Writing with Focus, Clarity, and Precision
Bedford Series for Technical and Professional CommunicationFirst Edition ©2025
A brief guide to style-related topics for professional and technical writers, from choosing the right tone and emphasizing the bottom line to using punctuation. This flexible volume can be read cover to cover or used as a reference during any stage of the writing process.
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A style guide for business and technical writing
A brief guide to style-related topics for professional and technical writers, from choosing the right tone and emphasizing the bottom line to using punctuation. This flexible volume can be read cover to cover or used as a reference during any stage of the writing process.
Writing with Focus, Clarity, and Precision is a volume in The Bedford Series for Technical and Professional Communication, a set of flexible, affordable texts that provide research-driven coverage and real-world case studies and examples to help readers hone their writing and communication skills for a variety of technical and professional contexts. Other volumes in the series include:
- Writing Proposals
- Writing about Data
- Team Writing, 2e
- Equity and Communication
“The text not only shows students the importance of clear communication, but how to achieve it.”– Laura La Flair, Belmont Abbey College“This is an exciting series that breathes fresh life into a business writing course because of the various books within the series, taking topics and dedicating a book to each rather than presented as chapters in a larger text. The series truly becomes customizable to course goals and learning objectives.”– Laura La Flair, Belmont Abbey College
Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter 1: Writing for Busy Readers
Case Study: The Writing for Real People project
- For Discussion: What does writing for real people look like?
- For Discussion: From school to workplace
Let’s get realistic: Readers often just want to be done
So how do you write for readers who just want to get the work done?
- Put important information in places readers will see it
- Minimize confusion and misinterpretation
- Maintain a positive relationship with your readers
Make your writing accessible for a range of readers
Summary
- For Discussion: From babble-speak to writing for real people
Chapter 2: Emphasizing the Bottom Line
What do we mean by “the bottom line?”
Why do so many writers fail to start off with the bottom line?
Put your bottom line in the title or subject heading
- Exercise 2.1: Put the bottom line in subject headings
Begin paragraphs with your bottom line
- Exercise 2.2: Begin paragraphs with the bottom line
Emphasize the bottom line with content-rich headings
When should you NOT put the bottom line up front?
For Discussion: Using AI to write denied requests
What if I don’t yet know my bottom line?
Summary
- Exercise 2.3: Revise for the bottom line
- For Discussion: Advantages and disadvantages of AI-generation texts
Chapter 3: Designing for the
- For Discussion: Identify and analyze document design
- Callout: Finding model texts
Break content into small chunks
- Chunk text into small paragraphs
Use bulleted and ordered lists
- Exercise 3.1: Chunk paragraphs into lists to make them easier to read
Use textual tables when appropriate
- Avoid page breaks that orphan information belonging together
- Exercise 3.2: Use if-then textual tables
Use heading styles to create an accessible outline of your structure
- Exercise 3.3: Chunk lists with headings and subheadings
Use both vertical and horizontal whitespace to show relationships
Judiciously use font style, size, and color to reinforce relationships
Use research-based strategies to improve readability
- Avoid large blocks of text with ALL-CAPS or italics font styles
- Use left-aligned text and headings; avoid blocks of centered text
Avoid full justification
Using single spacing for most professional documents
Use conventional fonts that are familiar to your readers
Make your document design accessible: writing for all readers
Use visually simple fonts
Include ample whitespace
Use styles to mark major sections of documents
Create alt text for images and tables
Make links recognizable and descriptive
Use accessibility checkers
- Exercise 3.3: Create accessible documents
Summary
- Exercise 3.4: Analyze your own writing
Chapter 4: Writing Clear and Concise Sentences
Strategy 1: Put agent and action together near the beginning of sentences
- Callout: Using first-person
- For Discussion: Revise the following sentences to place agent and action closer together
Strategy 2: Reduce stacked prepositions
- For Discussion: Reduce prepositions for clarity
Strategy 3: Avoid turning verbs and adjectives into nouns
- For Discussion: Reduce nominalizations
Strategy 4: Reduce “to be” verbs
- For Discussion: Use more impactful and precise verbs
Summary
- For Discussion: Determine an appropriate revision strategy
- Exercise 4.1: Analyze your own writing
Chapter 5: Clarifying Connections with Transitions and the Known-New Contract
The known-new contract: Begin with the familiar and end with the new
Begin sentences (and paragraphs) with known information
- Callout: Good versus bad repetition
- For Discussion: Analyze the known-new contract
Use echo links to connect to known information
- Callout: Passive voice and the known-new contract
Avoid faking known information with vague pronouns (such as this and it)
- Exercise 5.1: Use known-new contract to explicitly connect different ideas
Clarify connections with transitions
- Exercise 5.2: Choose transitions to clarify logical connections
Use known-new and transitions to build connections across paragraphs
- Callout: Will clarifying connections make my writing too easy to understand?
