Keep it simple, keep it short

I have made a promise in January for improving my comprehensive English level. Until now, I encounter a problem after carrying out my plan. A couple days ago, I got in touch with a senior classmate, a girl who has been USA for some years. Having read some of my posts, she pointed out that I have used too many clauses and improper acedemic words, making the whole article looks wired.

This is what I am concerned about all the time. As a student taught by Chinese teachers from beginning, I prefer to use lots of clauses, difficult words, and some inverted sentences, feeling it is the “normal” English. However, I am totally wrong. I should have focus on the context, not merely try to pursue the pleasure coming from the complication and length.

This is a sentence she texted to me:

Zero does not mean nothing. It means the absense of something. It is a place holder.

I believe ninety-nine percent of people understand the meaning of every word above, but we just cannot write a single sentence like this. Excepting for getting shocked by that, I try to find some effective solutions to bridge this gap at once. I can only come out with two feasible methods right now.

Firstly, I decide to get rid of those typical Chinese writing mistakes by keeping the whole sentence short and simple. It means I will force myself to write simple sentences at the stage of draft writing and only use complex and compound sentences when neccessary. When it comes to review process, I no longer replace those simple words only for the sake of replacement, but for accuracy and precision. Besides, at the same time, I will give my best effort to use some reduced sentences, aiming to simplify the length of sentences while remaining the meaning intact.

There is one extra exercise I need to do. We, as citizens living in non-native English-speaking countries, normally do not communicate with others in English on daily basis, thus cannot avoid falling into some typical Chinese writing wraps. In order to resolve this dilemma, I am going to imitate the writing style of The Economist. Every time I finish reading an article, I will sum up the main idea in my own words and then try to revise it by comparing with the original one. Of course, I will write down only one good phrase or collocation as usual for memory.

That is what I can think out now. I want to keep trying this method for some days before other problems arise. If you have any other suggestion, please tell me. Thanks.