Mariam Mukhammad

QFS&D #3

Simplicity by William Zinsser

1. William Zinsser refers to the unnecessary and meaningless words that fill so much of
American writing as clutter. He goes on to explain that we have become so accustomed
to inflating language for the purpose of sounding more intelligent but that it only makes
things all the more confusing and cluttered. Zinsser believes that to free ourselves of
this clutter we have to go back to simpler sentence structure and a more concise
explanation of the points we as writers are trying to make.

2. The main idea of the 13 paragraphs. In the first paragraph Zinsser expresses his main
point that American writing should do away with cluttered words and go back to a
simplified, concise way of speech. The second paragraph, Zinsser explains the
complexity of the things we read on a daily basis. William Zinsser then explains that we
have to deal with the clutter issue in our writing and goes on to provide examples of
how to do so. In this paragraph he uses a specific example of cluttered writing that led to
miscommunication between the audience and the president himself. He quotes the
specific line that was so cluttered it became misunderstood. Then he provides a specific
example of simplified writing and how it helps get a point across in a much simpler way.
The whole rest of essay builds on these points and wraps up with a conclusion that we
should do our best to work towards clear writing but that first we must work on make
sure our thinking is clear as well.

3. Paragraphs 406 serve to illustrate the main idea of paragraph 3 by providing specific
examples of the cluttering that needs to be done away with in American writing. For
example, he talks about how miscommunication becomes an issue when an author tries to
over complicate their writing. This can be seen from cases of presidential speeches to
many other types of writing. Paragraph six shows an example of what writing should
really be like to make sure that our ideas are not clouded by superfluous speech.

4. The questions that writers must constantly ask are what am I trying to say?, Have I
said it?, and Is it clear to someone encountering the subject for the first time?. These
are important questions because they provide the basis for any kind of informational
piece of writing. If a writer cannot clearly express what they are trying to say, there
would be no point in writing at all.
 Mariam Mukhammad

5. Zinssers first paragraph serves as an introduction to his thesis and the point that people
are so used to using big words and long sentence structures that bring attention away
from their main idea. The last paragraph provides a conclusion to that point and
summarizes as well as wraps up the essay itself. The conclusion expresses that it is easy
to clutter up writing because we as Americans are so used to using big words to make our
point sound more credible.

6. For Zinsser, it seems that the relationship between thinking and writing should be
connected and at the same time pretty simplified. He explains that clear thinking should
create clear writing and that one can not be without the other.