Here are a few writing rules I encourage you to live by:
Write for the everyday person. If you are hell-bent on writing at an academic level, realize you are writing for a considerably smaller audience—which means, by definition, your material will almost never be read by the masses. If what you want is broad exposure, then it’s important for you to use non-complicated language. For example, don’t use semicolons (very few people understand how they work anyway). If there’s a simpler synonym for a word less than 10% of society knows the definition to, use it. (Why? Because most people don’t use words like, “prodigious” or “confounding” when they speak. They just say, “Wow that was amazing.”)
Write how you speak. Record yourself talking about a topic and then transcribe the recording. Pay close attention to the rhythm of your natural sentences, versus the rhythms you try to use when writing to “sound” more professional in your writing. As a rule of thumb, anyone who tries to sound professional ends up sounding inauthentic, and those who lean into their authentic voice end up being perceived as the most relatable.
Avoid long sentences. Unless you’re using one long sentence stylistically, like to counterbalance a paragraph of many short sentences, you should err on the side of brevity. The more winding your thoughts, the more confusing your writing will be for the reader to follow. Remember, you are writing for someone whose eyes are flying across the page at lightspeed.
Alternate sentence length. If you read your article and find most of your sentences and paragraphs are all the same length, you have a rhythm problem. Short sentences should be followed by longer sentences. Longer sentences should be followed by short sentences. Short paragraphs should be followed by long paragraphs, and really long paragraphs should be followed by really short paragraphs. As Mozart said, “Music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.”
Write confidently and declaratively. A lot of people hesitate to “make a point” or “take a stance” when writing online because they don’t want to get criticized in the comments. As a result, their writing stands for nothing, and resonates with no one. It’s safe. It’s self-conscious. And worst of all, it’s vague. The more declarative you can be with your language, the more you will force readers to make a decision. Either they will say, “I strongly agree,” or they will say, “I strongly disagree.” Either of these responses is far better than, “Meh.”