On Writing Well By William Zinsser Summary

Ever wondered if one day you’d wake up and suddenly become the best writer ever? Although not possible, I can provide information on how to create a powerful essay with less stress and more ease.

Chapter two, “Simplicity”, explains how to simplify your writing. Zinsser declared, “Our national tendency is to inflate and thereby sound important.” (Zinsser, p.6) I think that I need to add bigger, better words to intrigue my audience and make my paper flow easily. This, however, adds clutter and makes my sentences harder to interpret; the sentences are now filled with useless information. I need to strip my sentences and rewrite them with a clear mindset; “Clear thinking becomes clear writing; one can’t exist without the other.” (Zinsser, p.8) It was clever of Zinsser to allow the reader to see what mistakes he made while writing the book (pages 10-11) and leave a paragraph to show his revisions. Zinsser demonstrated that editing four or five times will eliminate clutter. This encouraged me, because it showed that even famous people who write for a living do not write proficiently the first time. …show more content…
Both chapters start similarly. They explain how clutter has afflicts most writers, and how it draws the reader away. Ch.2: “Clutter is the disease of American writing.” (Zinsser, p 6) Ch. 3: “Fighting clutter is like fighting weeds…” (Zinsser, p 12) I like that Zinsser separated the chapters. Showing that simplification fixes clutter. By simplifying, I take out my “filler” words and become more aware of their misuse. For me these words were: is, are, has, am, by, rather, very,

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