In the beginning: It doesn't matter what you're writing, the most important sentence is the first. If you haven't captured the reader's interest by the end of that first sentence you may just as well have saved yourself the time of writing anything.

Make it personal: It sounds obvious, but always write for the reader. A lot of people don't. They write to make themselves sound clever. Why should the reader be interested in what you are writing about? How can you make the subject matter fascinatingly gripping? Be direct; make it relevant.

Every word counts: Don't 'overwrite'. Get to the point quickly and make your point clearly, crisply and economically. Never use 100 words when ten will do. The impatience of the digital generation prohibits it!

I mean that most sincerely: If you don't know your subject, or you haven't thoroughly researched it, it will show in your writing. The more you know, the less you need to say because your knowledge will shine through succinctness. Leave euphemism, ambiguity and verbosity to the politicians!

Look lively: Writing 'simply' doesn't mean writing without 'colour' or personality. You need to make your writing as compelling as possible, using vivid (not florid) language and active, not passive sentences. Be wary of humour, controversy and a provocative stance unless you're sure they work and are appropriate.

You've got rhythm There are few things more likely to switch the brain off (apart from a sleeping tablet) than having to read an endless string of overly long sentences crawling through densely over-populated paragraphs. Vary the tempo of your writing with a mix of sentence and paragraph lengths to keep your reader's brain engaged.

At the end of the day: Ban jargon, technical overload, clichés, acronyms and management speak. They really get in the way of good conversations.

'P's, 'Q's, 'I's and 'T's: Check your spelling, grammar and punctuation. Content is important, but (and you can call us old fashioned) we think accuracy in these three areas really matters on as well as offline. They say something about attitude and professionalism, as well as making or breaking the sense of what you write. Snappy headings and sub-headings can also help to break lengthy narratives into more palatable chunks.

Cut! Ruthless editing is probably the most important part of the writing process. Try and sleep on a piece of writing before you start editing: the weaknesses will be clearer. Then be brutal. Shorten it; remove superfluous adverbs and adjectives; tighten everything up; shorten it again. Then get someone else to read it - and make sure they're brutal too.

A bit of context: Inevitably, the tone will vary depending on the audience, channel and type of writing: you wouldn't write for a scientific journal in the same style as you'd write a blog; you wouldn't write a speech in text-speak; the differences between an in-depth article and a Tweet are self-evident. But whatever the channel, audience or nature of the communication, clarity, brevity, relevance and obvious value to the reader are paramount. That's as true of a tweet as it is of an article.

Just get down to it: The best way to improve your writing is to do more of it. A loose structure can be valuable, but don't wait for creative inspiration; it's mainly about perspiration. You can bring order to chaos at a later stage, so just get it all out of your head and down on paper.

The end: Endings are as important as beginnings (almost). When you've said all you have to say, end with something memorable and just stop!