Every Wednesday, I will share resources that demonstrate how to improve your writing. This week, I focus on how to simplify and vary your sentences to make your ideas stronger, clearer, and easier to read.

The first resource is a short video from the American Chemical Society titled, “Technical Writing: How to Simplify Sentences” (3m45s). While the video focuses on only one sentence, it shows a complete revision process that takes the sentence from a wordy 35 words to a slim and clear 15 words.

My second resource, “Revising for Sentence Fluency” (7m8s), demonstrates how to analyze a draft for sentence variety, by counting the words in each sentence and noting how each sentence begins. While the video uses what is probably a first-year composition essay, the strategy still applies to technical writing. If you want a better idea of the variety required in writing in your field, apply the strategy to some example documents from your field.