Rudolf Flesch's Rules: 25 Tips for Powerful Writing

The Book: How to Write, Speak and Think More Effectively ^ | 1/24/2017 | Rudolph Flesch

[Dan Baker]

As a FReeper, you're no doubt someone who strives to communicate with a certain degree of flair and influence.

In fact, one of the excellent things I find about Free Republic is it's a great on-line sandbox for sharpening your writing style and matching wits with other FReepers.

Now, as an independent analyst in the telecom industry, I write a lot, so I've always admired the writing style in well-edited journals, such as Fortune, Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times.

So the question becomes: how can I best learn and adopt the clear and interesting writing techniques of the best commentators and journalists out there?

Well, a few years ago I ran across an invaluable series of books written by a guy named Rudolf Flesch, and reading his works has given me much solid professional advice over the years.

Rudolf Franz Flesch (1911 — 1986) was an Austrian-born naturalized American author, and also a readability expert and writing consultant who was a vigorous proponent of plain English.

Flesch consulted with magazine publishers and authored many books for the layman on how to write & communicate.  The practical writing principles (and rules) he taught are the same ones employed by large and successful media publishers from the 1950s to today. Toward the end of his career, Flesch compiled and synthesized his knowledge in: How to Write, Speak and Think More Effectively.  This book is a extremely dense with advice, but is also a highly readable collection of his life's teaching. It believe it's the finest book of advice in non-fiction writing you'll find anywhere. The book is out of print, but you can find used copies of the book on Amazon.

Now to help embed Flesch's writing rules in my own head, I compiled and condensed many of Flesch's key writing tips into the 25 rules and visuals below.  I added slightly to Flesch's points, figuring he'd want to update a few things given that our visual and hyperlink options have exploded in the internet age.

Hope you find the list useful.  I'm look for some advice on ways to distribute this knowledge to a wider audience.  Here are some questions I have:

• What format(s) would be most useful to you?  I'm trying to design a quick reference card -- something like that.
• How should I best distribute this content, say, to kids in high school?  How would you teach it?
• If I created some software that analyzed a text according to these rules, how valuable would that be?  What would you expect people to pay for that?

Thanks, Dan Baker — dbaker_ at _technology-research.com

1. Abbreviate where you can.
2. Active voice is better than passive.
3. Articles, conjunctions & prepositions (reduce).
4. Commas (reduce them).
5. Contractions are good.
6. Cut needless words.
7. Dialogue often.
8. Factor expressions
9. First person singular (use).
10. Help the reader read.
11. Numbers in the text.
12. Parentheses (use them).
13. Personal sentences & words.
14. Punctuate to reduce words.
15. Pronouns (use to shorten names)
16. Question marks add interest.
17. Readers (remember them).
18. References & links in the text.
19. Shorten sentences & paragraphs
20. Simple words are preferred.
21. Specify things to boost interest.
22. Symbols in the text.
23. Underline for emphasis.
24. Verbs (choose them over nouns).
25. Visuals ( use to create interest).

 

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[dfwgator]

Just say what you want to say! :)

Can I mambo dogface to the banana patch.

[Cedar]

Only if you want to!

[Organic Panic]

How to communicate effectively as a liberal:

1) Yell loudly. Nothing gets your point across like yelling
2) Use profanity. You elevate your apparent intelligence with frequent profanity and vulgarity.
3) Lie. No one will check your facts.
4) Use absolutes. If someone does not agree with you that means they hate everything
5) Always call them racists.
6) End your arguments with “NAZI!”

[StAntKnee]

Nice post. I’m an early adopter of the Flesch principles and adherent to the Reading Ease statistics in Microsoft Word, which uses algorithms to give you quick reports on word count, word length, sentence length, use of the passive, and so on. I’ve published some books via Writer’s Digest, including creative ways to editor your writing by exploiting this algorithm and more.

Remember my handle. We’ll talk in private here, if you like, bc of this shared interest. Be happy to give you some advice about where the landmines are in the readability scales.

