As the producer of the BusinessVoice News Network, it’s my job to write the stories for this daily telephone-based service. I also promote the BVNN through the BusinessVoice Twitter feed by sharing the headlines in a daily tweet. And that has helped me to become a better writer.

A Twitter post can be no more than 140 characters. The daily BVNN tweet includes an introduction phrase and a link, leaving about 100 characters to write three teaser headlines. That’s three complete thoughts squeezed into a space about the same length as this sentence.

Twitter is a strict disciplinarian for brevity, and as the available characters count down toward zero with each keystroke, it becomes a great tool to improve my ability to say more with fewer words.

Try this the next time you’re writing: open your Twitter page and paste a longer sentence into the “new tweet” box. If it’s over 140 characters, rewrite it so it fits and still makes your point.

Short sentences are easier to read, and a mix of short, medium and longer sentences makes for good flow in your copy. Take the Twitter test to see if you can trim that long sentence and say it in a tweet.