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Chapter 2
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in On Writing Well, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Human Element
Simplicity vs. Clutter
Process and Organization
The Gift of Writing
Summary
Analysis
Zinsser argues that cluttered language spreads like weeds in American culture. One person starts replacing a simple word with a complicated phrase, and then everyone else follows. For instance, Americans added the word “personal” to phrases like “a personal friend of mine” (which means “my friend”) or “her personal physician” (which means “her doctor”). Instead of just saying “now,” people say “currently” or “at the present time.” Doctors use clutter to sound professional. The government uses it to sound politically correct. Companies use it to cover up their mistakes, and the military uses it to justify war crimes. The examples could go on forever.
Writing clearly is as easy as removing clutter, or extra words that that don’t add meaning to a text. Cluttered writing uses more words to say less, while plain English uses fewer words to say more. For instance, “at the present time” is clutter because it just means “now,” but it takes up much more space. Every word either pulls its weight or distracts the reader. Clutter distracts, so it's only useful for writers trying to confuse or mislead their readers. In contrast, Zinsser hopes, clear writing can promote honesty in American culture.
Themes
Zinsser lists some of the main kinds of clutter. People use long words instead of short ones (like “assistance” instead of “help”). They use popular jargon words like “paradigm” and “potentialize.” They waste words on useless phrases like “I might add” and “it is interesting to note.” When Zinsser edits student writing, he uses square brackets to mark unnecessary words, phrases, and sentences. These brackets are his way of saying, “I may be wrong, but I think this can be deleted and the meaning won't be affected. But you decide.” This helps his students identify and eliminate clutter. He suggests that his readers should do the same.
To fix clutter, writers should use the simplest language that’s adequate to express their ideas. This doesn’t mean they should never use long words or complex sentence structures—just that they usually don’t need to. Still, writers shouldn’t expect to avoid clutter in their first drafts—rather, removing it is a key rewriting skill. Again, this shows that effective habits are the secret to good writing. This is why Zinsser teaches his students to identify and fix their own clutter, rather than simply editing their writing for them.
Themes
