Are you in danger of a clause attack?

At first it looks quite harmless.

People and Processes would be stark naked without that extra ‘p’ word—Planet!

And how can you have Quality and Efficiency without Effectiveness?

Resources and Schedules? Fine and dandy. But when you add in Assets, it really comes together—don’t you think?

What is it about that third noun we find so irresistible?

It’s thorough, accurate, and pleasant to write.
It’s also boring, dull, and redundant to read.
Users, customers, and clients agree.

Engineers are the worst offenders. I’ve seen corporate executives do it, too.

You’d think the best person to speak to an engineer would be another engineer, but that’s not usually the case.

Turns out, engineers don’t really like to read. Once you have their interest, sure, they’ll read your rocket-ship specifications.

But don’t expect them to read all 5,000 words of your white paper. Or paragraph after paragraph of your website copy. Feel grateful if they read your email all the way through.

These analytical-doer-types won’t stand for metaphors and similes. They’re skeptics through and through. Sticklers for facts. They need proof points and logical progressions.

That’s why it’s so sad when they end up writing for other engineers in long, nuanced sentences—precisely the kinds of sentences none of them actually wants to read.

Well, I’m giving one anonymous engineer* a makeover today!

(*Not a client.)

A makeover for the 2 sentences that inspired this post

I found myself savoring the following sentence (yes, it’s just one sentence) like a poem. I had to read it five times before I could begin to understand it.

“While it might not seem obvious but the planning and management of the resources and capital for these types of project is not so simple and not as methodical or repeatable as every project are mostly different than the same.”

Attack of the clause!

Maybe they meant every project is mostly different from every other project? As opposed to being different but not different? This is the prenatal multivitamin of sentences, packed with nouns, adjectives, and adverbs.

Here’s a quick cheek-pinch to put the color back into this sentence:

Every public project is unique, which makes it difficult to plan and manage resources in a systematic way.

Our offender continues with this labyrinth:

“Now these projects are not just unique and done once but include sub-contractor agencies for labor to skills that can quickly complicate projects as their resources, schedules and assets to supports these projects are critical to operating within budget and time constraints and require what I called integrated business to business planning.”

Halp! What is going on here? Give me a cliche over this sentence any day.

Here’s the makeover:

“Not only must public projects account for their own resources, but they must also account for subcontractors’ budgets and timelines. That’s why managing multiple resources takes what I call “integrated business-to-business planning.”

Let’s put them together now!

“Every public project is unique, which makes it difficult to plan and manage resources in a systematic way. Not only must public projects account for their own resources, but they must also account for subcontractors’ budgets and timelines. That’s why managing multiple resources takes what I call “integrated business-to-business planning.”

Our word count went from 93 to 54. Isn’t editing fun?

Okay, maybe this was an easy target. But do you see how clear writing is an act of kindness to your reader? And kindness is always better than originality. We may not all be able to write like Walt Whitman. But anyone can learn to self-edit. Anyone.

Need to de-clause yourself? Read this book and be on your way: How to Be Your Own Best Editor.

(Psst. Put the clause away. You’re beautiful without it. )