The task of writing clear rules

Our favorite saying in the office is a quote from Seinfield's Kramer. In the episode where he receives wrong numbers for the Moviefone service, he tries to answer the callers' touchtone response by guessing the movie name, then exhausted he responds with, "Why don't you just tell me?"

That is one of our driving principles in rule writing. I try very hard to exclude wasted phrases like "See below." We also try not to have a paragraph say, for example: 

Units

Units are in the game, and they move (see Movement 7.1), and they attack (see Combat 8.2.3) and may be removed (see Removing Units After an Attack 12.2.15.A)

That is a wasted paragraph and frustrating to read; tell them what a unit can do, all of it! It's ok to explain actions and details later too, but jeez, if you are going to write about something, make sure you describe it so without further searching, a player can understand the general mechanics.

This "Kramer" method also applies to other elements of a rulebook. For example, let's take a game with 50 US state capitols; either a red or blue circle represents each capital. However, two circles have a gold star within the circle. Some game rules would give instructions that red circles mean this, blue circles indicate that, and circles with gold stars represent something else. That's is fine, but really, it's two locations. Would it not be easier for the reader to read: the red and blue circle general rules, and then the locations with a gold star, Richmond and Sacramento, will mean this. Now the player knows ALL of the places where this special rule can occur.