This is a great thread. I played around with Wordle a few months back but it never occurred to me to use it to check for keyword density...duh! (On second thoughts, I didn't even know what a keyword WAS at that point... )
When I'm researching an article I usually make a list of my questions as I'm going along. Then in the finished article I'll make sure that I actually answered the questions...sometimes I use the actual questions as sub-headers. Obviously, this isn't as helpful when you're writing about something you know well and you don't have any questions!
I'd have to say that reading aloud is still my single most helpful tool when spotting clarity issues. Boring, I know.
Aye, here's a clarity issue from a manuscript of my own - on page 2!
A heavy, sun-shaped medallion dangled from each.
From each what? I just stumbled on this sentence when sending the manuscript to my sister (also a writer) and quickly scanning a few pages of the text. I quickly realized my clarity problem and corrected the sentence to read:
A heavy, sun-shaped medallion dangled from each hand. (I also hypenated "sun shaped" which wasn't hyphenated before).
Wrong again. After thinking I should post the sentence as a clarity example, I reopened the document and found the paragraph in question. It starts out like this:
Mom handed Sammy two black leather necklaces.
So the medallions didn't dangle from anyone's (whose?) hands, they dangled from each necklace or necklace strap. In my haste, I forgot about context which made the clarity issue worse, not better. And to think that not only have I read that particular sentence many times since I wrote it, many of my critique buddies did too and no one seemed to think it was a problem. Now that I'm better educated in these matters, I know. Looks like I have some work ahead of me on that manuscript. Drat. It was perfect before I knew better.
Celeste's point about the "outside in" point of view makes a lot of sense - where I trained as an advertising writer I was constantly asked to check my copy from all angles - to make absolutely sure there was no chance that anyone could in anyway misunderstand what you were writing! I'll never forget one episode in my early trainee days - I had to write copy for a talc ad. After days of slogging I went in to my creative director and showed her some lines about how the talc made your skin all smooth and silky, and ended with "next time... slip on some - talc" She took one look at it, and said seriously - "you know, I'm having this vision of walking into a room where my children have spilt some talcum powder on the floor, and I go C....R...A...S...H!
What a perspective on clarity - or lack of it - that was!
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