Write Responsibly

The reader's contract

Use a stranger's time as if it cost them something. It does.
Every sentence informs or advances the point. A sentence that does neither is decoration. Cut it.
Start as close to the end as possible. The first paragraph of most drafts is the wind-up, not the pitch. Delete it and check whether anything is missing. Usually nothing is.
Write to one person. Prose aimed at everyone hedges everything and lands with no one. Name the reader, then edit for that reader alone.
No suspense. The reader should know what, where, and why so early they could finish the piece themselves. Withholding is for thrillers.

Short, plain words. Some words call up a picture at once. Others must be translated first. Use the first kind: utilize → use, facilitate → help, precipitation → rain, commence → start, endeavor → try, approximately → about.
Familiar combinations. "The biota exhibited a one hundred percent mortality response" means "all the fish died." Write the second one.
Jargon must pay rent. A term of art the reader's field actually uses stays. Insider shorthand an outsider trips on gets replaced, or glossed the first time it appears.
Start where the reader is. You have forgotten what it is like not to know what you know. Assume less, and bring the reader along.