Abstract Writing with Plain English
Using too many abstract terms makes your writing vague and your message unclear. The more information you give your reader, the better. Go through your writing looking for abstract words or phrases. Turn them into specific, concrete information the reader can picture and understand. This will help to focus your mind on presenting relevant information to the reader.
As the writer, you have control over how specific you make your information. For example, look at these lists of words. At the top are abstract words and at the bottom are concrete words. You can choose how abstract or specific to make your writing. The more you move away from the abstract words towards the bottom of the list, the more your writing improves.
Abstract
refreshments | output device | business exhibition
beverages | printing facility | computer show
hot drinks | printer | Windows computer show
tea and coffee | laser printer | Stand 101
Don't give too much information.
You always have to decide just how specific your information should be. There may be times when you have too much information or offer too many irrelevant details. For example, if writing a proposal to buy computer equipment, the following may be too specific for a non-technical audience:
Too Specific:
We recommend the firm buys six Powerline computers with VESA VL-Bus local bus slots, available with 486SX models, with Conner fast access hard disk drive and Cirrus Logic VL-Bus with 16 colours and an accelerated SVGA Card and a 102-key keyboard.
Improved:
We recommend the firm buys six Powerline 486SX computers with SVGA colour screens.
About the Author
Joseph Zheng is a blogger from BASINGSTOKE, UK. He writes about writing software reviews and copywriting tips. For more infomation about plain english writing, visit blog stylewriter software
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