The 5 Minute Writer
The third principle has to do with where people expect the important information to be in a sentence. When we speak, we naturally put old, familiar, or unimportant information at the beginning, with the new or important information at the end. In writing, we often violate this rule because we want our sentences to be varied. But research shows us that readers often skim over the first part of sentences, expecting the important stuff to be at the end. So our third principle is:
3. Put old, familiar information at the beginning of the sentence, with new, important information at the end.
Look at these examples:
Financial advisors advocate diversifying a client's investments. Bonds, mutual funds, and certificates of deposit are often recommended as ways of protection against fluctuations in the stock market.
In the second sentence, "bonds, mutual funds, and certificates of deposit" is new information. To put this information at the end of the sentence, find the agent of the action "recommend".
Financial advisors advocate diversifying a client's investments. They often recommend bonds, mutual funds, or certificates of deposit as ways of protecting against fluctuations in the stock market.
In general, always give the category before the list of examples. Readers are like computers- they can only hold so much information in short term memory before it gets deleted! If you give them a category - a slot - to put the examples in, the information is more likely to be transferred into long-term memory.
Let's look at another example of applying the three principles:
With the budgets in all laboratories limited, the costs for converting available equipment become important. However, the availability of most of the major components and the cooperation of the Electronics Division will hold the costs for this improvement to a minimum.
In the first sentence, there's no agency - no indication of who is involved. In the second sentence, the new information is at the beginning, where it might get overlooked. Here's one possible rewrite:
We have a limited budget for converting the available equipment in our laboratories. However, the costs for this improvement will be held to a minimum because of the availability of most of the major components and the cooperation of the Electronics Division.
One study done of memo writing in the Navy showed that the government could save millions of dollars a year if military personnel were trained to write using these principles of clear writing. But one officer who took part
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