Please summarize "Clutter," by William Zinsser.

"Clutter" is chapter three of William Zinsser's highly
influential book On Writing Well, in which Zinsser explains some
principles of clear and effective writing and illustrates his advice with many
examples.

In "Clutter," Zinsser urges readers to avoid
unneccessary words. He urges them to write prose that is crisp, clear, and clean. He
asserts that cluttered writing is both a symptom and a cause of many problems in
contemporary American society.

Zinsser notes that often we
add unnecessay prepositions to verbs, as in "head up," "face up to, "free up," and other
such phrases, in which the verb alone is sufficient and more
effective.

He notes that we also often add unnecessary
adjectives to our writing, as in such phrases as "personal physician" or "personal
friend," in which the noun alone is sufficient and more
effective.

Zinsser also criticizes over-use of the word
"experiencing," as in the question "Are you experiencing pain?" rather than the simpler,
clearer, "Does it hurt?"

He also attacks "ponderous
euphemisms," and he suggests that corporations, the government, and the military, in
particular, find it useful to employ cluttered
language.

Professional jargon is also censured by Zinsser,
as are long words when shorter words would suffice.  Likewise, he advises against using
faddish words. He concludes the main part of his essay with a striking summary of all
the bad word choices he has criticized:

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They are all weeds that will smother what you
write. Nor are all the weeds so
obvious.

He advises writers
to do as he did when he taught at Yale: when reading writing, bracket any unnecessay
words. Eventually, doing so will become a habit, and writers will mentally bracket
unneeded words when they go back to revise their writing.

A
reader with an ironic eye might suggest that Zinsser himself sometimes violates his own
advice (a charge he would probaby admit, since no writer is perfect). For example, he
uses the word "locutions" when a simpler term might do. He also urges writers to avoid
phrases such as "I might add," but Zinsser himself began the previous paragraph with the
phrase "I could go on . . . ."  Finally, in his next-to-last paragraph he once again
gives advice he has already offered throughout the essay, this time using eight
sentences (including highly similar questions) when perhaps four might have done the
job.

Ultimately, though, few could argue with Zinsser's
final bit of advice: "Simplify, simplify." (Note, however, that the same word is
repeated when it might have been enough to say simply:
"Simplify."