Writing positively helps readers understand what you are saying.

Don’t force readers to perform mental gymnastics as they untangle your text to discover meaning. Martin Cutts in the Oxford Guide to Plain English explains why – ‘When readers are faced with a negative, they must first imagine the positive alternative, and then mentally cancel it out.’

For example, write ‘it is attractive’ rather than it is not unattractive’; write ‘it is reasonable’ rather than ‘it is not unreasonable’. These double negatives are a little harder to process, and they use more words than are needed.

Sometimes the prefix ‘un-‘ can be missed by people who are reading fast, and that conveys the opposite meaning to your intent.

People generally respond better when ideas are expressed positively.