[SUMMARY] WRITE LIKE YOU TALK, PAUL GRAHAM

You want to be read? Write in spoken language.

If you want people to read and understand what you write, written language is not appropriate. Even worse, using complex sentences and fancy words give you, the writer, the false impression that you're saying more than you actually are. From Paul Graham's experience, the harder the subject, the more informal experts speak.

So here are two tips:

  1. Before publishing or sending, read it loud and fix everything that doesn't sound like conversation.
  2. And even more drastic, try explaining to a friend what you just wrote. And then replace your draft with what you said.

Never let a sentence through, unless it's the way you'd say it to a friend.

Source: http://paulgraham.com/talk.html