One of the things I’m researching here on FR and other sites that offer 100-word excerpts of stories on the landing page is this: Many of these excerpts don’t fulfill the promise of the headline in the first 100 words. Sometimes not even in the larger excerpt at the FR link to the larger excerpt. Boy, that’s annoying.

On the other hand, the WSJ excerpts before the paywall always give you the nut of the story.

[Newtoidaho]

Elaine wants to know if exclamation points are a good thing!!

[odawg]

Will never talk me into using “&”!!!!!!!

[ptsal]

Bookmark for tomorrow

[Alas Babylon!]

BFL...

[Nailbiter]

flr

[Yaelle]

I think your audience is new or young writers. Many of those rules can and should be broken by writers with more of a command of the English language. Many are welcome common sense, but many oversimplify and dumb the writing down too much. I would hate to be so limited.

I have homeschooled two high school boys and they needed more ways to develop a sentence or paragraph than how to cut out verbosity or keep things simple. They needed more commas, more complex vocabulary. Keeping things straightforward and simple is key, but if that is all that is in your repertoire when heading for college, you will appear less intelligent.

[firebrand]

In a Roberto Benigni film set in Renaissance Florence in the days of Savonarola, Benigni is writing something and asks someone, “Are exclamation points a sin? Everything’s a sin with these people.”

[firebrand]

There’s really only one rule: Be the reader.

Follow his thoughts, but one step ahead of him.

The NYT has some good writers. When you find the material interesting, chances are it is well written.

[Girlene]

bookmark

[Windflier]

Many of these excerpts don’t fulfill the promise of the headline in the first 100 words. Sometimes not even in the larger excerpt at the FR link to the larger excerpt. Boy, that’s annoying.

I don't let that get in my way. If I like an article enough to post an excerpt as a new thread, I'll scan through it to find the heart of the piece, then carve that out to post here.

Too many writers have verbosis, and just love to read their own rambling thoughts. It sometimes takes them several paragraphs to get past the mental masturbation and interminable background setups, to get to the gist of what the article's about.

FR only allows a 300 word excerpt (from most news sources), so I'm very picky about what parts of an article I post.

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

Bkmk

[Lurker]

All great suggestions.

L

[minnesota_bound]

#26 Rule is to say “I” many many many times in every speech you give......

[rlmorel]

Me too.

[datricker]

7. If you can’t say something nice... Say something mean.

[kevao]

HOW TO WRITE GOOD
(William Safire and Frank LaPosta Visco)

1. A writer must not shift your point of view.
2. Always pick on the correct idiom.
3. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
4. Always be sure to finish what
5. Avoid alliteration. Always.
6. Avoid archaeic spellings.
7. Avoid clichés like the plague. (They’re old hat.)
8. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
9. Be more or less specific.
10. Comparisons are as bad as clichés.
11. Contractions aren’t necessary.
12. Do not use hyperbole; not one in a million can do it effectively.
13. Don’t indulge in sesquipedalian lexicological constructions.
14. Don’t never use no double negatives.
15. Don’t overuse exclamation marks!!
16. Don’t repeat yourself, or say again what you have said before.
17. Don’t use commas, that, are not, necessary.
18. Don’t be redundant; don’t use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.
19. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
20. Employ the vernacular.
21. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
22. Eschew obfuscation.
23. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
24. Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.
25. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
26. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
27. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
28. Hopefully, you will use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
29. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
30. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
31. It behooves you to avoid archaic expressions.
32. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
33. Never use a big word when a diminutive alternative would suffice.
34. No sentence fragments.
35. One should never generalize.
36. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
37. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
38. Parenthetical words however must be enclosed in commas.
39. Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of ten or more words, to their antecedents.
40. Placing a comma between subject and predicate, is not correct.
41. Poofread carefully to see if you any words out.
42. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
43. Profanity sucks.
44. Subject and verb always has to agree.
45. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.
46. The adverb always follows the verb.
47. The passive voice is to be avoided.
48. Understatement is always best.
49. Use the apostrophe in it’s proper place and omit it when its not needed.
50. Use youre spell chekker to avoid mispeling and to catch typograhpical errers.
51. Who needs rhetorical questions?
52. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.