-clearing is the warm-up writing you do before saying the thing: hoping, reaching out, developments. The move is to cut it and start at the thing.
Cut the throat-clearing
Every throat-clearing sentence is read on trust, waiting for the point it delays.
Purdue's OWL concision guide: words doing no work should be deleted; concise writing always uses the strongest words. Kindness is the brevity, not the words.
Delete the warm-up, keep the greeting if you want warmth, watch the email shrink by a third.
Say the thing. The reader thanks you in the only currency they have: attention.
Draft your next email as usual, then delete the first paragraph before sending. If nothing vanished, it was throat-clearing.
Active voice puts the doer in front of the verb: Priya approved the refund. Passive hides the doer behind it: the refund was approved. The move is to lead with the doer unless you have a reason not to.
Active voice
Purdue's OWL: active voice is generally clearer, more direct, and more concise than passive.
Workplace passive is habit, not conspiracy: the decision was taken, and the reader's first question, by whom, floats unanswered.
Find the doer and let them lead. Keep passive when the doer is unknown or irrelevant: the samples were contaminated.
If responsibility matters, name the responsible party. Grammar will not.
Search a draft for 'was' and 'were' plus a past participle. Where you know the doer, put them in front of the verb.
Jargon is shorthand for people who already understand it, and a locked door for everyone else. The move is plain words first, and a defined term only when the jargon is genuinely the right tool.
Plain words beat jargon
The National Archives principles: use everyday words; if you must use a technical term, explain it on first reference.
Leverage, synergies, actionables: readers outside the circle stop decoding, and the message dies in a glossary they never had.
Plain words reach everyone, including insiders. A real term of art, defined once, can stay.
Write to be understood, not to sound senior.
Rewrite one paragraph of your most jargon-heavy email so a new starter understands it on one read.
Structure
Skimming is how your document will actually be read. Five moves that make the skeleton carry the message even when the sentences are skipped.
- 01Headings that answer
- 02The inverted pyramid
Readers skim, and what they skim is the headings. The move is headings that carry the answer, not the topic: When will the fix ship, not Timeline.
Headings that answer
The federal guidance ranks heading types: question headings are strongest, statements next; topic headings are often too vague to help.
Read your headings in a row: if they form a list of boxes, the skeleton hides the message.
Write the reader's questions as headings, answer under each. The document then makes sense to someone who reads nothing else.
Headings are the version most people read.
List a report's headings on a sticky note; hand a colleague the note only. What they cannot retell, the headings failed.
Journalists write the inverted pyramid: the most important facts in the widest band at the top, detail below, background at the tip. The move is to order by importance so the ending is the only thing expendable.
The inverted pyramid
Purdue's OWL, for journalism: most newsworthy information first, then details, then background, so the story can be trimmed from the bottom.
Email gets read halfway and reports get skimmed. Gold at the end sits in the one place guaranteed unread.
Rank your points, load the top band, let context sink. The pyramid is the shape; BLUF is its opening line.
Write so the reader who stops early still gets the news. Every reader stops early.
Label each block of a page you wrote A, B or C by importance. Reorder so A comes first, then delete what you can of the tail.
The subject line is the one sentence everyone reads. Written well it is a promise the email then keeps. The move is to make it carry the message, the action, and the date.
Subject line as promise
The subject line is BLUF in miniature: it is the only line every reader is guaranteed to see.
Vague subjects cost twice: unopened now, because Quick question promises nothing, and unfindable later, because search catches nothing.
Action, noun, date: Decision needed: venue by Friday. The reader can triage before opening.
Write the subject line last, when you know what the email says. Then keep the promise.
Rewrite your next five subject lines as promises: action, noun, date. Watch replies come faster and threads stay findable.