What Zinsser actually says
It is worth quoting him properly, because the formulation is more precise than the version that gets passed around. His secret of good writing is "to strip every sentence to its cleanest components" — and he names exactly four things to strip:
- Every word that serves no function.
- Every long word that could be a short word.
- Every adverb that carries the same meaning that's already in the verb.
- Every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what.
That is unusually useful, because it is a checklist rather than an aspiration. Most writing advice tells you to be clear. This tells you what to delete, and you can run it over a paragraph in four passes.
Note the fourth item carefully. He does not say every passive construction. He says every passive that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what — a qualification almost always dropped when people repeat him, and one that matters a great deal later on this page.
Our first disagreement — about who is inflating, and why
Zinsser adds a diagnosis: clutter "usually occurs in proportion to education and rank." His examples are a university president and a wartime government memo — people writing badly because they have something to hide, or a status to protect.
That is true of the writers he had in mind. We think it describes a learner's inflation poorly, and the difference changes the cure.
| Zinsser's bureaucrat | A learner | |
|---|---|---|
| Writes long because… | They are concealing something, or performing authority. | They are proving competence. A long word is evidence of vocabulary; a plain sentence feels like an admission of not knowing the fancy one. |
| So the cure is… | Honesty. Say the thing you are avoiding saying. | Permission. You are allowed to write plainly. It is not a confession of a small vocabulary. |
It is also, for what it is worth, what the exam thinks — vague, padded phrasing is marked as imprecise vocabulary, not as rich vocabulary. But that is a happy coincidence rather than the reason to do it.
The clutter list, applied
Zinsser's central campaign is against clutter: words that occupy space and carry nothing. It makes writing better, and — separately — empty words are scored as imprecise vocabulary, so cutting them also happens to raise a criterion.
| Cluttered | Clean | Why the clean version scores |
|---|---|---|
| due to the fact that | because | Precision. Long is not academic. |
| at this point in time | now | Four words doing one word's job. |
| in order to | to | Free words, no meaning lost. |
| it is important to note that X | X | The frame adds nothing. |
| a large number of different kinds of problems | many problems — or name them | Vague quantity words are weak vocabulary, not rich vocabulary. |
Strong verbs, real subjects — two criteria at once
Zinsser wants an actor doing an action, not an abstraction sitting still. That instinct is worth a lot in an exam, because the compressed version is both more precise (vocabulary) and easier to follow (coherence).
| Abstract and heavy | Actor doing an action |
|---|---|
| The implementation of the policy resulted in an improvement in air quality. | The policy improved air quality. |
| There was an expectation on the part of the government that emissions would fall. | The government expected emissions to fall. |
| The provision of free transport would be of benefit to commuters. | Free transport would benefit commuters. |
Notice that the right column is not simpler English. It is better English, and it is shorter — which is why the fear that cutting will leave you under the word count is usually misplaced. The words you cut here were never carrying anything.
The adverb rule, adapted
Zinsser is hard on adverbs, and he is right that very important is weaker than crucial. Lexical Resource agrees: an intensifier propping up a vague adjective is exactly the imprecision the criterion penalises.
- very important → crucial, decisive
- really big → substantial, considerable
- extremely bad → severe, damaging
The two rules that need adjusting for an exam
This is the part where the book and the rubric genuinely diverge — not because Zinsser is wrong, but because he is writing for a different reader.
| His advice | Right for real writing | In an exam |
|---|---|---|
| Prefer short, simple sentences | Yes. A busy reader wants to get through. | Only up to a point. Grammatical Range is scored on complex structures. All-simple sentences are accurate and show no range — a reliable way to be capped at 6. |
| Avoid the passive | Usually, yes. It hides the actor and weakens the sentence. | Not in a process description. A Task 1 process has no actor to hide — nobody is named — so the mixture is heated is correct, natural, and a complex structure. The passive earns marks there. |
So the resolution is the same one that runs through all of this: cut clutter, keep structure. Zinsser is attacking words that carry nothing. A subordinate clause carries something — it carries a relationship between two ideas, and the examiner is looking for exactly that.
The sentence in the book that learners skip
"Rewriting is the essence of writing."
Zinsser means it literally: the first version of anything is a draft, and the writing happens afterwards. Professional writers rewrite constantly, and the polished prose people admire is almost never what arrived first.
Learners skip this, and we think it is the most consequential thing they skip — because it produces a false belief about their own ability. You read a well-written English paragraph, compare it to your first draft, and conclude that the gap is your English. Often the gap is that one of them has been rewritten and the other has not.
