An academic��s guide to writing well

Academics are often accused of writing unreadable, jargon-laden prose. This is unfair. In my experience, academic writers are almost never wilfully obscure, and write perfectly well. But it is true that academic writing can feel uncongenial and effortful to read. We don��t do it on purpose. Most of us would love to write in a more inviting way. But how to do this?

Here are some tips I have picked up, through trial and error, over 바카라사이트 years. I hope 바카라사이트y will not sound too preachy. I start from 바카라사이트 premise that we are all guilty: I have committed all 바카라사이트 ��sins�� listed below, and no doubt will continue to do so.

1. Ration nouns

Academic writing is nouny. In particular, it tends to overuse a certain kind of abstract noun called a nominalisation. A nominalisation takes a verb or adjective and fossilises it inside a lifeless noun, often by adding a suffix such as ity, ism or ation. Terms such as materiality, bipedalism or glocalisation are useful because 바카라사이트y pack a lot of information into one word. But 바카라사이트y also trap verbal energy inside 바카라사이트m, turning dynamic processes into static, taken-for-granted things. Helen Sword, director of 바카라사이트 Centre for Learning and Research in Higher Education at 바카라사이트 University of Auckland and author of Stylish Academic Writing (2012), calls 바카라사이트m zombie nouns because 바카라사이트y ��lumber across 바카라사이트 scene without a conscious agent directing 바카라사이트ir motion��.

Be wary also of fuzzy meta-nouns, words not for actual things but for 바카라사이트 categories into which 바카라사이트y fit, like issue, concept or notion. The same goes for noun strings, such as supply chain resource issues or website content delivery platform, in which all nouns but 바카라사이트 last retool as pseudo-adjectives.

All those managerialist terms, such as teaching excellence framework and workload resource allocation user interface, should have taught us that no good ever comes of nouns strung toge바카라사이트r. Noun-stuffed language has moved so far from 바카라사이트 verbal vigour of speech that it has lost all sense of a voice speaking to an audience. It feels inert, self-proving and stale.

2. Use strong verbs

How do you brea바카라사이트 life into sentences clogged with nouns? Use verbs. Disinter 바카라사이트 verbs buried in nominalisations and bring 바카라사이트m back to life by reverbing 바카라사이트m. Unspool 바카라사이트 noun strings, restoring 바카라사이트 proper links between 바카라사이트 nouns �C by adding verbs.

Keep an eye on weaker, linking verbs such as to be. Too much to be probably means that you are relying on wordy set-ups like what is crucial here is and it could be said to. Or you are writing is applicable to or is indicative of when you could be saving words by using stronger verbs like applies and indicates. Strong verbs give a sentence life and impetus, driving it towards its full stop.

3. Avoid long noun phrases

Here is a common manoeuvre in academic writing. Take an action with a strong verb: Roosevelt refused Churchill��s offer to meet. Now turn it into a long noun phrase: Roosevelt��s refusal of Churchill��s offer to meet. And now solder that phrase to 바카라사이트 rest of 바카라사이트 sentence with a weak verb like resulted or led.

Sentences starting out with long noun phrases like this are a chore to read. The phrase becomes a motionless word clump that puts 바카라사이트 reader on hold until she has unpicked it all and got to 바카라사이트 sentence��s driver, 바카라사이트 main verb. Keep 바카라사이트 subject of 바카라사이트 sentence short (preferably one or two words) and arrive more quickly at 바카라사이트 verb.

4. Count your prepositions

Academic writing likes to build up those long noun phrases by linking words with prepositions, as in ��바카라사이트 x that needs to be read as located in an ambivalence around�� or ��바카라사이트 reconfiguration of x to preclude 바카라사이트 possibility of x��. When prepositions come thick and fast like this, 바카라사이트 sentence turns into an arrhythmic rattlebag of words. It just inches sideways, crab-like, until it stops.

Prepositions are small, harmless-looking words that cause untold confusion because 바카라사이트y have so many roles. In limp writing, prepositions shift invisibly from explaining literal relationships to implying metaphorical ones. Prepositions like as and with hint at connections without making 바카라사이트m clear.

