Read your writing out loud to make sure it is clear

Some people write so clearly that they do not need editors. But most of us can do better, and most organizations that think they don't need help with the writing they put out are fooling themselves.

Unclear writing costs money and reputations.

A prime example: A writer has the meaning of a sentence clearly in mind, but it does not show up on the page. This, from the New York Times:

"The father of a teenage girl filed a lawsuit against three police officers in Loveland, Colo., who arrested her in 2020, saying the men used excessive force when they slammed the 14-year-old onto concrete, fired a Taser at him and choked the family's Jack Russell terrier."

Huh?

The phrase "fired a Taser at him" follows immediately the phrase "they slammed the 14-year-old [girl] onto concrete." Doesn't the word "him" challenge you to try to figure out what's going on?

You have to work hard to see that "him" refers to the girl's father. Hard work is the writer's responsibility, not the reader's.

Why didn't the writer put it that way in the first place? He was rushing to include all elements of the story in a single sentence. And so, he delivered not clarity but fog.

Later in the story, the writer described a June 2020 incident in which a police officer injured a 73-year-old woman by throwing her to the ground: "The officer … pleaded guilty to assaulting her in March and was sentenced to five years in prison."

The problem? He did not assault her in March; he pleaded guilty in March. One solution: "In March, the officer pleaded guilty to the June 2020 assault."

Writers can avoid this kind of confusion by reading aloud what they have written. Hearing the sound of what you have written helps prove the soundness of this advice.