Clarity editing

Clarity Editing

Good writing is rewriting. First draft: get the thought on the page. Second draft: make the thought disappear behind the sentence. This skill is the second draft.

The four editing passes

Run in order. Each pass targets one problem.

Pass 1 — compress

Cut every word that does not carry its weight. Typical savings: 20-40%.

Cut	Keep
"in order to"	"to"
"due to the fact that"	"because"
"at this point in time"	"now"
"a number of"	"several" / "many" / a number
"is able to"	"can"
"make a decision"	"decide"
"in the event that"	"if"
"on a daily basis"	"daily"

Sentence-level compression: if a sentence is over 25 words, look for a comma that could be a period.

Pass 2 — active voice

Passive voice hides the actor and adds words.

Passive	Active
"A decision was made by the team to defer the launch."	"The team deferred the launch."
"It has been observed that users are churning."	"Users are churning."
"The bug was caused by the cache layer."	"The cache layer caused the bug."

Exceptions — use passive when:

• The actor is irrelevant ("the package was delivered").
• The actor is unknown.
• You deliberately de-emphasize the actor (accountability writing).

Default: active. Every passive sentence should be deliberate.

Pass 3 — strip hedges

Hedges and weasel words sap authority.

Hedge	Strip to
"I think that it might be a good idea to"	"" (delete) or "We should"
"It seems like there may be some concern that"	"Users worry that"
"We should probably consider possibly doing"	"We should do"
"In our opinion, it's arguably"	"" (delete)
"Kind of" / "sort of" / "basically"	delete

If you are genuinely uncertain, say so with a number ("60% confidence") or a named unknown, not a pile of hedges.

Full list and the "hedge audit" technique in references/hedge-and-jargon-removal.md.

Pass 4 — fix nominalizations

A nominalization is a verb disguised as a noun. They make sentences abstract and slow.

Nominalized	Verb form
"perform an evaluation of"	"evaluate"
"make a recommendation"	"recommend"
"conduct an investigation"	"investigate"
"have a discussion about"	"discuss"
"put in place"	"implement"

Verbs are active. Nouns-that-used-to-be-verbs are not. Prefer the verb.

The clarity checklist

Before shipping:

• Longest sentence under 25 words
• Every passive sentence is deliberate
• No hedges except where confidence is genuinely low
• No jargon the reader does not already use
• No nominalizations that could be verbs
• Each paragraph makes one point
• The opening sentence is the most important sentence

Readability

Aim for reader effort appropriate to the audience.

Audience	Target grade level	Tool
General/executive	8-10	Hemingway, readability APIs
Engineering internal	10-12	Same
Academic / legal	12+	Same, but know you're excluding readers

Readability scores are rough signals, not verdicts. A sentence can be readable and wrong, or hard-to-read and correct. Use as a sanity check, not a judge.

Jargon

Every field has legitimate terminology. The test: does the word carry information the reader cannot get another way?

• Retain: terms with specific meaning in your audience's field ("idempotent", "p95", "cohort retention").
• Cut: corporate filler ("synergy", "leverage" as a verb, "circle back", "touch base").
• Define: terms the reader probably does not know on first use.

A sentence with three pieces of jargon usually needs two of them removed.

Anti-patterns

• Pre-editing cuts — compressing a first draft so aggressively that meaning is lost. Write long first, cut second.
• Sterilizing voice — removing so much hedging and personality that the text reads like a machine. Clarity ≠ neutrality.
• Chained compressions — compressing a compressed sentence until it's gibberish. Stop when the sentence is clear.
• Style over substance — endless passes on words without fixing a structural problem. If the draft is poorly structured, use structured-writing first.
• "Active voice everywhere" — dogmatic use of active voice when passive is warranted.
• "Readability score above 80" — treating the score as the goal rather than the signal.

Workflow

1. Fix structure first. If the doc is poorly structured, no amount of editing fixes it (use structured-writing).
2. Compress. Pass 1. Expect 20-40% shrinkage.
3. Active voice. Pass 2. Every passive becomes deliberate.
4. Strip hedges. Pass 3. Authority or explicit uncertainty, nothing in between.
5. Fix nominalizations. Pass 4. Verbs over nouns-pretending-to-be-verbs.
6. Read aloud. If you stumble, the reader stumbles. Fix the stumble.
7. Check the checklist. Ship.

References

File	Contents
references/compression-patterns.md	50+ wordy phrases with their compressed form; sentence-level compression techniques
references/hedge-and-jargon-removal.md	Full hedge list, jargon audit, when to keep a hedge, domain-specific jargon guidance
references/editing-examples.md	Before/after passages showing all four passes applied to real texts

Related skills

• structured-writing — fix structure before fine editing.
• ux-writing — microcopy has different rules (brevity at extreme, voice matters).
• stakeholder-alignment — RFC prose benefits from both structure and editing.
• visual-communication — sometimes the edit is "replace this paragraph with a diagram."