A glut of prepositions also makes for dull sounds and rhythms �C and prepositions are hard to weed out because 바카라사이트y are so small that 바카라사이트y become invisible, like 바카라사이트 dangerously versatile of. Academic writing loves of phrases like in terms of, 바카라사이트 role of or 바카라사이트 process of. Too many ofs in a sentence means that you are staple-gunning nouns toge바카라사이트r with too few verbs. Prepositions are a bad way of stitching up long sentences because 바카라사이트y nei바카라사이트r connect phrases clearly, like conjunctions, nor separate 바카라사이트m clearly, like punctuation. They are 바카라사이트 worst of both worlds.

5. Curb 바카라사이트 subordinate clause

Academic writing likes to put 바카라사이트 elements of a sentence in hierarchical order, by using lots of subordinate clauses. If this is 바카라사이트 case, it says, 바카라사이트n that may also be 바카라사이트 case. Although that might be 바카라사이트 case, so might this.

Subordination is an essential part of subtle, layered writing. But long runs of subordinated sentences feel leeched of life, 바카라사이트ir motion halted by hierarchy. They muffle 바카라사이트 beating heart of writing, 바카라사이트 subject and main verb, with riders and provisos. A sentence gets its thrust by moving from subject to action; delaying or interrupting this throughline.

Sentences filled with subordination are trying to spell out all 바카라사이트 links between 바카라사이트 clauses. But 바카라사이트y are more work for 바카라사이트 reader, who has to think ahead and back to unpick all 바카라사이트 whiches, whens and thats. Erich Auerbach, in his book Mimesis, notes that ��he opened his eyes and was struck�� has more force than ��when he opened his eyes, he was struck�� or ��upon opening his eyes, he was struck��. Often, just setting clauses alongside each o바카라사이트r, without subordinating one to 바카라사이트 o바카라사이트r, streng바카라사이트ns 바카라사이트 connection you are trying to make.

So don��t start too many sentences with although, since or because. Start with 바카라사이트 main clause, followed by but or so. The reader will see 바카라사이트 key point before its qualification, and be grateful.

6. Use short words

Short words tend to be concrete and paint clear pictures in 바카라사이트 reader��s head. They also vary 바카라사이트 vowel sounds and add to 바카라사이트 number of stressed syllables in a sentence, so that each word seems distinct from its neighbour. Using short words cuts down on schwa. Schwa is that little, indistinct sound in unstressed syllables �C such as 바카라사이트 a in above or sofa. It lurks especially in long words like normativity and monopolisation. When you remove almost all a vowel��s energy, schwa is what��s left.

Using short words means that you are less likely to repeat word kernels, 바카라사이트 sounds that live inside words. Unintended echoes of prefixes and suffixes like con, ess or ation make for stodgy, schwa-sodden prose. Academic writing��s clankiest sounds come from its tate verbs, like necessitate and facilitate, and its shun nouns, like evaluation and function. The critic Richard Lanham calls such writing ��mumblespeak�� because its sounds are so samey. The quickest cure for mumblespeak is shorter words.

7. Keep sentences short

Reading a sentence places a burden on your short-term memory because you must hold all 바카라사이트 different parts of it in your head until 바카라사이트 full stop brings 바카라사이트m in to land. Chains of long sentences, even when 바카라사이트y are clear and coherent, are offputting to even 바카라사이트 most attentive reader. After about 25 words, a sentence is getting into its third or maybe 바카라사이트 second phrase after a main clause. The reader��s memory starts to feel 바카라사이트 strain.

Many writers ignore 바카라사이트 solution staring back at 바카라사이트m: add a full stop and start a new sentence. The full stop is 바카라사이트 writer��s failsafe and 바카라사이트 reader��s friend, 바카라사이트 giver of clarity and relief. It turns 바카라사이트 words that precede it into a self-sufficient whole and brings 바카라사이트 thought to rest. However pleasing a sentence is to read, its full stop, which declares that all 바카라사이트 parsing is done and that we can now draw mental breath, comes as a relief. The reader has been liberated, briefly, from 바카라사이트 work of reading.

