Tips for clear writing

Our Associate Vice Chancellor, Bob Damrauer, recently offered a key piece of advice to other faculty if they wanted to be successful: "Learn to write a simple declarative sentence, and use it!" This may seem overly simplistic, but in academia, it's surprising how many researchers lose their readers in the jargon and wordiness of their prose. So, with that in mind, I offer some advice for clearer writing.

Clear thinking = clear writing
I actually think I'm stealing this one from Bob Damrauer too, but I don't think he was the first to say it. Regardless, it's true that you cannot hope to write clearly in a grant or in an article if you don't have clarity around what it is you're trying to say. This doesn't mean that free writing can't be a useful tool for getting to clear thinking (see the blog on Writing into clarity), but you can't expect that this free writing will be clear in itself. You need to know what you want to say before you say it.

Check your jargon
If you think you don't use jargon in your writing, you're probably missing the jargon you do use. Certainly, you can spot some of it (think of all the acronyms that you use on a daily basis). But, some of the jargon will be in your blind spot, so it can be helpful to have a layperson read through your writing and let you know what doesn't make sense to them. Once you've identified your jargon, you have a couple of choices: you can pull it out and use a more common parlance, or you can define your terms. The latter often makes the most sense since you want to show that you can talk the talk of experts, but if you don't define your terms and use them consistently, it will be all for nought when your readers don't understand what you're saying.

Use signposts and signals
I once heard a faculty member discourage students from using headings, because he thought that it was a way for them to get around creating clear transitions in their writing. As a Technical Writer, I was horrified! I was also stunned that this faculty wanted papers from his students that were just a sea of text that he would read from start to end. Contrarily, as a reader, I often use a speed-reading trick where, before I start reading, I go through the headings in the entire piece, so that I have a sense of where the writer is taking me. If you took those headings away from me, good luck getting me to read the whole thing and follow it!

Use active voice and avoid long sentences
I realize that speaking in the first person in different academic genres is still frowned upon, and that's fine. However, you can use active voice along with the third person. Instead of saying The experiment will be conducted by the Nishi team, say The Nishi team will conduct the experiment. The active voice usually uses fewer words and is easier to read. Also, keep your sentences short. I'm notorious for drafting paragraph-long sentences. Some of them are readable, and some not. So, I always conduct several read-throughs of my work and force myself to break up sentences or just shorten them. This helps me be concise and clear in my writing.

Resources:
Writing clear, concise sentences - The University of Wisconsin, Madison Writing Center
Clear writing: Ten Principles of Clear Statement - University of Missouri