Using classic style to combat bad habits

In part two of our Steven Pinker style discussion, we look at the value of classic style in grant-writing. Pinker begins by saying that classic style can serve as "an antidote for academese...and other kinds of stuffy prose," (p. 27) which as a grant-writer working with academics is one of my top goals for you. :) Pinker suggests that the best way to describe classic style is "a writer in conversation with a reader, directs the reader's gaze to something in the world" (p. 56). He argues then that classic style draws on two of our most natural instincts (talking and seeing) to develop our writing. So, if we envision our reader being a bright, educated, researcher, what we're trying to do in our proposal is call their attention to our problem and have a discussion about the problem and the best ways to fix it.

However, academic writers fall into a whole bunch of bad habits when writing that add useless words and sentences into their writing and distract from their actual goal. As Pinker points out, "classic writing, with its assumption of equality between writer and reader, makes the reader feel like a genius. Bad writing makes the reader feel like a dunce" (p.36). Thus, below is some advice on classic style.

Use elegant metadiscourse:
I remember in high school when being assigned a term paper, my teacher instructed us to format the paper to "tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them," and this is not a bad place to start off your high school writing career, but there is some elegance that you need to accrue as you advance as a writer. Pinker tells us in fact to avoid this metadiscourse and to just tell people what we want to tell them. I'm not sure he was talking specifically about grant writing, however, I do think we can take away from this point that one should avoid repetition in any metadiscourse. Pinker suggests that returning to your overarching point and even using key words to summarize is useful, but don't say the same thing again; find a new way to describe and convey the crux of your piece.

Avoid hedging:
Pinker also describes how many people hedge in their writing and they fall into this bad habit unintentionally. He suggests that we can often chuck the hedging words. For instance, I can say, "the birds fly by my window" instead of saying, "Sometimes, the birds fly by my window," and be confident that no one will call me out, saying, "Oh yeah? There are birds flying by your window nonstop? Liar!" But returning to my second sentence I used to in this section, you may notice that I hedged by using the word "often." Sometimes, hedging is necessary. Ah! I did it again. But, it can be useful if we use it intentionally, if it's necessary to make the point. 

Avoid turning verbs into nouns or adjectives:
In his discussion, Pinker cautions us from turning perfectly good active verbs into nouns, or what he describes as zombie nouns. For example, instead of "She affirmed his choice," we turn "affirm" into a zombie noun to say, "She granted him an affirmation." Maybe the second choice sounds a bit fancier, but it is certainly less clear or useful than the original when I let the verb be.


Avoid unnecessary passives:
Now, I've certainly chided you not to use the passive voice in grant writing when you can help it, but since Pinker suggests it, I must take the opportunity once again. Instead of saying, "The experiment will be conducted," say "I will do the experiment." There is no point in removing yourself from the project by writing your grant in passive, third person. Now, you may notice that our heading says to "avoid unnecessary passives." So when are they necessary? Pinker suggests that passives can be useful when we are trying to avoid unnecessary details. For instance, the phrase, "Helicopters were flown in" is passive, but may be the best way to say it since we don't want to get into the details of who was flying the helicopters.

In all of these suggestions, the thing to bear in mind is the importance of being intentional. There are times when breaking these guidelines will make the most sense and then you should. However, when re-reading your writing, look for where you're hedging, turning verbs into nouns or adjectives, or using passive voice, and take a moment to check if that is the most effective way to say it.

Resources:
The Sense of Style - Steven Pinker
Why academics have a hard time writing good grant proposals - Bob Porter