Writing with good style

Effective writing requires a good knowledge of appropriate writing style, and a sound understanding of how to avoid poor writing style.

General principles

First, let’s consider some general principles that can guide your writing, whatever the discipline and whatever the purpose. The following seven points of style can be useful in the preparation of any piece of written work.

1. Be clear. In general, keep sentences short and convey a single point in each sentence.

2. Be concise. Where possible, use shorter words and phrases. Write succinctly, to the point and without unnecessary verbosity. Use the fewest number of words. Read your text over carefully and, for each sentence, ask, "Do I need every word?", "Are there redundant words or phrases?"

3. Enjoy precision. Familiarise yourself with the scientific terms and expressions in your field. Check that your written work communicates the meaning that you intend. Check that you mean what you are communicating in your written work. Check word usage. Effective writing is writing that says precisely what the writer means and means precisely what the writer intended. Consult a dictionary to check the meaning of any words about which you are unsure, and use a thesaurus cautiously, always checking the meaning of synonyms in a dictionary before using them in your written work. Be particularly careful with words that have a specific meaning in particular disciplines.

4. Be consistent. Use terms consistently throughout your essay or report (keeping in mind the importance of literary variation).

5. Be accurate. State measurements using the correct notations and symbols. Report your statistics correctly and using APA style. Make sure that your language conveys when a fact is a fact and when a possibility or hypothesis is being put forward.

6. Check disciplinary expectations. Different styles of writing are used in different disciplines. The differences are particularly pronounced in written work prepared for different purposes. So, for example, a piece of written work that is about a technical subject or a laboratory report in a scientific discipline is very different in style from a sociology or fine arts essay.

7. Be honest. Reference all sources of information.

Those seven points can be most helpful when you are writing an essay, a laboratory report, or some other written assignment.

Some specific issues

Beyond those general principles outlined above, however, there are many issues that, for the person who is keen to write well, are also important issues to bear in mind. The first of these are expressed as a recommendation for what you should aim to avoid.

1. Avoid excessively long compounds.

Often writers use a string of adjectives before a noun. Such strings reduce clarity.

For example, in the sentence A new type motor skills college performance test it is unclear whether there is a new motor skills test or college performance test. Rewriting this sentence, in the following way A new kind of motor skills test used in colleges can help to clarify its meaning.

2. Avoid wordy phrases.

Very long phrases take the focus from the intended meaning.

So, for each of the phrases below, an alternative can be used that gives more focus (without altering the meaning).

	Wordy phrase	Preferable alternative
	a considerable amount	much
	a majority of	most
	a number of	many
	are of the same opinion	agree
	at this point in time	now
	based on the fact that	because
	despite the fact that	although
	in many cases	often
	in the event that	if
	on a daily basis	daily
	take into consideration	consider
	through the use of	by

3. Avoid oxymorons.

An oxymoron refers to the conjoining of contradictory or incongruous terms.

For example, in each of the phrases listed below, the words contradict or are inconsistent.  only choice thoroughly inadequate important trivia pretty ugly may certainly strongly suggests

4. Avoid excessively long sentences.

Long sentences can be difficult to read. Of course, some brilliant writers deliberately use long sentences. A hallmark of Marcel Proust’s writing, for example, are his long and often very convoluted sentences. Few of us, however, can claim to write like Proust.

In general terms, shorter sentences are more effective. Readers typically read all the way to the full stop before pausing to absorb what they have read. For that reason, long sentences can strain their memories. So, many readers regard long sentences as hard work.

To shorten long sentences,

• sort out the different ideas

• have only one or two ideas in each sentence

• locate the qualifications and modifications of ideas into separate sentences

• locate conditions attached to the main ideas into separate sentences

• locate explanations into separate sentences

For example,

Freud’s theory of personality development involves 5 stages, the oral period, the anal period, the phallic period, the latency period and the genital period, each of which the child must pass through in order to fully develop and if they do not pass through each stage successfully then they may become fixated, which can later be manifested as immature behaviour. By shortening the sentence, and therefore writing separate sentences for each of the ideas, the above paragraph, rewritten below, reads more easily. Freud’s theory of personality development involves 5 stages. These are the oral period, the anal period, the phallic period, the latency period and the genital period. The child must pass through each stage in order to fully develop. If they do not pass through each stage successfully then they may become fixated, which can later be manifested as immature behaviour.