Clutter Essay

544 Words3 Pages
In William Zinsser’s essay “Clutter”, he claims that clutter is the enemy as it slows down the reader and makes the writer sound pretentious. According to Zinsser, “clutter is the laborious phrase that has pushed out the short word that means the same thing” (141). For example “clutter is the ponderous euphemism that turns a slum into a depressed socioeconomic area” (141). Zinsser elaborates, acknowledging “clutter is the language of the Pentagon” (142). Zinsser’s point is to serve notice clutter is the enemy. Zinsser proposes using brackets to get rid of clutter. Mr. Zinsser advises “look for the clutter in your writing and prune it ruthlessly” (143). Be grateful for everything the average writer can get rid of. (Zinsser, 143) William Zinsser’s essay on Clutter is an example of good writing for many reasons. Throughout he not only tells us why this is a problem, but he shows many detailed examples. This essay was written so that the average writer can understand it. He used everyday words not dictionary words. No one wants to read an essay that they have to look up every other word to understand what they are reading. This tends to cause the reader to become frustrated and loose interest. When reading the essay he asks questions throughout to keep the reader interested. The reader can easily connect to the examples that Zinsser points out throughout the essay. Zinsser expresses “fighting clutter is like fighting weeds-the writer is always slightly behind” (140). This statement refers to the repetitive cycle of getting rid of weeds. He uses this metaphor because most people when writing will remove one unnecessary “weed” another pops up in the next sentence. We are always fighting clutter when writing a paper, using the long word that is not any better that the short and draping unnecessary prepositions onto verbs that do not need any help. Zinsser explains

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