This advice on business writing, although pitched against academic writing, actually seems like pretty sound advice for academics, except maybe for the advice to use “I” and “you”. But: don’t assume a captive audience, get to the point, cut, especially cut fancy words, and it’s okay to begin sentences with conjunctions—all of that sounds pretty good.
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The Edge of the American West 
6 comments
November 1, 2011 at 10:46 am
ben
especially cut fancy words
B-but!
November 1, 2011 at 11:36 am
eric
Well, ben, they’re talking about writing prose, not poetry like what you produce.
November 1, 2011 at 4:17 pm
Western Dave
I agree with pretty much everything but the part about reading aloud. One of the biggest hang-ups that kids have is recognizing the difference between written speech and spoken speech. Reading aloud does not help with this.
Otherwise I teach 4 principals that I call ACRE. Argument, Clarity, Repetition, Evidence. (or if you prefer ACER). Your argument comes first, clarity is important, repetition helps the reader remember what you are arguing, and you need to provide the evidence to support your ideas (unless your David Brooks and just make it up.)
A couple of useful catch phrases. For kids that are wordy and using language that is beyond them: “It is better to be smart than to sound smart.” On Clarity: “Your writing should be a walk in the park on a clearly marked path. Your reader shouldn’t feel like they are hacking through a jungle.” Or, “Be kind to your readers and do the work for them.” On repetition: “Think of a line of Shakespeare you can remember. [You almost always get To be or not to be, … Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo, or A horse, a horse my kingdom for a horse.] You remember it because of repetition. Repeat key words and phrases. And if your still stuck on worrying about varying your word choices, it’s better to get an A- for repeating yourself than a C+ because you unintentionally changed your ideas by varying your language and using words that you didn’t really know how to use.
November 1, 2011 at 5:19 pm
Vance Maverick
I agree that the introduction should swiftly engage the reader in the work of the text. But that’s not to say the introduction should literally state the text’s main point! That might be appropriate for emails or memos, short-lived and meant to spur specific action — but even academic papers are broader than that.
November 2, 2011 at 11:11 am
Mark
@ Western Dave: On the other hand, I find reading aloud to be an excellent way to copy-edit, as well as a handy means of identifying and untangling my more Baroque sentences.
November 5, 2011 at 10:59 am
Jonathan Jarrett
And I recommend it to my students for those exact same reasons. After all, quite a lot of academic work is destined to be read out! I’m not saying that’s an ideal way to present, but one of the reasons historians and literature scholars can get away with it more than others is that they are used to writing stuff for reading out.