No matter what genre your writing, you must judge well. Your judgement is what garners your readers' trust.

Judgement implies deliberation. You decide what is right or best after you have considered all factors. We do not jail people until we have all the facts of a crime.

Judgement requires discipline. The word discipline derives from the Latin discipulus, which means student. To judge well, we must learn to distinguish what is important and what is trivial. We must train our minds to discern. We cannot judge the quality of an apple or what made it sweet if we cannot distinguish an apple from a tomato. Both are red, but color is not the characteristic that makes one distinct from the other.

Discipline implies order and consistency. Consistency arises from experience and often from errors. What served us well, we should repeat in similar situations. When we err, we learn to think or do something differently next time until we find a solution. To be a better writer, practice judging and discerning.

We must judge which words to use. Jacques Barzun, in Simple and Direct: A Manual for Writers, wrote, “The French call mot juste the word that exactly fits. Why is this word so hard to find? The reasons are many. First, we don't always know what we mean and are too lazy too find out.” Discipline implies rigor and energy. We should yield to the temptation to write the first word that comes to mind.

We must judge what is relevant to our topic and what is not. Tangents are useful in calculus but often not for writers. If you diverge from your theme into something that appears irrelevant or a distinct topic be sure that you have good reason to do so.

When describing a scene, we must judge what elements produce the mood. If we judge well, the scene appears in the minds of our readers. If we judge poorly, our readers cannot envision what we describe.

When writing narrative, fiction or nonfiction, we must judge what events are important, what caused the events that we describe. We must judge what motivated our characters or subjects to do what they did. If we judge well, our narratives, characters, and scenes achieve verisimilitude. Our readers believe us.

If we are writing fiction, our readers suspend their disbelief. We have transported them to the world that we have created. We have been successful as writers.

Your reader is giving you what is most precious: time. Be respectful. Be concise.

Concise writing is powerful. Compare "he strode in the room, chest out, head high" with "he walked into the room with an air of confidence, soldier-like, marching with his chest out and holding his head high."

When possible, even when writing academic research papers, try to avoid disclaimers and qualifiers. Words such as "might" and "probably" are often not necessary. Statements such as "It seems as though" or "it might be the case that" add verbiage and erode the reader's confidence in your authority. Be bold. You are the authority on your subject. That is why you are writing about it and people are reading your work.

Avoid redundant clauses and phrases. When we repeat ourselves, the reason is often because what we are not certain what we want to convey. The process of writing can clarify your thinking on a subject. Never be satisfied with your first draft, because writing that first draft may have clarified what you think about a subject or how you imagine a character or scene.

Use adverbs sparingly. Often, adverbs are redundant. She should not enter a dimly lit room. She should enter a dim room. Is there a different adjective or verb available that conveys your thought than the adjective that you want to modify with an adverb? Why would she run quickly if she can sprint?

Your style and voice will emerge from your choice of words not the quantity of your words. You will not impress your reader with your ability to string many clauses together into a sentence. You are likely to bore your reader instead. You will impress your reader by using the best word in the English language to convey what you mean. Be precise in your vocabulary. Nothing produces elegance like precision. A well-fitted suit or dress, cut to the contour of the wearer, is elegant. Ill-fitted rags are not. Cut your language to the contour of your meaning; do not drape your subject with tatters.

The primary purpose of writing is to communicate. If we fail to communicate our concepts, arguments, mood, ideas, characters, or scenes to our readers, we have failed the primary task of the writer.

The problem that I encounter most often is the attempt to impress readers by using big words. This shortcoming is common in business writing and academic writing, but from these incubators the infection has spread far. As William Strunk, Jr. writes in The Elements of Style, "avoid the elaborate, the pretentious, the coy, and the cute. Do not be tempted by a twenty-dollar word when there is a ten-center handy, ready, and able."

Use adjectives as adjectives, nouns as nouns, and verbs as verbs. A complex argument is better than a complicated one. A thesaurus and a dictionary should be your constant companions when you write.

Avoid buzzwords, jargon, and clichés. They are ripe with ambiguity. We are not leveraging our prose with lingo. If we are results-oriented, we need to get our ducks in a row and remove the low-hanging fruit of buzzwords, jargon, and clichés from our writing. At the end of the day, we will write clearly.

The other problem that I encounter often is the use of complex sentence structures. Sometimes, this shortcoming derives from an author's desire to appear erudite. Other times, the author has not developed fully the idea that he or she wants to convey. When our writing becomes too complex, we should ask ourselves if our thinking is clear on the subject. Do we know what we want to say? Whatever the origin of complexity, the result is often unintelligible. Keep your sentences and clauses as short as possible.

Trying to force a sentence or clause into passive voice is the most common source of verbiage. Write in active voice whenever possible. Like our boss, our readers do not want to hear that mistakes were made. They want to know who did what to whom. Have subjects act on objects.

Try to keep your subjects close to your verbs when composing a sentence. Place as few prepositional phrases, subordinate clauses, and non-restrictive clauses between the noun and the verb as possible. Place the noun and the verb close to the beginning of the sentence as often as possible.