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can also be tedious and hard to follow if the main point is not made clearly or is lost amid a flood of details. Strong writing must usually provide readers both with a general idea or overall picture and with specific examples or concrete details to fill in that picture." Facts and details should be used to illustrate topics and prove claims within a broader theme or argument. In most types of expository writing, the writer should subordinate them to the ideas that inform them or are derived from them. The Elements of Style reminds us, "It is not that every detail is given . . . but that all the significant details are given."

These three building blocks of good style-strength, precision, and specificity or concreteness-unite to form one overarching edifice: clarity. George Orwell, cited earlier regarding doublespeak, once wrote, "Good prose is like a windowpane." In professional writing, nothing should come between the reader and the information communicated, neither the writer's ineptitude at written English nor his or her literary delusions of grandeur. If the way you write takes your audience's attention away your writing's content, your writing has failed. Together, strength, precision, and specificity or concreteness will keep you and your reader on the same page-literally and figuratively.

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