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Writing

On Writing

Regis Nisengwe

• 8 min read
On Writing
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Introduction

The purpose of clear writing is not to be understood; it is to be impossible to misunderstand. Such grace is difficult to attain in general. The odds of writing with majesty become even higher when your first language is not English – as is the case for me. However, practicing the fundamental elements of writing can lessen the pain of writing. My faulty writing was salvaged – though not entirely – by the careful eye of my academic advisor who suggested a scientific writing class. The writing class turned out to be one of the best classes I have ever taken. I enjoyed the class so much that I decided to document what I found helpful.

That said, a disclaimer is in order: The lessons contained in this essay are solely based on personal preferences. I reckon there are different ways to write. However, the following is a distillation of what I found useful. As such, it is not a how-to manual. It is only a collection of observations gathered over the course of my graduate school journey, as supplemented by other resources I read during that time — and beyond.

Note: Some of the examples I use are not necessarily applicable to scientific and academic writing.

WORDS | In Search of Le mot juste

Words are the fundamental elements of writing. Good writing, then, should start with choosing the right words. The importance of choosing the words cannot be overemphasized. Carefully chosen words ultimately result in a work that stands the test of time. Gustave Flaubert is famously known to have adhered to the principle of finding le mot juste (the right word); it is this indefatigable pursuit of the perfect expression that made his writing timeless — his obsession with word choices shows very convincingly in his magnum opus that is Madame Bovary. Any memorable work of writing starts with a careful choice of words.

But how do you choose the right words? Start simple. There is always an overpowering tendency to use complex, long, big words – this plague afflicts those in scientific fields more than their counterparts in other fields. We may think that complex words will help us explain better, but the price for that complexity is eventually paid in brevity – to say nothing of clarity. As an effective writer, then, your goal is to set the initial conditions for your eventual brevity – and ultimately, clarity – by starting with simple, short, small words that best express what you want to say.

Choosing the right word should be complemented with avoiding unnecessary words. Take heed of one of George Orwell’s rules for writing: “If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out”. Every word in our writing should count; otherwise, why write it?

SENTENCES

"All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." — Ernest Hemingway

As a good writer, your goal is simple and clear: write your first truest sentence, and then the next, and so on. The truest sentence is arguably the most precise sentence, the sentence that best expresses the writer's message.

While talking about perfection, Antoine de Saint-Exupery quipped that “Perfection is Achieved Not When There Is Nothing More to Add, But When There Is Nothing Left to Take Away”. In the same vein, a perfect sentence is not a sentence to which nothing can be added, but rather a sentence from which nothing can be taken away – without losing meaning.

Surprisingly, and perhaps shockingly, perfection can be found in simplicity. It is deceptively easy to think that writing long, complex words or sentence structure will be our ticket to perfect sentences. On the contrary, simplicity can often be the shortest route to perfection. Make no mistake, however: simplicity does not imply a simple task. In fact, writing simply can be a result of a much more complex, more arduous process. As Frederick Maitland would put it “Simplicity is the end result of long, hard work, not the starting point.”  Consider using simplicity in your writing. Use complex forms ONLY when the alternative is IMPOSSIBLE to express what you want to say.

PARAGRAPHS

Strong opening – All things considered, the purpose of writing is to be read. To achieve that, your readers must be interested in what you have to say.  This can heavily depend on how you start your paragraph. To maximize the likelihood of capturing your reader's interest, make your first sentence as strong as possible – this is even more important for the first paragraph of your writing.  In the book On Writing Well, William Zinsser says that the most important sentence in any article is the first one. Remember the anonymous saying: “Well begun is half done.”

A strong start is also memorable. In his book Unweaving the Rainbow,  Richard Dawkins starts: "We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones". The moment you finish this sentence, you cannot help but go on, if only to find out why dying makes you lucky. In the eighth edition of "How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper",  Barbara Gastel and Robert Day start their book preface as follows: "Good scientific writing is not a matter of life and death; it is much more serious than that." I read this sentence four years ago, and I still think about it to this day.

The first sentence of your paragraph is the mother of your paragraph. Thus, the second sentence vitally depends on the first. This life-or-death relationship holds (or at least, it should) throughout the paragraph. That is, the subsequent sentences should only be born of the previous ones. And so on, generation after generation. The goal of a writer, then, is to create an intimate (maternal?) relationship among sentences to ultimately form a coherent/knit-together paragraph. In academic and professional writing, the first sentence is often referred to as the topic sentence; it serves as the guiding sentence that dictates what you are going to say. The cardinal rule is to stick to what your topic sentence suggests – nothing more. If you want to say something outside the purview of your topic sentence, start a new paragraph.

