Writing a Blog, article, PR Release? Then George would have you ask the questions –
1. What am I trying to say?
2. What words will express it?
3. What image or idiom will make it clearer?
4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?
Being the perfectionist genius he was, he’d also ask -
1. Could I put it more succinctly?
2. Have I said anything that is ugly?
& his rules of writing are -
1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
From Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English Language”