Simple Writing: Why Clear Content Works and How To Do It

People have a habit of over-complicating things. Our challenges. Our thoughts. And especially the language we use.

Ranging from putting too many words or ideas in a sentence to using a passive voice instead of an active voice. We like to make it complicated.

Lots of people assume that using long, fancy words makes them sound smart. But in reality, it reduces comprehension, readability, and understandability. And it’s far more difficult to express a nuanced idea concisely than it is to do it in 10 sentences.

So, in the spirit of simplicity, let’s look at why clear content works and how to do it.

Key takeaways

• Simplicity drives action: Clear, concise writing is easier to understand and leads directly to higher reader engagement and conversion.
• Clarity is technical: Simple writing is built on measurable elements like short sentences, strong verbs, and scannable structure.
• AI automates plain language: Markup AI’s Clarity Agent automatically transforms complex, jargon-heavy content into accessible plain language at enterprise scale.

Why simple writing works

You should always be able to read a whole sentence out loud in a single breath. Shorter sentences ensure a concise style, while longer ones tend to ramble. Complicated writing makes the intention and goal of your content difficult to decipher, and more challenging to engage with.

You want your content to be accessible and easy to understand — because amazing customer experiences can’t happen if you’re confusing your customers.

So, sentence length has a big impact on how well people understand your content. 

Simple writing works. It captures the reader’s attention in a crowded digital marketplace, makes content easy to understand, and leads the reader to take action. Now for the obvious next question — how do you write simply?

Writing guidelines: How to create clear content

“Create content in a simple writing style.” Sounds easy enough. But condensing content into direct and clear formulations can be challenging. This is why your style guide or technical writing style guidelines should guide writers to create simple content that is truly helpful for the reader.

Bill Birchard, author of the Harvard Business Review’s article Research: Simple Writing Pays Off (Literally), has some tips for simple writing:

• Use fewer ads: Focus on strong verbs and nouns because adverbs and adjectives often disrupt clarity by adding unnecessary words.
• Break it down: Split up complex and long sentences and thoughts. In that sense, the end of a sentence never comes soon enough.
• Cut caveats: Every topic demands context and every argument demands exceptions. But focus on what really matters and cut the excess.
• Clean out residue: Writers have a tendency to refine, reinforce, and reiterate. Make sure to strip out extraneous wording.
• Keep it short: Don’t overwhelm your audience and don’t write more than they need.

These are some helpful tips. But by no means is this list exhaustive. We want to highlight more ways you can bring simplicity into your writing.

Use plain language

According to the Plain Writing Act of 2010, the definition of plain language is:

“Writing that is clear, concise, well organized, and follows other best practices appropriate to the subject or field and intended audience.”

People are more likely to trust and act on information they understand. Plain language is clear communication that makes information accessible to a wider audience. It’s inclusive of culturally and linguistically diverse communities, and those with different literacy levels, cognitive abilities, and learning styles. Clear, readable communication of all kinds, usually does the following:

• Know what information your audience already understands or needs.
• Is clear about what action the reader should take, or the purpose of the content.
• Explain key messages near the beginning of the document.
• Structure content so it’s easy to navigate.
• Consider font size and use of colors or white space around the text to improve accessibility.
• Use strong verbs and write in an active voice.
• Leave out information that doesn’t help the reader complete the action or understand the main point you’re trying to make.
• Use images that help your audience understand the text.
• Is consistent: Uses the same terminology when referring to the same process, technical term, product, or service.
• Check with your target audience (whenever possible) to see if they find your content truly useful.

It takes time and practice to understand that messages don’t need to be complicated to be effective. Plain writing isn’t overly simplistic, nor does it take on a patronizing tone.

Enhance scannability

Simple writing is structured with scannability in mind.

One of the biggest challenges enterprises face is how to present highly technical, instructional, or complex content in an engaging and meaningful way. Because when your audience can’t easily find or understand the information they need, they become confused and frustrated. So writers need to make sure their content includes:

• Clear titles
• List organization
• Table formatting
• Concise paragraphs
• Focused documents

Scannability helps make your content more accessible for all readers. Similar to the principles of plain language writing, scannability focuses on the structure and design of your content so it’s clear and easy to understand. This means readers easily find what they need, understand what they find, and turn that information into action.

Aim for conciseness

Concise and exact use of language in writing makes it simple and easy to understand.

Conciseness is the ratio of ideas to words. The fewer words you use to convey an idea, the more concise you are. In practice, that means you need to be less wordy and more direct. Don’t be afraid of clearly expressing your ideas.

As a writer, you need to get to the main idea quickly, using clear writing and simple sentences. Focusing on brevity doesn’t mean you have to leave out important details. It means getting to them quicker by avoiding unnecessary context and words.

Simple writing: Your key to better content governance

The future of writing is simplicity. Reading should feel effortless, with clear information that guides readers to take action.

Markup AI helps you achieve that by providing automated writing guidelines focused on clarity, conciseness, and scannability. With these governance guidelines in place, we’ll ensure your content is easy to understand and consume.

Markup AI’s Clarity Agent is a core part of its specialized Content Guardian Agents℠ suite. This agent is purpose-built to automatically enforce all the principles of plain language writing, reducing sentence complexity and removing jargon in real-time. By integrating our API-first platform into your content tools, you deploy this agent to ensure every piece of content — human or AI-generated — is instantly optimized for maximum comprehension.

Let’s talk to see how we can help your organization deliver truly clear content.