Questions tagged [clarity]
Making things clear and easy to understand.
47 questions
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Is sacrificing "clarity" for sounding smarter on a college continued interest letter a good idea?
I put "clarity" in quotes because I know it is not the right word but I cannot think of what the correct word should be.
I am writing a continued interest letter for my top college. I have ...
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Best Order of Semantic Parts in a Clause for Clarity
It is not that I want all my writing to be so easily understood, but in some writing of mine, perhaps, I want to be as easily understood as possible, such as in certain kinds of fiction, which I plan ...
user25421
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How to clearly express "A so B" besides "...as many as ten. And so, that there is..."
Preample: This is a "How do I express this idea?" question. I hope that it is sufficiently on-topic here. I'm a native English speaker but have no formal understanding of the English ...
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Is it a bad habit to omit conjunctions in poetry?
When writing a verse for a song a lot of times I find it easier to sing if I leave out function words (demonstratives/conjunctions). Is this a bad habit? It seems to cause lack of clarity but I see ...
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Why do I lose focus and direction in my songwriting?
Today while writing my song, every line seemed to fight me. It seemed to wander without direction. I don't always have this problem but would like to figure how to avoid writing songs that wind up ...
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How much opinion do you need in order to decide how "readable" something is?
How much opinion do you need in order to decide how "readable" something is?
If one person, even if experienced, says "this is not very well readable", then I think it not enough ...
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Does Simple Writing Lead to Passive Reading? [closed]
a quick question here about non-fiction writing styles:
It is said that the German philosopher Immanuel Kant intentionally wrote in a difficult and opaque style so as to force his readers to pay ...
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When should I end a sentence?
I like to write long sentences, but people complain that I move from thought to thought in the same sentence, and that it ought to be split into multiple sentences. Although I'd like to correct this ...
user25421
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Flow of Today's Recommended Style
I know I've already posted many questions about the rhythm and flow of prose, but now I am asking a sort of specific question about the principles of style in relation to such things.
All the style ...
user25421
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Where does "inaugural" go in this sentence?
I’ve been trying to adjust my short bio/blurb on LinkedIn to include the word “inaugural” in it, but, as soon as I do, it makes everything feel off and I'm not sure why. Here's what I've written (...
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How do I write with a rhythm/cadence without losing command of the English language?
I'm sorry. I know I've been posting a lot of questions lately.
Many times in the past, when I tried to write words with cadence and showed them to people, they said that I had poor command of the ...
user25421
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Is my novel Fantasy or Sci-Fi?
I have a Wattpad account and I've been entering contests... I've been using the fantasy genre to describe my novel, but I just saw descriptions of fantasy and sci-fi and now I'm wondering if my novel ...
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Which manual of style suggests using parentheses within parentheses?
When it comes to nested parentheses, there are two options. (The first is to use square brackets for the inner text [like this]. The second is to simply use parentheses (like this).)
I believe that ...
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Does the excessive use of parentheses around part of a word make writing fuzzy?
I would like to hear opinions about the use of parentheses around a word or part of a word to allow for more than one reading of a sentence.
I see this quite often in scientific English written by ...
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How to clarify between imagined sensations and "real" fantasy events?
I feel like the title is worded really bad, but I seem to be unable to find a better way. I am not a native speaker.
Scenario A: A character is in an exceptional state of mind (i.e. drug use etc.) ...
user13402
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Should we avoid "nonsensical" or "unclear" metaphors?
Should we avoid "nonsensical" or "unclear" metaphors? I am not sure if this is a case of "nonsensical" or "unclear" metaphor, but sometimes you have certain phrases that doesn't seem to be suited for ...
user36239
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How to write a puzzle without being too descriptive or vague?
I have recently joined the Puzzling.SE site and I am excited to ask few puzzles there. However, I am stuck, rather confused as to how a puzzle qualifies as good and precise. I want to ensure its ...
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Is a parenthetical reference to a later part of the text redundant in non-fiction writing?
The response will either be an evasion (we will come to that later),
or it will be . . .
Is the above (or similar) parenthetical redundant?
(I couldn't find a suitable tag for this question, ...
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How can one provide more clarity and still be concise? [closed]
I am working on revising a petition because one of my friends said that it needs a lot of revision. For one, they said that it needed clarity, and for another, it needed to be concise.
My question is,...
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Two magical realities, ours isn't one of them. How do I stop my readers from getting confused?
I'm writing a story with a world that has different physics, alchemy rather than chemistry, and biology that relies somewhat on magic.
The protagonist is not of this world, however he is not of our ...
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Can the narrator refer to a character with an alias instead of their true identity?
This is related to my previous question.
Let's say I want the readers to not be sure of who my character really is. They'd know her as Olivia, but think she might be Beatrice, or maybe Helena...
One ...
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Where can i correct my work for clarity and grammar issues? [closed]
Our eyes are mysterious; driven lenses, full of exposure. The moonlight stood still in the face of adaptation. Looking forward, i saw growth. Her eyes were dull. Iris, like the flower. Her mustard ...
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How can I make the relevance of a story thread more apparent?
