Learning writing tools and strategies from The Economist

Ahmed Soliman writes about how he learned to write more effectively by reading The Economist.

Soliman writes, “Getting to it doesn’t correlate with the writer’s talent or experience: we all do it occasionally. If it doesn’t happen at the beginning of your essay, it’ll happen somewhere else. That’s why it helps to rewrite and proofread—with the intentional goal of cutting what doesn’t belong to what you’re trying to say.

“Here are three opening sentences from The Economist:

The predictions sounded like promises: in the future, working hours would be short and vacations long.

A lot can be learned about candidates from their speeches on the hustings: not what they say, but how they say it.

A 25-year-old American with a university degree can expect to live a decade longer than a contemporary who dropped out of high school.

“It’s easy to know where the writer is going with these opening sentences. Three seconds took me to read each one and I can, right now, make the decision to continue reading or move on. Refreshing.”

Read more here.