Summary
- Exercise 5.3: Analyze your own writing
Chapter 6: Communicating with Precision
Strategy 1: How many? How much? Specify exact quantities
- For Discussion: Identify imprecise language
Strategy 2: Specify what you are comparing to
- For Discussion: Improve faulty comparisons
Strategy 3: Convey a precise level of certainty
- Exercise 6.1: Identifying and modifying hedges
Avoid inappropriate intensifying language
Avoid inappropriate hedging language
- Exercise 6.2: Analyze hedges and intensifiers
Strategy 4: Correctly position modifying information
- Exercise 6.3: Shift location of modifiers
- Exercise 6.4: Analyze and revise modifiers
Strategy 5: Use consistent (parallel) structure
For Discussion: Ensure headings and subheadings are parallel
- Exercise 6.5: Maintain parallel structure
Summary
- Exercise 6.6: Make sentences more precise
- Exercise 6.7: Analyze your own writing
Chapter 7: Tone and the Impression You Make
Tone is uniquely challenging
Maintain a polite tone when making requests
- Acknowledge choice with softening phrases
- Express gratitude for the reader’s time
Provide context and justification
A revised request
- For Discussion: Analyze tone
- Example 7.1: Use a less demanding tone
Establish the right level of formality
Determine when to use an informal versus formal tone
- For Discussion: Compare and assess tone
- Exercise 7.2: Analyze level of formality
Project a positive (vs. a negative) tone
Focus on the future you would like to see
Eliminate negative words and replace them with positive ones
- Use a dependent clause to de-emphasize the negative
- When a negative tone is appropriate
- Exercise 7.3: Use a positive tone
Avoid an egotistical or self-absorbed tone
Replace evaluative language with specific detail
Depersonalize and broaden the scope
- For Discussion: Utilize depersonalized language
- Callout: Experiment with different tones
Demonstrate cultural sensitivity
Use gender-neutral terms when possible
Emphasize individuals rather than disabilities or divergences
Listen to and use the terms individuals prefer when describing their own identity groups
Summary
- Exercise 7.4: Analyze tone in your own writing
Chapter 8: The Right Stress: Ordering Sentences to Stress the Right Information
Use the ends of sentences to direct readers’ focus
Put information you want to stress at the end of sentences
- Exercise 8.1: Rearrange to adjust emphasis
- Exercise 8.2: Place new information in the stress position
- Callout: Reduce distance between agents and actions
- For Discussion: End sentences with technical information
Introduce one technical term per sentence
Use concessive clauses to de-emphasize information
- Exercise 8.3: Revise to alter emphasis
Use passive voice to de-emphasize people
- For Discussion: Evaluation shifts in voice
Ethically present bad news
Summary
- Exercise 8.4: Analyze and revise your writing
Chapter 9: Treating Punctuation as Information Management
Distinguish primary and secondary information
Four basic guidelines for commas as information management
1: Use commas to signal where the primary (essential) content begins
2: Use commas to separate secondary (nonessential) content from the primary sentence
3: Use commas to signal a change in direction
4: Use commas to separate two complete statements connected by a coordinating conjunction
Comma guidelines are not rules: their usage is not always clear-cut right or wrong
- Exercise 9.1: Determine effective comma placement
Advanced information management: dashes, colons, and semicolons
- Em dashes (—) function as high-visibility commas
- Colons (:) signal elaboration
- Semicolons (;) replace periods or separate complex items in a list
- Exercise 9.2: Revise to eliminate punctuation mistakes
Bulleted and numbered lists as punctuation
Maintain consistent grammatical structure
Maintain consistent punctuation and capitalization
Use numbered lists when the order is important
Summary
- Exercise 9.3: Analyze your own writing
Chapter 10: Proofreading and Editing Strategies
Edit for clarity
- Use known-new to identify missing links and logical gaps
- Search for “it” and “this”
- Edit for stacked prepositions
- Ask an AI program such as ChatGPT for suggestions
Proofread for language errors: Select strategies that work for you
- Use grammar, spelling, and style checkers
- Change your reading pattern: Read aloud or backward
- Use AI to find the right word or phrase
Proofread for design errors
- Check tables and figures
- Check for parallelism and consistency
- Check for page layout issues
Use an accessibility checker
Seek feedback
Summary
- Exercise 10.1: Analyze your own writing
Authors
Joanna Wolfe
Joanna Wolfe (Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin) is Director of the Global Communication Center at Carnegie Mellon University, where she develops new methods for improving communication instruction across the university. She is the author of numerous scholarly articles on teamwork, gender studies, collaborative learning technology , technical writing, and rhetoric Her research on collaborative writing in technical communication classes won the 2006 NCTE award for best article reporting qualitative or quantitative research in technical and scientific communication.
Juliann Reineke
Juliann E. Reineke is Senior Director of Proposal Development at Case Western Reserve University where she works with faculty, staff, and students to elevate grant writing across the university. Additionally, she utilizes research-based technical writing principles to collaboratively write large federal research proposals and medical manuscripts with multidisciplinary groups of subject-matter experts and their industry and community partners. Her research interests include writing centers and scientific and professional communication. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Technical Writing and Communication and Re/Writing the Center: Approaches to Supporting Graduate Students in the Writing Center.
Related Titles
Team Writing
Joanna Wolfe; Chris Lam | Second Edition | 2025 | ISBN:9781319339760
The Bedford Bookshelf (1-Term Online)
Bedford/St. Martin's | First Edition | 2023 | ISBN:9781319530297
Writing Proposals
Joanna Wolfe; Emily Barrow DeJeu | First Edition | 2025 | ISBN:9781319339753
Writing about Data
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