Analysis Of Simplicity By William Zinsser

William Zinsser, the author of “Simplicity,” was clearly a very simple man. He has figured out that clutter is a common theme in writing. In his essay, he makes it clear that clutter and “fuzz,” in writing can distract and bore a reader. To further prove that William Zinsser is a simple man, he writes and edits three of the same essay to make it easier to understand. One was written in 1980, another in 1998, and finally in 2006.

In all three of the essays, the first paragraph remains the same. After this, there are a numerous amount of changes. There were a few changes in the following sentence from paragraph 2 of the 2006 essay: “Who can understand the clotted language of everyday American commerce: the memo, the corporation report, the business letter, the notice from the bank explaining its latest “simplified” statement?” First off, in paragraph two of the 2006 essay, Zinsser changed the word “vicious” to “clotted.” he likely changed this word because it makes more sense. Vicious comes off as mean, whereas clotted means clutter and messy. Second of all, in 1980 and in 1998, the sentence …show more content…
A major trend in his essays is to change singular forms to plural forms. He does this multiple times in the 2006 essay rather than the 1980 and 1998 version. Also, in the 2006 version of the essay, he changes masculine forms to more inclusive ones. Such as “men and women,” rather than just men. In the 2006 version, the writing is more plural and inclusive. Although in the 2006 version, Zinsser omits a lot of information that was in the other essays because he deemed them unnecessary. William Zinsser is a simple man, he clearly portrays this ideology in his essays. The 2006 essay is much more edited than the 1980 essay. There is no reason for Zinsser to get off the right track with his writing, so when he does, he makes sure to fix it. Simplicity is