Principles for Good
Writing
You will notice that
some guidelines
appear in multiple sources, perhaps reworded a bit. That just
proves how many
people think those points are important!
Source 1: The
Science of Scientific
Writing (SSW)
(From the article “https://www.americanscientist.org/blog/the-long-view/the-science-of-scientific-writing” by George Gopen and Judith Swan.)
[SSW1] Follow a grammatical
subject as soon
as possible with its verb.
[SSW2] Place in the
stress position
the “new information” you want the reader to emphasize.
[SSW3] Place the person or
thing whose “story”
a sentence is telling at the beginning of the sentence, in the
topic
position.
[SSW4] Place
appropriate “old
information” (material already stated in the discourse) in the
topic position
for linkage backward and contextualization forward.
[SSW5] Articulate the action
of every
clause or sentence in its verb.
[SSW6] Usually,
provide context for
your reader before asking that reader to consider anything new.
[SSW7] Usually, try to
ensure that
the relative emphases of the substance coincide with the
relative expectations
for emphasis raised by the structure.
Source 2: Style: The
Basics of
Clarity and Grace (BCG)
(From the book “Style:
The Basics of
Clarity and Grace” by Joseph M. Williams and Joseph Bizup)
[BCG1] Make main characters
the grammatical
subjects in sentences. Put these near the beginning of
sentences.
[BCG2] Specify important
actions as verbs,
not nouns. Use verbs to convey the most significant information.
[BCG3] Get to the main verbs
quickly. Avoid
long introductory phrases and clauses. Avoid interrupting the
subject-verb
connection.
[BCG4] Open your
sentences with
information familiar to your reader, such as what you've already
been talking
about. Push new complex information to the ends of sentences,
climaxing the
sentence. In the sentence, move from familiar to new.
[BCG5] In a passage of
related
sentences (e.g. developing an idea), begin sentences with
consistent subjects
or topics.
[BCG6] Be concise. Cut
meaningless or
repeated words with obvious implications. Compress the meaning
of a phrase into
one or two words. Prefer affirmative sentences to negative ones.
[BCG7] Control sprawl. Don't
tack more than
one subordinate clause onto another. Extend sentences with
resumptive,
summative, and free modifiers. Extend sentences with coordinate
structures,
arranging elements from shorter to longer.
[BCG8] Use parallel
structures to
create a sense of balance and elegance.
Source 3: Ideas
mentioned in
Publishing English lessons (PE) (and some just given here for
your benefit)
(Some from Matthew
Might, some from
Murray, some from elsewhere)
[PE1] Avoid weasel
words: salt &
pepper, beholder, lazy, overuse of adverbs. Be as objective and
precise as
possible. Replace or delete words that make the meaning less
precise unless you
want to be imprecise to indicate the limits of your knowledge.
[PE2] Be concise. If
the same
accuracy of meaning can be conveyed with fewer words, use fewer
words. E.g. Do
not use “In order to” at the beginning of a sentence because
“To” means exactly
the same thing and is more concise. (In the middle of a
sentence, “in order to”
is sometimes needed.)
[PE3] Avoid
redundancy. “In the
following Table 3 below” (triply redundant!) can be just “in
Table 3”. “such as
x, y, z, etc.” says “the list is incomplete” twice.
[PE4] Avoid overly
long noun phrases
as grammatical subjects or objects. Also avoid verbs with long
adverbial
clauses or more than two adverbs. (Related to BCG3: Avoid long
introductory
clauses and phrases.)
[PE5] Use pronouns
like “it”, “they”,
“that”, and “which” only when there will be no doubt in the
reader's mind the
things they refer to. When in doubt, name the thing
specifically, but do not
let the writing get too clunky. You need a balance of clarity
and elegance – ideal
wording has both.
[PE6] Look for
convenient ways to rewrite
sentences whose main verbs are “is/are” or “has/have” to use
more interesting
verbs. You don’t have to eliminate all such overused verbs, but
you should not
have too many instances of them, particularly if there’s a nice
way to avoid
them.
[PE7] Look for
cultural bias and
subjective terms like “foreign” or “our government”. Do not
assume your readers
know the “obvious” things that are known by “everyone” in your
own culture.
These are like beholder words but, even worse, may be
meaningless or insulting
to many readers: “During the reform and opening, …”, “After
Liberation, …”, “It
is obvious that proximity to India gives Pakistan
<something>.”
[PE8] To check for
logic in a
sentence, express the main idea of [parts of] the sentence in a
few words. Is
it clear what the sentence focuses on? Does the main idea make
sense? Is the
idea so obvious that it does not need to be stated? Are you
being wimpy? (Example
of wimpy: “Some
researchers believe
that this may be a possible
factor.”)
Are the ideas logically connected? Is the argument circular?
(Check your
definitions.)
[PE9] Transitions
between sentences and
conjunctions between clauses are good ideas but make sure that
you understand
subtleties of what the transitions/conjunctions mean,
particularly those that
imply a difference or similarity with what went before. Consider
“whereas”,
“nevertheless”, “although”, “because”, “so”. Be careful with
“as” because “as” means
both “when” and “because”. What does it mean in “As I went to
the store, I got
warm.”? Do not overuse transitions; Many sentences do not need a transition at the start!
[PE10] “And”, “But”, or “So” are conjunctions that
connect ideas. They
should be used to connect clauses within sentences but avoid
starting sentences
with “And”, “But”, or “So”. (Once or twice in an entire article
is OK for
“shocking” connections.)
·
To start
sentences, “Thus,” (=
“so”) is fine and “However,” (= “but”) is good but do not
overuse it; for
variety you can sometimes put it further in the sentence: “The
next step,
however, can introduce larger errors.”
·
When you are tempted to
use “And” to start a
sentence, you can use “Moreover”, “In addition”, or “Also”, or
just combine the
sentences (“…enjoy sports.
And they also…”
becomes “…enjoy sports and
they also…”).
·
Avoid run-on
sentences; Do not
use so many conjunctions in a sentence that the main thrust of
the sentence is
obscured.
[PE11] The passive
voice is bad when
it hides relevant or explanatory information, but fine if the
agent does not
matter or the sentence reads well with “by” to specify the
agent.
[PE12] (Related to
BCG6) Beware of
double/triple negatives like: “The survey failed to prove that
Hypothesis 1 was
not false.” Look for positive ways to express the same ideas.
[PE13] When using
comparison terms
like “larger” or “more profit”, make sure that your readers will
know which
things are being compared. It may be clear to you but not to
them.
[PE14] Avoid informal
terms like “a
lot of”, “nowadays”, “more and more”, and “lab”. Do not use
contractions: “don’t”,
“it’s”, “they’ll”, etc. Do not try too hard to use fancy formal
terms like “hereafter”
and “heretofore”.
[PE15] Always, always, always run the final version of your paper
through Grammarly
(or some similar grammar/spelling checker). Grammarly gives a
nice, free second
opinion to supplement the functions built into MS Word. Do not,
however,
completely trust Grammarly. It does miss some errors and some of
the things it
thinks are errors are actually good writing.
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