Writing tips accumulated over time
I’m bad at writing: it’s true. So I read some books and put the information in this guide. If something is wrong, let me know.
The aim being when you have completed a paragraph, you work through this list.
Some people call reducing word count murdering your darlings or cutting sentence flab; either way, make every word count and sharpen the document by 10% to 20%. Let’s start by getting the word count and we will come back to it later. Got it? After working through this guide, hopefully, your word count will fall.
Consider who you are writing for and what are the aims? The answer to the first question is the reader, and answer to the second question is clarity. We’ll cover these points later, but first close your eyes and pretend to be your mum or grandma. Now reread the first sentence, does it make sense? Would your mum understand it? I’m baffled by how many times cows become ruminants, farms become agriculture and grass becomes grazing systems (for example). Please, who are you trying to impress? Cut it out and use plain words.
Paragraphs all about something, so it makes sense the subject of every sentence is the same. Switching between subjects will give your dear reader a headache, as it is difficult to keep track of the subject. To check, highlight the subject of every sentence and make sure they match. In Joe Moran’s book, he offers this advice here:
Skilled writers make sentences cohere by starting with the same subject. If they are writing about jaffa cakes, then the subject of all the sentences will be jaffa cakes. They might mix it up a bit by using pronouns or pronounish words, so not to stat with every sentence with jaffa cakes. Or they might begin with a brief adverbial (surprisingly, jaffa cakes make good tea-dunkers) or a prepositional phrase (in size and shape, the jaffa cake is really a biscuit).
This might be an opportunity to reduce the number of words by deleting sentences that aren't about your subject.
Yellowlees Douglas best describes nominalisations: here:
Think of nominalizations as castrated verbs, sapped of their livelihood by serving nouns.
Likewise Joe Moran says:
A nominalisation makes a verb into a noun. It turns act into action, react into reaction, interact into interaction. A nominalisation implies that a process has stayed still long enough for us to name it. A nominalisations traps energy inside it, turning fluid actions into unmoving things. It is the white dwarf of a sentence. A nominalisation is the shrunken remains of a verbal clause, a noun heavy mass compacted with pre-learned knowledge. But pre-learned knowledge by whom? Your reader, you hope – but can’t be sure.
No writing advice I’ve read says anything positive about nominalisations, so change them into verbs.
Change one be verb into a vivid verb. Unfortunately, this does not mean simply substituting one word for another. While this means reworking the sentence, it will be worth the effort. Here is a list of vivid verbs I found online.
Tricolons are all about lists. I fell in love with them after reading The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth. Read it. A tricolon is a series of three words, phrases or sentences that are parallel in structure, length and/or rhythm. The best examples are:
- Veni, vidi, vici
- Liberté, égalité, fraternité
- Sex, drugs and rock n roll
- "I think we've all arrived at a very special place. Spiritually, ecumenically, grammatically." Jack Sparrow From The Pirates of the Caribbean.
In short, make all lists contain three items. In addition, they must be parallel in structure, which brings us onto the next point.
This is all about using repeated structure in your text. I found this wonderful guide. It can also extend beyond a single sentence.
Back to Joe Moran for this one:
Too many ofs in a long sentence means they are staple gunning nouns together with too few verbs. A word processing algorithm that spotted preposition overkill, especially one that rooted out all those ofs, would be better than any spellchecker.
This is not to say that all ofs are bad, "eight out of ten cats" is perfectly acceptable. Which leads to there is.
Yellowlees Douglas has this pet hate.
There is or adverb + [any form of be] is thoroughly lethal to readers’ comprehension. When you begin a sentence with There is, you turn the natural order of the sentence upside down.
Sounds like something that should be removed? Even the The Economist Style guide agrees.
This really relates to active versus passive text. Should you say we or use passive tense? Perhaps the jury is out on this one. The journal Nature makes a clear statement about it:
Nature journals prefer authors to write in the active voice ("we performed the experiment...") as experience has shown that readers find concepts and results to be conveyed more clearly if written directly.
We is old hat and the best personal pronoun is you. Steve Harrison explains that the best way to engage with a reader is by using you. In fact, he says for ad copy you should use you three times more than we. It's not just guys in advertising Helen Sword says the same thing:
One simple way to establish a bond with your reader is to employ the second-person pronoun you, either directly or by means of imperative verbs.
