writing-clearly-and-concisely

name	writing-clearly-and-concisely
description	Apply Strunk's timeless writing rules to ANY prose humans will read - documentation, commit messages, error messages, explanations, reports, or UI text. Makes your writing clearer, stronger, and more professional.

Writing Clearly and Concisely

Overview

William Strunk Jr.'s The Elements of Style (1918) teaches you to write clearly and cut ruthlessly.

WARNING: elements-of-style.md consumes ~12,000 tokens. Read it only when writing or editing prose.

When to use this skill

Use this skill whenever you write prose for humans:

• Documentation, README files, technical explanations
• Commit messages, pull request descriptions
• Error messages, UI copy, help text, comments
• Reports, summaries, or any explanation
• Editing to improve clarity

If you're writing sentences for a human to read, use this skill.

All rules

10. Use active voice
11. Put statements in positive form
12. Use definite, specific, concrete language
13. Omit needless words
14. Avoid succession of loose sentences
15. Express co-ordinate ideas in similar form
16. Keep related words together
17. Keep to one tense in summaries
18. Place emphatic words at end of sentence

Section V: Words and expressions commonly misused

Alphabetical reference for usage questions

Bottom line

Writing for humans? Read {baseDir}/elements-of-style.md and apply the rules.