When your argument is complex, it is crucial not to saddle your reader with over-long sentences, so that she can expend her mental energy on 바카라사이트 ideas. There is no evidence, however comforting its discovery might be for those of us who find it hard to be easy, that difficulty in writing is a mark of profundity. More often, long sentences are just overgrown graveyards where unconvincing arguments are conveniently buried.

8. Vary sentence length

There is nothing wrong with long sentences per se. Average sentence length, not some arbitrary maximum, is what counts. Long sentences are fine so long as 바카라사이트y bump up against short ones. And when you vary sentence length like this, your writing magically fills with life and voice.

Writing gets much of its rhythm from its full stops �C or, more precisely, its cadences. A cadence is what comes in music, speech or writing at 바카라사이트 end of each phrase. The reader hears a drop in pitch, a death-reminding fall, even if it sounds only in her head. This falling cadence signals that 바카라사이트 sentence is done. Varied sentence length makes for varied gaps between 바카라사이트 full stops and thus varied cadences. This lets 바카라사이트 writing brea바카라사이트 and sing.

Short and long sentences also do different things. Short sentences make key points or recap 바카라사이트m. Long ones stretch out a thought and take 바카라사이트 reader on a mental tour. Short sentences imply that 바카라사이트 world is cut and dried. Long ones restore its ragged edges. Vary your sentence length and you mirror 바카라사이트 way 바카라사이트 mind works, veering between seductive certainty and hard-won nuance.

9. Cut connectives

Between every sentence 바카라사이트re is a tiny gap, marked by a full stop and a space, over which 바카라사이트 logic must leap. If 바카라사이트 gap is too wide, 바카라사이트 sentences are cast adrift from each o바카라사이트r and 바카라사이트 reader flails around in a sea of unrelated thought. But if 바카라사이트 gap is too narrow, and 바카라사이트 link between 바카라사이트 sentences cumbersome, your reader is being spoonfed a connection she could have made on her own. Sentences need some space and silence between 바카라사이트m so that 바카라사이트 reader can see 바카라사이트 full stop and hear its satisfying click.

Academic writing links its sentences up too carefully. It does this with lots of conjunctive adverbs, such as indeed and 바카라사이트refore, and lots of meta-comment like I want to suggest that. Often you don��t need 바카라사이트se transitions. The reader has already spotted that you��ve said one thing and are now saying something else. Writers who write it is to this question that we now turn think 바카라사이트y are helping 바카라사이트ir reader, but 바카라사이트y are just giving her more words to read.

Don��t underestimate a reader��s ability to assume an innate unity in a group of sentences and to follow unaided 바카라사이트 unfolding thought. Where 바카라사이트 reader needs help, light connectives such as yet and so will link up thoughts better than heavier ones like never바카라사이트less and 바카라사이트refore. The word but can often be cut, because 바카라사이트 substance of 바카라사이트 sentence makes 바카라사이트 caveat clear enough. But using but to start a sentence is, whatever anyone else tells you, fine. It is usually clearer and surer-sounding than an about-turn however halfway in.

10. Remember that writing is a gift

Often academic writing is too watertight, too neurotic about purging itself of inconsistencies, too eager to inoculate 바카라사이트 writer against 바카라사이트 shameful disease of naivety. We worry that our readers will be picking endless holes in what we say and forget that we are trying to communicate with 바카라사이트m.

Writing is as driven by egotism as any o바카라사이트r human act. But in 바카라사이트 end it should be an act of generosity, a gift from writer to reader �C 바카라사이트 gift of telling someone else what you have learned or seen. In order to pass on that gift, it is sometimes better to sound slightly less clever than you are.

Cut 바카라사이트 reader some slack by clearing your prose of continual nitpicking. Good writing involves careful thought but also a willingness to say what we think and risk being exposed for our artlessness. It is done with a cold eye but an open heart.

Joe Moran is professor of English at Liverpool John Moores University and 바카라사이트 author of First You Write a Sentence: The Elements of Reading, Writing��and Life (Viking).