Likewise Helen Sword recorded the percent of times articles used a personal pronoun and found most do.
| Field | Percent articles with personal pronoun |
|---|---|
| Medicine | 92% |
| Evolutionary biology | 100% |
| Computer science | 82% |
One word of caution, once I enthusiastically wrote in the active voice. My (kind) supervisor highlighted I had used we thirty-three times! It was plain to see that I should cut back (I told you I was bad at writing).
So, if someone insists on using passive (no we), let them know they are three steps behind. Otherwise you can make some shortcuts to slip them under the radar, like suppose or consider. Writing is all about engaging with your reader, which brings us to the next point.
Science is hard. A lot of science is abstract thinking (how does PCA work?), this means you need to spell things out. So, make sure each paragraph contains at least one concrete noun. For example, Steven Pinker brings verbs to life here:
Like fruit flies, regular and irregular verbs are small and easy to breed
Steven Pinker goes further:
A considerate writer will also cultivate the habit of adding a few words of explanation to common technical terms, as in “Arabidopsis, a flowering mustard plant” rather than the bare “Arabidopsis”
Helen Sword has this to say:
Make sure at least one sentence per paragraph includes a concrete noun or a human activity, immediately follow it with and active verb
You may think this is hard. It isn't. Some of the best examples come from computer science: port, mouse and of course window (tricolon used intentionally). The point being a concrete noun helps conjure an image in the mind of your reader: which brings the subject to life.
Many of the books I've read make the same point about rhythm and say the best authors write a long sentence, then a short one, then a long one, then a short one, etc.
Having rhythm has many benefits. First consider a paragraph of just long sentences, this is hard work for the reader. Likewise, consider a paragraph of just short sentences, it will sound childish. Second, the structure helps a reader by making a long statement and then following up with a brief point. So vary sentence length. In case you're wondering, the following writing guide authors state this explicitly: Yellowlees Douglas, Steve Harrison and Joe Moran.
It is easy for a sentence to get bogged down in clauses and hedges, the problem is it can be unclear who kick's whom. Helen Sword is very keen on this and calls it smart sentencing:
- Concrete nouns and vivid verbs
- Keep the nouns and verbs close together
- Avoid weighing down sentences with clutter
And she advises:
When an agent and action become separated by more than a dozen words readers quickly lose the plot.
Wheras Anne Greene says keep subjects and verbs no further than six or seven words apart. So, keep nouns and verbs together. A one-two punch is when the noun is followed by the verb e.g. cats stink. Double check that it is clear Who kick's whom
First off there is nothing wrong with a long sentence (there I said it). Normally sentences are around 15-20 words; so as a rule I chop sentences longer than forty words. Often long sentences have too many clauses or modifiers in them and it is difficult to see who kick's whom. If your sentence is growing longer, check for parallel syntax. The other problem in sentences are too many clauses, like below.
Conjunctions are excellent for joining sentences and inserting clauses and sub-clauses in sentences. But not all conjunctions are equal. If you want a clause to have equal weight you should use one of the FANBOYS as described by June Casagrande. They are:
- FANBOYS
- For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet and So
Everything else is a subordinating conjunction. Which means what follows has a lower grammatical status. Although nothing is wrong with relegating something to lower status, like some extra information or asides. The problem is when important or exciting information is relegated to a lower grammatical status. June Casagrande gives this example
Before robbing a bank, Mike was an accountant
The problem is the interesting part, robbing a bank, is given lower status, because of the before conjunction (not a FANBOYS). She offers this alternative:
After working for twenty-five years as an accountant, Mike robbed a bank.
See the difference? She also points out the funny thing about subordinating conjunctions, look at this sentence:
Steven likes Big-Macs
now add a word:
Because Steven likes Big-Macs ... If Steven likes Big-Macs ... Although Steven likes Big-Macs ... etc.
The addition of a subordinating conjunction has rendered the sentence incomplete. Meaning they (subordinating conjunctions) are less important and the reader knows this.
One final point, and is the weakest FANBOYS because it specifies a link but not what sort. Instead think if another ** FANBOYS** would be better in its' place.
Take home message check your conjunctions, check your FANBOYS.
Avoid negation. For example, instead of we did not find use we failed to find. Negation is funny because it changes the thing it acts upon, thus requiring a bit of work by the reader. So, spare the reader the hassle.
One thing that must never be used is double negation. Consider:
He never says nothing interesting to no one.
What does this mean? A reword would help.
He never says anything interesting to anyone.
