There are very few universals when it comes to writing. What works for one genre might not for another, and what’s considered good during one decade can become passé during the next.

That said, almost all the time, the point of writing is to communicate something. In order to communicate to the best of your ability, you should keep the following three things in mind. It’s probably the closest thing there is to an absolute rule about writing.

Writing Purpose

In writing, as with many other things in life, it helps tremendously to define your goal. Sometimes this will be relatively concrete – for instance, you might be crafting an opinion piece to persuade people to support or oppose a certain development in your community, or you might be writing instructions to explain how to complete a certain task. Other times, it will be more exploratory – for instance, you might be writing poetry to help yourself process an experience, or you might be freewriting to come up with ideas for a piece of fiction. Regardless, knowing ahead of time what you want to accomplish will help you stay on task. It will also allow you to evaluate to what extent you’ve achieved what you set out to, and thus it will help you plan your next steps.

Other times, it will be more exploratory – for instance, you might be writing poetry to help yourself process an experience, or you might be freewriting to come up with ideas for a piece of fiction. Regardless, knowing ahead of time what you want to accomplish will help you stay on task. It will also allow you to evaluate to what extent you’ve achieved what you set out to, and thus it will help you plan your next steps.

Audience

You’re always writing for someone. If you’re writing for yourself, it helps to remember that no one else will be judging your work and that you can just focus on what you like. If you’re writing for others, it’s important to use what you know about them. It can help you decide how simple or complex your writing can be, how much background information to include, whether to use jargon or technical terms, what sorts of cultural references you may want to include, and what values to emphasize. By keeping your audience in mind you can ensure clear and effective communication with them.

Context

Related to purpose and audience is the idea of context. It may sound obvious, but it’s easy to forget that different types of writing are appropriate for different situations. Think about where and when readers are going to encounter your writing. People have different expectations when they read in different places, so an article they might perceive as funny on a humor site could come off as sloppy if it appeared in a local newspaper.

Including meticulous footnotes in a post on an entertainment blog might make people turn away, but excluding footnotes in an academic paper might make your professor give you a failing grade. Be aware of what the expectations are in the space in which your readers will encounter your work. Most of the time it’s best to fulfill the expectations, although sometimes you may wish to subvert them – just make sure that you have a good reason and plan for doing so.