Between paragraphs: A well-built paragraph stands like an island in a sea of multiple paragraphs. As an effective writer, your job is to shorten the distance between the islands. Charles Bukowski observed that: "The shortest distance between two points is often unbearable.” What is unbearable, in matters of writing, is the longest distance between two paragraphs. My writing has suffered dramatically – and continues to suffer – from a distant relationship among paragraphs. In more extreme cases, the relationship does not even exist (!). The goal of good writing is to do the opposite.

Thomas De Quincy would be disappointed in me. I know this for a fact because he is known to have said that:

The two capital secrets in the art of prose composition are these: first the philosophy of transition and connection; or the art by which one step in an evolution of thought is made to arise out of another: all fluent and effective composition depends on the connections; secondly, the way in which sentences are made to modify each other; for the most powerful effects in written eloquence arise out of this reverberation, as it were, from each other in a rapid succession of sentences. — Thomas De Quincy

CLARITY & PRECISION

In your writing, be impossible to misunderstand. This grandeur can only be achieved through a dogged pursuit of crystal clarity and surgical precision.

Crystal clarity: Get to the point — and stay there. Say something you want to say -- not something close. In Art of Writing: Four Principles for Great Writing that Everyone Needs to Know, Peter Yang recommends that we ask ourselves: "Is this sentence bringing the reader closer to understanding my point, if only incrementally? If the answer is no, it has no place in your writing." Lack of clarity can be a symptom of the urge to provide too much information, hoping to be clear as a result.  However, as Steve Aaronson observed poignantly: " The compulsion to include everything, leaving nothing out, does not prove that one has unlimited information; it proves that one lacks discrimination." You can avoid unnecessary information by remembering the Chekhov's principle, which encourages to stick solely to the essential and relevant parts of the story. Remember this: Be frugal in explanations and generous in clarity. I always think of The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. when it comes to clarity and precision. In his classic chef d'oeuvre, William Strunk Jr. not only offers the rules of writing, but also epitomizes the enduring effect of short, precise, crisp, and clear writing.

Surgical precision: Don't just be clear; be brief. The benefit of brevity is often precision, the primordial soup of wit and timelessness. Your work's ticket to immortality is brevity. Brevity, and thus precision, is achieved by savagely and surgically cutting the unnecessary words or sentences from your writing. The goal is to iteratively revise your work until you get to the substantial matter that cannot be further "atomized" – without losing meaning. This practice maximizes the value-per-sentence density. Thus, write economically, not profligately. One of my instructors in scientific writing (to whom this essay is dedicated) used to repeatedly remind us to treat words like money. Don't waste your resources. That is how you attain what Jim VandeHei et al. call smart brevity in their book by the same name. As the authors reiterate Brevity is confidence. Length is fear. Their recommendation: Be simple, clear, and direct.

STRUCTURE & STYLE

When it comes to good writing, structure is silver, style gold, and their combination diamond.

Structure: The edifice of writing is undergirded by a defined structure. The building blocks, also known as words, form a strong foundation. It is from this foundation that paragraphs erect the walls of the content until everything lives under one document roof. However, the whole edifice doesn't make any aesthetic sense until it is graced with a stylistic touch.

Style: Once you have your structure in place, look for creative ways to adorn it with what Oscar Wilde characterized as the vital thing in matters of grave importance: style. Style can be achieved in many ways, and often it is a matter of art, craft, and taste. This makes style a very difficult subject to teach. But I believe Joseph M. Williams offers a solid foundation in Style: Towards Clarity and Grace.

Any work that lacks style results in an insufferable monotone. Let’s face it: most academic writing deplorably suffers from monotone. This affliction stems from rigid rules that prevail in university writing instructions. Though well-meaning, these instructions inevitably result in a document that is hard to bear, much less to enjoy, due to its monotonous rhythm.

The combination: The alternative exists. The monotonous cadence can be replaced with a melodic cascade emerging from a palatable mixture of structure and style. It is this variety that makes your writing lively. In writing, variety should be the pièce de résistance. Peter Kropotkin cautioned: “variety is life; uniformity is death.” Beware, though. Mixing is one thing; determining the right dose of the ingredients is quite another. Determining the reasonable dose can steer the fate of your writing toward a disastrous monotone or a delightful symphony.

The plight of monotone can also be alleviated by using our unique voice. Christopher Hitchens, whose essay collections (e.g., Arguably) and books (e.g., Mortality) tower above many written works in style, felt that we should “avoid stock expressions and repetitions” and above all, find our own voice. By using our voice, it is very hard — or should I say impossible — to sound like someone else.

Appendix:

To improve one’s writing, it would be prudent to have a look at:

Writing in general:

If you write science: