writing-clearly-and-concisely

name	writing-clearly-and-concisely
description	Apply Strunk's writing rules to ANY human-read prose — docs, commit messages, error messages, explanations, reports, UI text. Makes writing clearer, stronger, more professional.
user-invocable	false

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.

Limited Context Strategy

When context is tight:

1. Write your draft using judgment
2. Dispatch a subagent with your draft and elements-of-style.md
3. Have the subagent copyedit and return the revision

All Rules

Elementary Rules of Usage (Grammar/Punctuation)

1. Form possessive singular by adding 's
2. Use comma after each term in series except last
3. Enclose parenthetic expressions between commas
4. Comma before conjunction introducing co-ordinate clause
5. Don't join independent clauses by comma
6. Don't break sentences in two
7. Participial phrase at beginning refers to grammatical subject

Elementary Principles of Composition

8. One paragraph per topic
9. Begin paragraph with topic sentence
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

Don't Sound Like AI Wrote It

Strunk predates the tells. These mark prose as machine-written — cut them:

• Em-dashes. Don't use —. Use a comma, period, or parentheses. This is the loudest tell.
• Antithesis clichés: "It's not just X, it's Y", "not only… but also", "isn't merely… it's". Say the thing once.
• Forced triads. Three-item lists for rhythm ("clearer, stronger, and faster"). Use the number of items the point needs.
• Inflated vocabulary: delve, leverage, robust, seamless, comprehensive, elevate, unlock, foster, boast, realm, landscape, tapestry, testament, crucial, vital. Plain words instead.
• Throat-clearing: "It's worth noting", "It's important to understand", "That said", "At the end of the day".
• Hollow conclusions: "In conclusion", "Overall", "Ultimately" followed by a restatement. End on the last real point.
• Hedge stacking: "can help to", "may potentially", "might be able to". Commit or cut.
• Decorative bold and emoji. Bold load-bearing terms only; emoji almost never.
• Over-structuring. Not every answer is a bulleted list with headers. Prose is allowed.

Read your draft and ask: would a sharp human write it this way, or does it smell generated? If the latter, plain it down.

Bottom Line

Writing for humans? Read elements-of-style.md, apply the rules, and strip the AI tells above. Low on tokens? Dispatch a subagent to copyedit with the guide.