George Orwell’s Rules of Writing:

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.

Orwell, George. “Politics and the English Language.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 2, 7^th ed. Ed. M. H. Abrams and Stephen Greenblatt. New York: Norton, 2000. 2462-71. Print.