The story I'm writing has multiple story threads, which relate to each other subtly at first, while gradually converging over the course of the story.
The trouble is that one particular thread of the ...
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Is there a widely accepted standard for representing simultaneous ongoing events in a screenplay?
Let's say I'm writing a scene where Arnold and Jo are arguing over whether to go out tonight or not.
While they do this, though, Rupert is also in the process of constructing a house of cards, and ...
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Can this sentence have the same detail and yet be simple to comprehend? [closed]
While inside the weatherbeaten maternity hut lit by a single candle,
out of the dark shadow of its mother's womb, the most unusual child
ever seen in the village was delivered; and while the child
...
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Suffixing words with -ness, -ish, -like, and others
Background
In a huge amount of the books I read the author has coined a little term to help them describe something, or an onomatopoeia. Like:
Kindish (adding -ish to the end of a existing word)
...
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Timestamps in fictional writing: yay or nay? [duplicate]
The setting of my latest story is a alien world that uses a different calendar and timekeeping system. This is because the planet spins at a slower pace than Earth, so the days are longer.
However, ...
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Page turnings clarification [closed]
In my story, to go to next page I wrote "I completed my sentence and turned the page.". But now I want to go back to my previous page, I wrote "I realized that I have missed something, so I turned the ...
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Is it bad to have sentences that are too long? [closed]
The sentence in question is:
As players move around the board, they buy, rent and sell properties from and to each other with each player trying to maximize his or her own wealth in a zero-sum game ...
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How should I introduce new and complex technologies or tools?
I'm writing a Science Fiction book. While this book doesn't push reality very far, there are some new technologies and tools that I have added. One tool is used more frequently than all the others, ...
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How can I express this fragment more clearly and concisely?
For the 'who is this application for' section of an application user guide, I have the following alternatives, I'm not happy with either one. How can I convey both elements more clearly and consisely?...
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How to distinguish if a novel is science fiction or fantasy?
Through the process of writing my novel, I've found that I really don't know where it fits in the written realm. I believe I should have a clear understanding to identify what genre my book belongs in....
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Do parentheses inhibit clarity?
I find it easier to write many things with parentheses, but I don't know if this is considered good practice. I would expect some might say that parentheses are indicative of excessive digression and ...
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How to write a powerful but uncomplicated conference biography?
I am working on a bio for a development conference I am presenting at. My writing style causes my Flesch Reading Ease score to trend high. While I like what I have below I'd like to simplify it a bit ...
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Is calling this process a "convergence" accurate and clear?
I planning to write about the convergence of our real world and the computer reality world. My plan to develop on this idea is to describe this convergence as a "merger" between our real world and the ...
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How to further improve the flow and crispness in the essay?
I am writing an essay in which I used a simple chronological flow. Setting first the background, then the circumstances I was involved in and the decision I took, and finally my conclusion after the ...
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Does this essay demonstrate flow, clarity, and passion?
I am applying to school and, after 3-4 weeks of thinking and writing essay iterations, I ended up with the essay below.
What are your professional objectives? (300 words)
I have one ...
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How can this technical message be made clearer?
How could this technical sentenced be improved for better clarity?
Cannot translate the ‘name1’ concept1 to the ‘name2’ concept2 because the higher
precedence ‘name3’ concept3 also exists, which ...
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How can I express this more clearly or concisely?
I'm documenting a block of computer code and would like to make it clear and concise. I'm describing a function that populates a field on a user input screen. Here's my best shot but it still seems ...
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Advice on interface text in a videogame
[This fits somewhere between technical writing and user experience, so perhaps this is the wrong board]
I'm developing a modification to a popular videogame (a Playstation One RPG), with the ...
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What is the expression/common form to express that one will stay long term somewhere? [closed]
Say I've briefly lived somewhere but now I want to return and stay there longer. Here is a paragraph of how I express it. Please suggest improvements.
The new development looks really awesome. I ...
Fedor
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Please advise on this comma among semi-colons and provide a more concise sentence [closed]
I created this question for two reasons:
I want to know if it is proper to place a comma after the word and (in bold) below.
This sentence is kind of clunky, like many of my sentences, and it helps ...
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Is this description of my small productivity application clear enough?
I wrote a small productivity application, Tomate. Since I'm not a native English speaker, I'm afraid the description of the project may not be clear enough for potential users. Can you help me improve ...
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Is this clearly expressed: "The real power is information"
I want to say that information is the real power in the world. I want to say it in one clean (short) sentence. Is the following good enough? (My mother language isn't English.)
The real power is ...
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Is my essay on group learning clear and well-organized?
I'm looking for all-around advice on this essay (I'm a foreign student, and learning English), but primarily, I wanted to ask is whether my essay is well-organized and clear enough. I mean, the first ...
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Feedback on technical blog post
I've recently composed a blog post about World of Warcraft Authenticators and would love for some feedback as per the quality of writing.
Obviously no matter how many times I read it there's no ...
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Personal Page - review request [closed]
I have created my personal about page, based on "The Personal Page" template. As a non-native English speaker I worry, that my attempt at telegraphic style is riddled with questionable use ...
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