Edwin A Abbott, How to Write Clearly (1883)

38.   Repeat the Subject, or some other emphatic word, or a summary of what has been said, if the sentence is so long that it is difficult to keep the thread of meaning unbroken.

39.   Clearness is increased, when the beginning of the sentence prepares the way for the middle, and the middle for the end, the whole forming a kind of ascent. This ascent is called "climax."

40.  When the thought is expected to ascend, but descends, feebleness, and sometimes confusion, is the result. The descent is called "bathos."

40a. A new construction should not be introduced unexpectedly.

41.   Antithesis adds force and often clearness.

42.   Epigram.

43.  Let each sentence have one, and only one, principal subject of thought. Avoid heterogeneous sentences.

44.   The connection between different sentences must be kept up by Adverbs used as Conjunctions, or by means of some other connecting words at the beginning of the sentence.

45.   The connection between two long sentences or paragraphs sometimes requires a short intervening sentence showing the transition of thought.

II. BREVITY.

46.   Metaphor is briefer than literal statement.

47.   General terms are briefer, though less forcible, than particular terms.

47a. A phrase may sometimes be expressed by a word.

48.   Participles may often be used as brief (though sometimes ambiguous) equivalents of phrases containing Conjunctions and Verbs.

49.   Participles, Adjectives, Participial Adjectives, and Nouns may be used as equivalents for phrases containing the Relative.

50.   A statement may sometimes be briefly implied instead of being expressed at length.

51.   Conjunctions may be omitted. Adverbs, e.g. "very," "so." Exaggerated epithets, e.g.''incalculable,'' "unprecedented."

51a. The imperative may be used for "if &c."

52.   Apposition may be used, so as to convert two sentences into one.

53.   Condensation may be effected by not repeating (1) the common Subject of several Verbs; (2) the common Object of several Verbs or Prepositions.

54.   Tautology. Repeating what may be implied.

55.   Parenthesis maybe used with advantage to brevity. See 26.

56.   Brevity often clashes with clearness. Let clearness be the first consideration. ...

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