I spent a lot of years in school. I loved that period in my life and spent many happy hours immersed in ideas, books and libraries. I wrote a lot of essays too. In my first year in grad school especially, I remember being super charged with passion for what I was reading, thinking and writing, but I never felt my essays conveyed that passion. They always felt flat to me and I didn’t know why.

Looking for the key to expressing my enthusiasm, I went to the Centre for Academic Writing (where I later worked). There I learned how to tighten my structure and provide a roadmap for my reader. I learned how to clarify my thinking, but my tutor didn’t have a suggestion for how to add life to my essays.

It wasn’t until I did the research for my first business writing course that I learned the secret: be concise, use strong verbs, prefer the active voice, and use plain but vivid language.

Looking back at some of early writing in my old, academic style I found quite a few bloated sentences. Here’s how I’d write them today:

Revisions

The following brief sketch of the history of the NFB is largely drawn from C. Rodney James’s Film as a National Art and from D. B. Jones’s Movies and Memoranda. The medium of Film was first used by the Canadian government as a national instrument to promote trade.

McLean’s report urged that changes be made in the activities of the Bureau, and concluded with the recommendation recommended inviting that Grierson be invited to Canada to make a survey of the situation and to prepare a report including make more specific recommendations.

Grierson’s 1939 report, prepared in 1938, essentially criticized the MPB’s lack of centralized power and purpose.

I think they’re better–more muscular and vigorous. How about you. Do you have any sentences you can cut down to size?

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