Claude-skill-registry writing-clearly-and-concisely

Apply Strunk's writing rules to any prose humans will read—documentation, commit messages, error messages, explanations, reports, or UI text. Makes your writing clearer.

install

source · Clone the upstream repo

git clone https://github.com/majiayu000/claude-skill-registry

Claude Code · Install into ~/.claude/skills/

T=$(mktemp -d) && git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/majiayu000/claude-skill-registry "$T" && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && cp -r "$T/skills/data/elements-of-style-writing-clearly-and-concisely-emraher-eerskills" ~/.claude/skills/majiayu000-claude-skill-registry-writing-clearly-and-concisely && rm -rf "$T"

manifest: skills/data/elements-of-style-writing-clearly-and-concisely-emraher-eerskills/SKILL.md

source content

Writing Clearly and Concisely

Overview

William Strunk Jr.'s The Elements of Style (1918) teaches you to write clearly and cut ruthlessly.

NOTE:

elements-of-style.md

is now condensed to ~1,400 tokens while preserving all essential rules.

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill whenever you write prose for humans:

Documentation, README files, technical explanations
Commit messages, pull request descriptions
Error messages, UI copy, help text, comments
Reports, summaries, or any explanation
Editing to improve clarity

If you're writing sentences for a human to read, use this skill.

How to Use

Three reference levels depending on context:

Ultra-fast lookup:
```
quick-reference.md
```
(~300 tokens) - All rules on one page
Complete guide:
```
elements-of-style.md
```
(~1,400 tokens) - Full examples and technical writing guidance
Test examples:
```
../../../examples/writing-examples.md
```
- 100+ before/after examples

Choose based on available context and complexity of writing task.

All Rules

Section II: Elementary Rules of Usage (Grammar/Punctuation)

Form possessive singular by adding 's
Use comma after each term in series except last
Enclose parenthetic expressions between commas
Comma before conjunction introducing co-ordinate clause
Don't join independent clauses by comma
Don't break sentences in two
Participial phrase at beginning refers to grammatical subject

Section III: Elementary Principles of Composition

One paragraph per topic
Begin paragraph with topic sentence
Use active voice ⭐
Put statements in positive form ⭐
Use definite, specific, concrete language ⭐
Omit needless words ⭐
Avoid succession of loose sentences
Express co-ordinate ideas in similar form
Keep related words together ⭐
Keep to one tense in summaries
Place emphatic words at end of sentence ⭐

⭐ = Most impactful for technical writing

Section V: Words and Expressions Commonly Misused

Alphabetical reference for usage questions

Bottom Line

Writing for humans? Read

elements-of-style.md

and apply the rules.