Words to use and words to avoid

Use short words

Use short rather than long words. This can help you to develop a good plain English style of writing. These words are often Anglo-Saxon rather than Latin in origin and are easy to spell and easy to understand. It may be more challenging for native speakers of languages such as French, Spanish  and Italian as they tend to recognise the words that native speakers of English consider more difficult.

Avoid redundant words

Writers often resort to jargon, waffle and clichés to cover up the fact that they have little or nothing to say – or something to hide. In order to develop a clear, plain style of writing, you should be careful to avoid terms which have crept into journalistic and official language.

Avoiding sexist, racist and discriminatory language. English is a language that is particularly sensitive to issues of gender and other areas of potentially discriminatory usage.

Use ‘they/their’ rather than ‘he’, e.g.:

‘Changing technology and production systems makes it difficult for factory workers to remain in their jobs without further training.’

instead of:

‘Changing technology and production systems makes it difficult for a factory worker to remain in his job without further training.’

Avoid sexist job titles. Those ending in -man or -woman can be substituted by a non-gender-specific and often more accurate title, e.g.:  chair instead of chairman/woman, spokesperson rather than spokesman/woman etc.

Refer to ethnic groups by their accurate and self-accepted name if possible (e.g. Roma, Arabs). Do not use ‘black’ as a generic name for all minority ethnic groups.

Avoid terms that refer to some (usually negatively perceived) attribute of people rather than the people themselves, e.g. ‘the unemployed’ or ‘the disabled’. Instead use ‘unemployed people’ and ‘people with disabilities’.