A Guide to Writing Well

I was looking for a WordPress theme to replace the half-finished, half-broken theme I'm currently using. I stumbled upon a site called Fire & Knowledge by Joshua Sowin. Joshua uses a simple, clean theme that I might try out, rather than using my own theme, which I've never finished and am not likely to.

In the list of Latest Essays on Joshua's site I noticed one called A Guide to Writing Well, which isn't aimed at technical writing but, nevertheless, lists lots of useful principles that we should keep in mind while writing technical documents. Here's a few:

• Omit needless words. Write simply and without clutter. Don’t add words for “style.”
• Avoid fancy words.
  “Never use a long word where a short one will do.” (George Orwell)
  “Look for all fancy wordings and get rid of them.” (Jacques Barzun)
  Examples: Assistance (help), facilitate (ease), implement (do), referred to as (called).
• After every sentence, ask yourself what the reader wants to know next.
• Use orthodox spelling, punctuation, and capitalization.
• Use active verbs. Example: “He was seen by Joe” should be “Joe saw him.”
• Keep sentences short.
  “There’s not much to be said about the period except that most writers don’t reach it soon enough.” (Zinsser)
• Remove laborious phrases. Why use “at the present time” instead of “now”?
• Use contractions when they sound natural.
• Write like a person and not like a scientist.