Something feels off about your new robot co-worker—besides the fact that your co-worker is a robot. This robot produces grammatically correct text at lightning speed. The writing seems natural, not robotic. It’s impressive, but is this text good and should you adopt it as your own?

Lawyers encounter hypothetical scenarios and conditional situations daily, so they must consider what might happen or what could have happened. Two powerful tools help lawyers write about hypotheticals with precision and clarity: the subjunctive mood and conditional phrasing.

Intensifiers are like vitamins— they’re meant to strengthen but become poisonous when you exceed the recommended dose. Let’s save you from your childhood writing (and chewable vitamin) mistakes.

Intensifiers are words or expressions designed to intensify the words around them, but often have the opposite effect. They are usually adjectives and adverbs, and they are particularly bad when used to modify absolute words. Common intensifiers include very, really, incredibly, and extremely.

In sales and marketing you’re advised not to talk past the point of the sale. That means when the buyer says yes, you stop trying to sell them. Continuing to talk may turn your yes into a no. This is also good advice for writing: Once you’ve made your point, stop.

Though much writing advice focuses on how to cut to the point, little advice discusses how to stop once you’ve reached it. Yet restraint will make your sentences powerful and your documents readable.

Writers slow down their sentences with unnecessary words that delay the point. They may do this because middle school English teachers told them to use transitions; they read great 19th century writers renowned for languid and balanced sentences; or they’re trying to sound sophisticated by relying on industry clichés. Your readers won’t care why you write as you do—they will only care that they must read it. So do them a favor and cut the clutter.

Writing in active voice is often cited as a core part of plain language. Though the idea seems simple, it becomes confusing when you see phrases like active voice and active verbs used interchangeably. In this article, we’ll clarify the difference and help you choose the right voice to communicate your ideas. The better your understanding of language, the better you’ll communicate with your audience—and that’s the goal of plain language!

Even the best writers fall back on common expressions that add unnecessary and repetitive words to their writing. This repeated information is most often added as time-related information to sentences in which the verb tense or another part of speech already shows the reader the time information.

Pronouns help writers shorten their sentences and vary their word choices so writing doesn’t seem repetitive. A pronoun is a short, generic word that replaces a noun. It can have one of three jobs:

What difference can three or four letters make? When they form pronouns, these short words can have a big impact. Pronouns are words used in place of other nouns. They reduce repetition, which improves the clarity, pace, and flow of a sentence or paragraph. Without pronouns, sentences would be longer and messier and communication would become more difficult. In a world without pronouns, reading and speaking would be painfully boring. To see the difference pronouns can make, consider these two sentences.