The Power of Clear Writing

"A masterpiece of precise bureaucratic prose," writes Eric Lach of the New Yorker, describing the whistleblower complaint that has shaken American politics. What's so good about it? Jane Rosenzweig of the Harvard College Writing Center breaks it down.

The author gets right the point, Rosenzweig argues, shedding any excessive or distracting content. He uses subheadings to help us follow his logic, writes topic sentences to make clear which points are most important and deploys active verbs to leave no doubt who's responsible for key actions.

There may be no better measure of the memo's effectiveness than this: you only need to read it once to grasp its argument. That's a rare achievement, especially for a complex subject.