Smart Brevity is here to teach you how to cater your communication to the over-stimulated worker, and community, of today. There are 4 Core ideas for the writing system presented.
- A muscular “tease” – a good headline
- One strong lede
- Tell people why your writing matters. They suggest a bolded section called Why it matters
- Links to go deeper on the content if your reader has time and wants to
The authors really like their bullet points and figure that’s the correct way to do your communication. Their strongest point is that you probably write way too much in an attempt to be “smart” which leads to flowery language that no one cares about.
Their weakest point, which comes with a Cal Newport citation, is that the communication methods will never change which comes with the subtle nod that the way we communicate now is good. This goes against what Newport says, though they pick a choice line from him to support their point.
Smart Brevity is a fine book, but I didn’t find it to be ground-breaking. Write less, get to the point, use bullet points. That’s about the whole content.
Also they talk about studies with no citations which means you have to take everything they say with a grain of salt.