Writing Clear

[Mariela Laflam]

6The battle for good writing is won sentence by sentence. A good sentence is: short, has the subject and verb together, has an active verb, has the points of emphasis at the beginning and end, and moves the reader along from a familiar launch point at the start to the new information at the end.

For understanding how to build a good sentence, I find a website on scientific writing at Duke to be very useful. The example below started from one of their examples. Compare the following 6 sentences:

f) Notice that in a slightly different context we can still do much better than sentence e. In sentence f, we have a very specific verb (regressed) and we replace the annoyingly vague phrase data (or variables) with our specific instances.

For those who are curious here is a link to the Word macro I mentioned. I give it out AS IS. It should work in anything from Word 1997 to Word 2010 and on Mac and PC. It is written in VBA which is not officially supported since Word 2003, but it worked fine in Word 2010 for me today. Unfortunately, I cannot provide technical support on how to get it working on all these different platforms, but it should basically look like:

Thanks for this post. Your readers might be interested in a website I designed for my own teaching, with some hints on how to write journal articles (including some suggestions on clarity, but also more general points):

For the first person vs passive voice, see my comment just above to Crazy Scientist. Different people have different opinions, although I think it is fair to say that at least in English and in ecology the tide is turning to first person active voice for methods.

Hi Thiago I would say its more usual because our academy (Portuguese speaker countries) is more conservative. But its also improving and specially Ecologists and productive Ecology Schools are starting to encourage the use of active instead passive voice.

Regarding the Rosenzweig quote, I guess I never considered that bad writing could originate from people trying to avoid having people disagreements, but I can see it. People do have ulterior motives on all kinds of things.

I agree of course about the end goal. And you raise the good point that as time becomes ever more precious our papers are more and more judged by how accessible they are to a time limited person- in short how clear they are.

Personally, I would favor both table and graph and cut the intro and discussion if necessary. They are after all the results which should be the central feature of the whole paper. I also increasingly hear people say put a graph in the paper and the table in the supplemental material which works for me.

I think the main reason I favor tables is that one can get precise values from tables, whereas with graphs I often find myself +/- guessing as to exactly what those values are. Granted that only sometimes is such exact knowledge important; in general I guess that I find tables to be a very systematic way of presenting values, and I like that. They can also save space, for example in the case where you have say, three variables, all with some relation to each other. A single table can present all the information that would require three different bivariate graphs to represent. Granted however that this problem can also be solved by a well done 3-D graph, but these are sometimes difficult to create in my experience, at least good, easily grasped ones.

Clear writing for Europe is a drive within the European Commission to help everyone in the Commission to write shorter, simpler, jargon-free texts. Launched in 2010 to build on the Fight the Fog campaign, it is organised by a team of editors with help from colleagues across the Commission.

Clear writing for Europe offers authors practical advice and online resources, such as the How to write clearly booklet in 24 official languages, a weekly clear writing tip sent to around half of Commission staff and an email helpline. It also rewards drafters of clearly written Commission texts with an annual Clear Writing Award and organises training and awareness raising events for staff.

Clear writing for Europe extends beyond the Commission. We plan to set up an EU network of clear writers to share experiences and best practices and launch initiatives in all EU languages. Want to join us? Get in touch at: DGT-CLEAR-WRITINGec [dot] europa [dot] eu (DGT-CLEAR-WRITING[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu)

Outside of school, writing concisely can help you create more effective business letters, email messages, memos, and other documents. Busy readers appreciate getting the information they need quickly and easily.

What is the thesis of your paper? What exactly are you trying to accomplish? And what components of your paper are necessary to prove your argument? In a thesis-driven essay, every part of your paper should be geared toward proving that argument. Sometimes this proof will come in the form of direct evidence supporting your thesis; other times you will be addressing counterarguments.

For another example, when applying to the business school and working on your one-page resume, rather than using a small font and trying to include every job and activity you took part in, think about your audience and the information they will most need to evaluate your application.

Writing concisely is a difficult process. Often, writers struggle to identify what needs adjusting in their drafts. Some writers may feel adding extra words or phrases lends sophistication to their writing, when in fact it creates clutter and can confuse readers. Learning to recognize wordiness, repetition, and vague or unnecessary language is an important tool to ensure your writing expresses your ideas as clearly and concisely as possible. Examining word choice, concision, and sentence clarity are important aspects of the revision process.

Another way to confuse your reader or lose focus on your points is to double up on descriptions or other phrases that convey the idea multiple times. Redundancy or repetition can work well if used purposely, but haphazardly it can make your writing ineffective and boring. Here are two of the most common repetitive phrases and how you can revise them to improve your writing:

Think more clearly by improving your writing. Write more clearly by improving your thinking. Understand critical thinking and learn strategies for deeper and deeper levels of thinking. Improve your thought process at each stage of the writing process. Create logical and persuasive arguments, and recognize and remove faulty logic. Sharpen your problem-solving skills and enhance group success. Write plainly as mandated by the Federal Plain Writing Act of 2011 and empower your career with critical thinking and clear writing.

A writer's job is to create meaning for readers. Expository writers in particular are responsible for clearly spelling out the relationships between ideas and for leading readers convincingly to a desired conclusion. In the business world that most students will enter, this reader-oriented, presentational writing will be in high demand. Even in college, when an instructor asks you to write 2,000 words, he means 2,000 good words. You must cut out wordiness and use precise language.

Precise language

Never sacrifice clarity to novelty. This sometimes occurs when student writers work with a thesaurus in one hand, choosing substitutes from a list of approximately similar, though unfamiliar, words. "Visage" replaces "face," "endeavors" replaces "tries," "cogitation" replaces "thought," "subsequent to" replaces "after." Or, as a result of late-night brainstorming (or having read too many bad financial aid packets, perhaps?), "at the present time" replaces "now," "in the event of" replaces "if," and "in the majority of instances" replaces "usually."

Never sacrifice meaning to novelty. That is, never search for a synonym just to dress up an idea, and never use an unfamiliar word from the thesaurus to replace a perfectly good familiar word. Thesaurus words may be similar or related, yet not be identical or even equivalent in meaning. Unfamiliar words may carry the wrong connotation or be simply unsuitable for your audience. Learn a word's meaning and usage before using it.

Never sacrifice meaning to belonging. That is, avoid jargon, or words and expressions known only to people with specialized knowledge or interests. Even if readers know the jargon, it is more difficult to read than plain English and slows down comprehension. Check your writing once expressly to locate jargon, and cut out as much as you can. If technical words or expressions are unavoidable (and they sometimes are), define them the first time you use them and try sometimes to substitute a plainer word. The trick is to cut the verbiage without sacrificing meaning.

Choosing precise nouns makes it unnecessary to add layers of descriptive adjectives that lengthen sentences and comprehension time. (Your adjectives, anyway, will have greater impact if they are not overused.) Compare the following generic nouns on the left with the more connotative suggestions on the right:

Lit upignitedLeave behindabandonGo backreturnGet the audience involvedinvolve the audienceGot to see thatrealizedGot betterimprovedGot therearrivedPut ininstalled, depositedPut offpostpone, delayPut into actionactivatePut in placearrange, place

As much as possible, replace the verb "to be" with a stronger verb. "To be" is often part of a construction called an expletive, a filler expression like "there were," "it is," or "here are." The problem with expletives, besides their meaninglessness, is that they are wordy and their verbs are lackluster. The subject follows the verb, resulting in an indirect, roundabout expression (also see TIP Sheet "Active and Passive Voice"). To avoid expletives, lead with the subject or even choose a different subject and, if possible, substitute a vivid verb to make the sentence more straightforward and easier to understand:

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