Double negatives work in speech because of intonation, but they don't work in writing so weed them out.
Here are some affirmative words to replace those negative words, from Anne Greene & Yellowlees Douglas.
| Negative | Affirmative |
|---|---|
| did not accept | rejected |
| did not consider | ignored |
| does not have | lacks |
| did not allow | prevented |
| not the same | different |
| not possible | impossible |
| not many | few |
| did not | failed to |
| not necessary | unnecessary |
| not certain | uncertain |
Plurals can become tricky, especially when there are many of them. So double and triple check when you have plurals in a sentence. Gyles Brandreth has nine rules for plurals, they are:
- Subjects and verbs must agree in number: -- The summer is hot -- The summers were hot
- Words between subjects and verbs don’t affect them: -- The girl, wearing several layers, is hot
- If two subjects are joined “and” they require a plural verb: -- The girl and the boy are getting carried away
- The verb remains singular if the two subjects separated by “and” refer to the same thing: -- Fish and chips is my favourite treat
- If one of the words “each”, “every”, or “no” comes before the subject, the verb is singular: --Each person is expected to behave properly
- If the subjects are both singular and are connected by the words “or”, “nor”, “neither/nor”, “either/or”, or “not only/but also” the verb is singular: -- Neither *Adam" nor Eve is responsible for what happened next, nor is the apple or the snake
- If one subject is singular and the other plural and the words are connected by the words “or”, “nor”, “neither/nor” “either/or”, or “not only/but also” the verb form of the subject that is closest: -- Either the apples or the serpent is responsible for what's happened -- Neither the serpent or the apples have been seen since
- Indefinite pronouns typically take singular form: -- Everybody wants to be understood -Collective nouns like “government”, ”team”, “flock”, “crowd”, “company” usually take singular form -- The crowd is getting restless -- The team sucks
Tautology and double modifiers basically say the same thing twice. The antidote to this to remove one. Here are some double modifiers I found in a recent paper:
- considerably increases
- exceptionally longer
- dramatically increased
- even more
- much larger -- In all cases the first word can be removed
Find some tautology examples, taken from here below:
- At that moment in time, the stars dimmed. (It's always a moment in time)
- The man who used to live next door is a single bachelor. (Bachelors are always single)
- The vote was totally unanimous. (The word totally doesn't add anything)
- He was in a three-way love triangle. (The word three-way doesn't add up to anything else)
- He left at 3 am in the morning. (The term am means in the morning.)
- The reason is because he left during the dinner. (The word because doesn't add anything)
- In our assessment, we think he is alive.(In our assessment and we think do the same job)
- This is a new innovation. (Innovations are always new)
Joe Moran also hates what he calls sentence flab:
Solution, unspool the nouns strings. Turn weak verb-noun phrases into verbs. Puts emphasis on: emphasizes. Gives the impression: suggests. Draws attention to, notes. Tying noun phrases together with weak verbal knots is simple. Adding strong verbs is hard. Nouny sentences are a labour to read and a breeze to write. Those who write them assume that, just by gumming nouns together, they have communicated with other human beings. All they have achieved is lazy, bogus fluency.
while we're here I'll add these from Janice Matthews and Robert Matthews
| instead of | use |
|---|---|
| at this point in time | now |
| due to the fact that | because |
| employ, utilize | use |
| high degree of accuracy | accurate |
| implement | do |
| in the event that | if |
| method | way |
| neonate | newborn |
| oftentimes | often |
| plethora | excess |
| postoperatively | after surgery |
| prior to | before |
| retard | slow |
| sacrifice, euthanatize | humanely kill or destroy |
| subsequent to | after |
Some words are just ugly, below is a selection from the The Economist Style guide:
- Address meaning answer, deal with, attend to, look at
- Facilitate
- Famously
- Focus
- Impact meaning affect
- Innovative
- Likely meaning probably
- Looking to meaning intending to
- Meaningful
- Paradigm
- Participate in use take part in
And some from Gyles Brandreth:
- Going forward try in the future
- Upcoming try forthcoming
- Forward planning try planning
- Pre-planned try planned
- Pushback try resist
- Factor in try include
- Irregardless try regardless
- At this moment in time try now
Three rules about numbers:
- Never start a sentence a number, if you must spell them out twenty-three
- Numbers below twenty are written (the rule varies between people, but this is my rule: they're all one word)
- Commas separate thousands, so 1,000 not 1`000.
