Tips & Tools: Simple Word Suggestions | Plain Language Action & Information Network

Arranged as "Instead of" ... "Try," this useful chart provides simple, clear alternatives to long words and phrases. The chart highlights "the dirty dozen" in bold, the "12 offenders most likely to weaken your work."

This chart is one of many useful resources at the website of the Plain Language Action and Information Network, a volunteer group of U.S. government employees who advocate use of clear, concise writing. Of course, their advice applies to all types of writing, including business, law, health care, engineering, education, marketing, nonprofits, public relations, journalism, and the Web.

For more charts like this one, check out Garbl's Concise Writing Guide. If you want to make your writing easier to read and understand, this free guide provides alternatives to overstated, pompous words; wordy, bureaucratic phrases; and verbose, sometimes amusing redundant phrases:

• Shorter, simpler words
• Wordy phrase replacements
• Redundant phrase replacements.