When I write a sentence, I use five stone questions1. Does it say what you mean? Can it be clearer? Can it more closely match overall tone? Can it be m

When I write a sentence, I use five stone questions1. Does it say what you mean? Can it be clearer? Can it more closely match overall tone? Can it be made more novel? Can it be made more beautiful (prosody)? The five priorities at which the questions aim are meaning, clarity (which includes brevity), tone, novelty (avoiding cliche), and prosody (and other aesthetics). When I've first drafted a sentence, I start from the top of the list, and ask these questions in turn. Asking them forces me to think about an answer; it prevents laziness. As soon as the answer to question suggests a possible change, I make that change, and start again from the top. I repeat until time constraints force me onward. This is a great process, because if I have very little time, I end up concentrating only on meaning. If I have all the time in the world, I get to also play with the sound of the words, and the play of the tongue. Questions about meaning, clarity, tone, novelty, and beauty can also be fruitfully applied at paragraph and treatise levels; but my greatest concern is usually for the sentence. 1. http://diiq.org/five_stone_questions.html http://diiq.org/five_stone_questions.html