Clarity Tip: Put the most important ideas first

Summary

Most people who write business documents know their subject matter well. But many are not good writers. Good writing, especially when it serves an informational or technical writing purpose, almost always follows basic rules: avoid jargon, avoid needlessly complex words, and define unfamiliar terms.

But the number one rule is be concise, which has lots of components: don’t be redundant, don’t give more details than are necessary, never use two words when one will do, use parallel structure.

This tutorial focuses on yet another aspect of being concise: put the most important ideas first.

Shortly after the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, President Obama issued 23 “executive actions” to deal with gun violence. Read the first six and decide whether they are clear and well written:

1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.
2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.
3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.
4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.
5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.
6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.

The sentences do follow parallel structure.

1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.
2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.
3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.
4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.
5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.
6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.

But the actual executive action is buried in filler text.

1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.
2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to** the background check system.
3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.
4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.
5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.
6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.

And the sentences start with how the action will be carried out instead of the more important what the action is. Fail.

1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.
2. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.
3. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.
4. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.

A potential rewrite

This rewrite:

• retains parallel syntax structure for scannability
• relocates the what to the beginning of the sentence, rather than the how
• removes filler phrases

1. Share data from federal agencies with the federal background check system.
2. Remove unnecessary legal barriers that prevent states from sharing information with the background check system, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
3. Incentivize states to share information with the background check system.
4. Make sure dangerous people aren’t able to use gun sales loopholes, accomplished by an Attorney General review.
5. Allow law enforcement to run full background checks before returning seized guns.
6. Instruct federally licensed gun dealers on how to run background checks.