A
year or so ago I stumbled on a useful format to help me present my thoughts
more briefly and clearly – viz a table with questions such as what had sparked
off the thoughts and what the basic message was which I wanted to leave with
the reader.
I also found that this was a useful format and discipline
when I wanted to make notes about a book which I had found interesting – not least
because it leaves a great archive for me to access eg https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2018/03/why-we-should-not-be-so-cynical-about.html
and https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2020/10/how-myths-take-root-and-are-difficult.html
The author (McCloskey)'s injunction
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What I think (s)he Means
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Writing is
the economist’s craft
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Most economists
are so focused on the message that they forget they are engaged in communications
– which implies a reader
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Writing is thinking
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Most writing is thinking aloud…trying to clarify
one’s own confusions….to be ready for an audience, it needs to go through
about a dozen drafts
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Rules can help,
but bad rules hurt
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A lot of books
have been written about how to improve one’s writing style – some of them
downright silly
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Be Thou clear
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Clarity is not
the same as precision – and requires a lot of experiment and effort. Indeed I
would rephrase the adage as “Strive to be Clear”
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The detailed
rules are numerous
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“most advice
about writing is actually about rewriting”!
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The rules are
empirical
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The next 2
adages confused me
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Classical rhetoric
guides even the economical writer
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Give up
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You too can be fluent
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Contains some lovely advice about the process of
composing and transposing one’s thoughts and words
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You will need
tools, tax deductible
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On the importance
of words
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Keep your
spirits up, forge ahead etc
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We’ve got to get
the words flowing on the paper….don’t be a perfectionist….it’s just a first
draft…many more to go!
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Speak to an audience of human beings
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Probably the most important point….who is the
paper for? Imagine a typical reader!
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Avoid boilerplate
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Don’t use clichés
or chunks of text everyone knows
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Control your
tone
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You can (and
probably should) be conversational – but if you want to be taken seriously
don’t joke around
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Paragraphs should have points
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Readers hate to see several pages of only text.
Break it up when you sense you’re moving to a new point
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Use tables and graphics – and make them readable
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For me, crucial
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Footnotes are
nests for pedants
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Love it!
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Make your writing cohere
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Very interesting section with points I had never
come across before
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Use your ear
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A sentence consists of a subject, verb and
object, We often overburden with qualifying clauses.
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Avoid elegant variation
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Clumsy way of saying we should not use a lot of
adjectives or adverbs to say the same thing
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Check and tighten; rearrange and fit
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Priceless advice….we should be doing this all
the time
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Rhetorical questions?
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Interesting question
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Use verbs, active ones
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Some good points made
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Avoid words that bad writers use
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Some very useful examples given
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Be concrete
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Great example of circumlocution
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Be plain
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Cut out the flowery language
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Avoid cheap
typotricks
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Don’t use acronyms
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Avoid this,
that, these, those
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Useful point
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Above all, look at your words
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Words so easily take over our thoughts. Be
suspicious of the words that come initially to mind ….
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