Short and Sweet

That most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

-          Thomas Jefferson

This past week, Twitter made it official: after considering increasing the limit to 10,000 characters, tweets will remain at 140 characters or less. You don’t tweet, you say? Well, that’s not really what this blog is about, anyway! But the Twitter decision does point to a useful subject: brevity.

Now, just keeping it short does not make it good. Twitter is also the perfect demonstration of that. Keeping communication concise is a good idea, no matter the medium. But getting the message across is always the challenge, no matter what you are doing. In this day of the shortened attention span and relentless distractions, it’s important to get to the point. I realize that writing about brevity is dangerous, too. So, why am I rambling on? Here are six reasons brevity is the best policy:

1. People will only read or listen for so long before their minds wander or something better comes along.
2. The great truths are simple. The more profound the concept, the more likely it can be distilled down to just a few words. Proverbs work this way. “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” says volumes in 11 words.
3. We all know that shorter is better. It’s harder to accomplish, and lazy writers will waste words. Good writing is mercilessly edited.
4. We are no longer writing essays that have a required length. Most of us are not earning a grade with our writing any more, and quantity does not equal quality.
5. When we write simply, we avoid the risk of sounding like we don’t really know what we’re talking about.
6. We are saying to the reader/listener, “I know your time is valuable. I won’t waste it.”

Here is a sampling of some very good blogs/articles on the subject with excellent examples.

http://have-a-word.com/why-brevity-is-important/

http://lifehacker.com/5909543/write-less-say-more-the-power-of-brevity

http://copymatter.com/embracing-brevity/

Now, go forth and be brief!