From Overweight to On Point: Trimming Sentences for Clearer Annual Reports

Posted on March 26, 2026March 31, 2026 by Andrew Pegler

Over summer I collected a handful of overweight sentences andrewpeglermedia.com.au was working on – mostly for our calendar year annual report clients. They look fine at first glance, but carry more words than meaning. So we trimmed ’em back and reshaped them into clean, statuesque examples of #plainEnglish.

This is the kind of small editing that makes a big difference in #professionalwriting. It’s about finding and removing the extra words that slow readers down, without losing meaning or tone. The APM clutter removal service.

So as we kick off 2026, take a close look at your own writing and welcome the “shrinkinator” into your editing. As I always say: every word is a win!

Andrew Pegler

Andrew is Principal of Andrew Pegler Media Pty Ltd (APM) and an award-winning plain English editor, writer, and trainer. He has delivered workshops across Australia and Asia since 2002 and has judged major plain English awards in New Zealand and Australia. Andrew leads APM’s business writing and plain English training teams and has helped craft over 160 annual reports. He believes, like Albert Einstein, that “everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler.”