Our resolution: rewrite ruthlessly in practice, precisely so that you do not have to in the exam. Take a practice essay and cut it by a third. Do it ten times. What you are training is not an editing skill you will deploy on test day — it is the instinct to produce the clean sentence first, because you have deleted its bloated twin a hundred times before.
And once the test is behind you, rewriting is simply how writing is done — in an email, a report, an application. The exam is the one situation in your life where you will be denied a second draft.
Our second disagreement — 'Who am I writing for?'
Zinsser asks the question and gives a famous answer: you are writing for yourself. An audience of one. Do not try to guess what a reader wants; please yourself, and trust that the reader is a person like you.
For him, and for his readers, that works. It is liberating advice for an American writer with native intuitions about what sounds right.
So we would replace the audience of one with a specific real reader who does not share your first language: a colleague, a professor, a stranger who has to act on what you wrote. Write for their ear rather than yours, and the question stops being do I like this? and becomes will this land? — which is a question you can actually answer, and which happens to be exactly what an examiner is judging too.
This is not a flaw in the book. It is a book written for people who already have the ear. Acquiring the ear is the whole project you are on, and until you have it, borrowing someone else's is the safer instrument.
Our verdict on each piece of his advice
Zinsser is not equally useful across the board, and the honest thing is to say which parts pay, where, and by what mechanism.
| His advice | Does it raise a test score? | Does it improve real writing? |
|---|---|---|
| Cut words that serve no function | Yes, directly. Empty phrasing is marked as imprecise vocabulary, not as rich vocabulary — so due to the fact that scores below because. It also removes the memorised-template openers that are penalised separately. | Yes. The single most transferable habit in the book. |
| Prefer the short word to the long one | Yes, for the same reason — precision is what Lexical Resource measures, and a long word used approximately costs more than a short one used exactly. | Yes. And it is the advice learners most need permission to follow. |
| Cut adverbs already inside the verb | Yes, mostly (shouted loudly → shouted). But not in Task 1, where degree adverbs are information: sales rose sharply tells the examiner you read the chart. Cutting those loses marks. | Yes. Very important is weaker than crucial in any room. |
| Cut the passive that hides the actor | Yes — but note his qualification. He targets the passive that leaves the reader unsure who is doing what. In a Task 1 process, nobody is named, so the mixture is heated hides no one: it is correct, natural, and a complex structure that earns marks. | Yes. Most passives in ordinary prose are worth killing. |
| Rewriting is the essence of writing | No — you cannot use it. A timed exam gives you one pass. This is the most important advice in the book and the one piece of it that is unavailable on the day. | Yes, more than anything else here. It is how writing is actually done. Rewrite in practice so the clean sentence arrives first in the exam. |
| Write for yourself, an audience of one | No, and we would not follow it. "Does this sound right to me?" is the exact test that cannot catch an L1-transfer error — those always sound right to the person making them. | Not yet. It is sound advice for a writer who already has the ear. Borrow a reader's ear until you have your own. |
Putting it together
For the test: take the clutter-cutting, the strong verbs and the real subjects — they raise Lexical Resource and Coherence directly. Keep your complex sentences, and keep the passive where the process has no actor. Keep your degree adverbs in Task 1.
For real writing: everything in the book applies, without the adjustments. Nobody reading your email wants evidence of your grammatical range — they want your point, in as few words as possible. On Writing Well is a training in exactly that, and it goes on paying long after the exam is a receipt in a drawer.
The underlying skill is the same in both rooms — precision. The exam is just the one situation where you also have to prove you have it.
Frequently asked questions
Does Zinsser's advice help with IELTS writing?
Most of it, directly. His campaign against clutter targets exactly what the vocabulary criterion penalises — empty words are marked as imprecise, so 'due to the fact that' scores below 'because'. His preference for strong verbs and real subjects improves both precision and coherence, so it pays into two criteria.
Should I avoid the passive voice in IELTS?
Not always. Zinsser is right that the passive usually hides the actor and weakens a sentence — but a Task 1 process diagram has no actor to hide, because nobody is named in it. 'The mixture is heated' is the correct register there, and it is a complex structure, so it earns marks on two criteria.
Should I use short simple sentences to be clear?
Only up to a point in an exam. Grammatical Range is scored on complex structures, so writing nothing but short simple sentences is accurate and shows no range at all — a reliable way to be capped at band 6. Cut clutter, but keep the subordinate clauses: a clause carries a relationship between ideas, which is exactly what the examiner is looking for.
Are adverbs bad in IELTS writing?
Intensifiers propping up vague adjectives are — 'very important' is weaker than 'crucial', and the criterion penalises that imprecision. But degree adverbs in Task 1 are information, not decoration: 'sales rose sharply' tells the examiner you read the chart, while 'sales rose' does not. Cutting those costs you marks.