These tips are related to academic papers, but it can be applied to every writings that should have an effective communication.

Some that can affect me:

• avoid passive tense
• use strong vers instead of lots of nouns: "make assumption" → assume, "had difference" → differed, "is an illustration" → illustrates
• if you find yourself saying "In other words," it means you didn't say it clearly enough the first time. Rewrite it.
• Avoid filler words, e.g., by converting sentences into simple actor-action-object phrasing.
• Each sentence in a paragraph must have some logical connection to the previous one. A new thought should get its own paragraph, but still clearly needs some logical connection to the paragraphs that preceded it.
• avoid scare quotes
• Numbers ten or less are spelled out: "It consists of three fields", not "3 fields".
• avoid in-line enumeration
• avoid itemization (bullets) as it takes extra space. Bullets can be used to emphasize key points
• name the author with its reference [1] instead of "[1] shows" only. Add "et al." if more authors exist. Cite in depth the section for example to accord the verb.
• more than two footnotes per page or a handful per paper is a bad sign.
• A part before a colon (":") must be a complete sentence.
• Avoid slash constructs: time/money, expand them such as "time and money".
• Avoid cliches like "recent advances in ..."
• Avoid symbols as they are only acceptable on slides.
• Uses uppercased words for acronyms only. Avoid it for technical terms.
• Expand all acronyms on first use, except acronyms that every reader is expected to know. For example, TCP in a research paper is not needed, but Yet Another Compiler Compiler (YACC) is.
• Divide powers of a 1 000 for readability. It can be adjusted by the locale used.
• Use "kb/s" or "Mb/s," not "kbps" or "Mbps" - the latter are not scientific units. Distinguish MB and Mb too.
• It is always kHz.
• It's Wi-Fi, not WiFi or wifi that are trademarks.
• Avoid "etc.", prefers "for example", "such as", "among others" or provide a complete list.
• "for example" or "like" and "etc." are in different phrases. It already indicate that there are more such items.
• Remember that "i.e." and "e.g." are always followed by a comma.
• Do not use ampersands (&) or slash-abbreviations (such as s/w or h/w) in formal writing; they are acceptable for slides.
• "Respectively" is preceded by a comma, as in "The light bulbs lasted 10 and 100 days, respectively."
• Therefore, however, hence and thus are usually followed by a comma, as in "Therefore, our idea should not be implemented."
• Use "in Figure 1" instead of "following figure" since figures may get moved during the publication or typesetting process.
• Figures show, depict, indicate, illustrate. Avoid "(refer to Fig. 17)".
• Often, it is enough to simply put the figure reference in parenthesis "Packetg droppers (Fig. 17) have a pipe to the bit bucket, ..."
• If you quote something literally, enclose it in quotation marks or show it indented and in smaller type ("block quote"). A mere citation is not sufficient as it does not tell the reader whether you simply derived your material from the cited source or copied it verbatim.
• Acknowledge your funding support.
• Integrate PostScript instead of GIF for images [in papers].
• Section titles are not followed by a period.