Three rules for acronyms:
- Only use an acronym if it is used more than five times.
- Never start a sentence with an acronym (spell it out).
- Never use one in a title. Except the well known ones (DNA).
Orwell advised:
If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out
Or:
If you can cut a word, do
Furthermore, it's not about just cutting words it's about cutting syllables. You know the score
Now go back to point 1 and see how many words you've cut and keep cutting to reduce the paragraph by 10-20%.
Ok this isn't all. But here are a few things before sending the document out. First have you italicised all the Latin and foreign names? Believe me, this will annoy the hell out of the reader. After decrying being sick of the document and unable to read it anymore; nothing is worse than not italicising things. The reason is once this slip-up is found the reader thinks what else didn't they bother to do... Also be consistent with acronyms, again jumping between acronyms and not-acronym, just looks careless. Personally I recommend using the search function for all cases mentioned above (search for *et al.,**).
You will spare yourself many blushes by simply reading the document aloud. I know it is cheesy, but really do it. Otherwise take some advice from Joe Moran and change the font and change the font size (at least three times). Then reread the document, this will give you a new pair of eyes. I use an online editor, for which there is a free version. Others are available like the Hemingway App (personally I dislike books by Hemmingway, so sue me). The main point is having something else to visualise your work gives you a fresh take. Besides these another tried and tested method is getting someone else to read it for you. However, this is often difficult; but persistence and beer can help to persuade someone else.
In this guide (now) I have tried to include as much as possible and give credit where due (please don't sue me). But it isn't everything, there is more like: verb-less sentences (don't), hedging words (don't) and glue index. But that’s all for now. Check back, maybe things will be added or removed. Maybe, just maybe there is a tool to help (it is GitHub after all).
I’ve mentioned quite a few books, most were a joy to read. The authors are often witty and self-deprecating (important for an English reader). To finish a tricolon of tricolons of books
- Essential reading o The Elements of Style by William Strunk, is nearly one-hundred years old and is the best book. The reason being it is so short. It is a breeze to read and packed full of no non-sense help. Seriously read this book first. o Writing Science in Plain English by Anne Greene, is also short and to the point. I think reading this would help anyone. o It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences by June Casagrande, is number three on my list. This book is all about grammar but presented in a beautiful way. It doesn’t preach or give boring rules. June gives advice based on her experience which is very practical.
- Fun, Fresh and Frankly brilliant o The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth, the dark arts of rhetoric. It’s seriously good. Not all of it useful for scientific writing but all of it is a joy to read. In fact, any book by Mark is worth reading. o How Write Better Copy Academy by Steve Harrison, the dark art of advertising. I read this because Joe Moran suggested it. It’s an excellent read because it’s from a different perspective and Steve seriously knows how to write. o Have You Eaten Grandma by Giles Brandreth, it’s fun and gives excellent advice on grammar.
- The good, the bad and the ugly o First You Write Sentence by Joe Moran an ode to the sentence. I found myself rereading sections many times to see the wonders of what was explained. One word of caution I recommended this book to some non-native English speakers and they struggled with it. But it is worth the effort. o The Economist Stye guide the what’s what of style. This is gives clear dos and don’ts for writing along with many helpful tips. I’ve used this as a reference many times. o The Sense of Style by Steven Pinker, a modern version of The Elements of Style. There’s a lot I like about this book, like the tips and style. I just wish it was shorter (more Strunk like)…
| Check list: | Tick |
|---|---|
| Get the word count | |
| Is the first sentence comprehensible to another human | |
| All subjects are the same for every sentence | |
| Use verbs instead of nominalistaions | |
| Change one be verb to a vivid verb | |
| All lists are of length three: Tricolon | |
| Parallel syntax, use the same structure | |
| Remove “of the” | |
| Remove “there is” and “there are”, etc | |
| Pronouns, have you got a “you” in or a sneaky “suppose” | |
| At least one concrete noun or human activity | |
| Rhythm: long short, long, short… | |
| Subjects and verbs are no more than six words apart | |
| No sentences longer than forty words | |
| Check your FANBOYS | |
| No; “not”, “nots”, “n’t” or “n’ts” | |
| Double check your plurals and then check them again | |
| Omit redundant words | |
| Delete horrible words like facilitate (try help) | |
| Numbers, write twenty and below, but 21 and above | |
| Never start a sentence with an acronym | |
| Reduce words by 10-20%. |