# Writing Clearly And Concisely

> Apply Strunk's timeless writing rules to ANY prose humans will read—documentation, commit messages, error messages, explanations, reports, or UI text. Makes your writing clearer, stronger, and more professional.

- Skill: `xe/writing-clearly-and-concisely` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 2 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add xe/writing-clearly-and-concisely`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/xe/writing-clearly-and-concisely/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Docs & Writing
- Author: xe (https://skillmd.com/u/xe)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/xe/writing-clearly-and-concisely

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# Writing Clearly and Concisely

## Overview

William Strunk Jr.'s _The Elements of Style_ (1918) teaches you to write clearly
and cut ruthlessly.

**WARNING:** `elements-of-style.md` consumes ~12,000 tokens. Read it only when
writing or editing prose.

## When to Use This Skill

Use this skill whenever you write prose for humans:

- Documentation, README files, technical explanations
- Commit messages, pull request descriptions
- Error messages, UI copy, help text, comments
- Reports, summaries, or any explanation
- Editing to improve clarity

**If you're writing sentences for a human to read, use this skill.**

## Limited Context Strategy

When context is tight:

1. Write your draft using judgment
2. Dispatch a subagent with your draft and `elements-of-style.md`
3. Have the subagent copyedit and return the revision

## All Rules

### Elementary Rules of Usage (Grammar/Punctuation)

1. Form possessive singular by adding 's
2. Use comma after each term in series except last
3. Enclose parenthetic expressions between commas
4. Comma before conjunction introducing co-ordinate clause
5. Don't join independent clauses by comma
6. Don't break sentences in two
7. Participial phrase at beginning refers to grammatical subject

### Elementary Principles of Composition

8. One paragraph per topic
9. Begin paragraph with topic sentence
10. **Use active voice**
11. **Put statements in positive form**
12. **Use definite, specific, concrete language**
13. **Omit needless words**
14. Avoid succession of loose sentences
15. Express co-ordinate ideas in similar form
16. **Keep related words together**
17. Keep to one tense in summaries
18. **Place emphatic words at end of sentence**

### Section V: Words and Expressions Commonly Misused

Alphabetical reference for usage questions

## Bottom Line

Writing for humans? Read `elements-of-style.md` and apply the rules. Low on
tokens? Dispatch a subagent to copyedit with the guide.