Writing with Style

Apply these principles from Steven Pinker's "The Sense of Style" to produce clear, engaging prose.

Classic Style: The Core Philosophy

Prose is a window onto the world. The writer has seen something the reader hasn't noticed; the writer orients the reader's gaze so they can see it for themselves.

The Classic Style Stance:

• Purpose: Presentation of truth, not persuasion
• Motive: Disinterested truth (even if you have an agenda, don't show it)
• Writer's role: Show, don't argue
• Reader assumption: Competent, can recognize truth when shown
• Communication model: Conversation, not lecture

What Classic Style Is NOT:

• Self-conscious style: Drawing attention to the writing itself
• Practical style: Instructions, manuals
• Contemplative style: Musing, introspecting
• Prophetic style: Oracular pronouncements

Defeating the Curse of Knowledge

The main cause of bad writing is the difficulty of imagining what it's like for someone who doesn't know what you know.

Strategies to Break the Curse:

1. Show a draft to someone who is like your intended reader
2. Read aloud - hear where readers will stumble
3. Look for jargon - technical terms you've forgotten are technical
4. Unpack abstractions - turn nominalizations back into verbs and specifics
5. Add examples - concrete instances of abstract points
6. Use analogies - bridge from known to unknown

Signs You're Cursed:

• Using abbreviations without defining them
• Referring to findings without explaining them
• Assuming background knowledge readers lack
• Chunking information into expert-level units

Word Choice

Fresh Over Familiar:

• Avoid clichés and stock phrases
• Seek words that are telling - that capture exactly the right nuance
• Phonesthetics: Best words echo meaning in their sound
  • Good: "haunting" (sounds haunting)
  • Bad: "pulchritude" (sounds ugly, means beauty)

When to Use Uncommon Words:

• Against a backdrop of simple nouns and verbs
• When they convey exactly the right meaning
• Not to impress, but to illuminate

Avoid:

• Metaconcepts: "approach," "assumption," "concept," "condition," "context," "framework," "issue," "level," "model," "perspective," "process," "role," "strategy," "tendency"
• Zombie nouns (nominalizations): "The decision was made" → "We decided"
• Scare quotes around ordinary words
• Hedging for no reason: "somewhat," "rather," "to some extent"

Sentence Structure

Put Heavy After Light:

• Light → Heavy (easier to parse)
• Short subjects, longer predicates
• "Susan gave the struggling student who had failed the first exam a passing grade" (hard)
• "Susan gave a passing grade to the struggling student who had failed the first exam" (easier)

Right-Branching Over Left-Branching:

• Left-branching (harder): "The dog the cat the rat bit chased fled"
• Right-branching (easier): "The rat bit the cat that chased the dog that fled"

Managing Complexity:

• Break long sentences into shorter ones
• Use punctuation to signal structure: dashes, colons, semicolons
• Put explanatory material after the main clause, not before

Coherence: Arcs of Connection

The Given-New Contract:

1. Start with what the reader knows (given)
2. Add what the reader doesn't know (new)
3. The new becomes given for the next sentence

Topic and Comment:

• Each sentence has a topic (what it's about) and a comment (what you say about it)
• Topics should connect from sentence to sentence
• Keep topics consistent through a paragraph

Coherence Relations:

Type	Function	Markers
Elaboration	Add detail	specifically, in particular, for example
Similarity	Draw parallel	similarly, likewise
Contrast	Show difference	but, however, in contrast
Cause-Effect	Show causation	so, because, as a result
Temporal	Show sequence	then, later, afterward

Use Connectives Wisely:

• Don't overuse "however" and "therefore"
• Let logical connections speak for themselves when clear
• Use connectives when the relation isn't obvious

Show, Don't Tell

Telling Details:

• Use concrete specifics that imply the general point
• Don't say someone is "brilliant" — show what they did
• Details should obviate the explicit pronouncement

Examples:

• Telling: "The party was boring"
• Showing: "People checked their phones every few minutes, and by nine o'clock half the guests had left"

Endings and Rhythm

Strong Endings:

• End sentences with the most important word
• End paragraphs with the most important sentence
• Good writing finishes strong

Rhythm:

• Vary sentence length
• Short, punchy sentences for key claims
• Longer sentences for elaboration
• Single-sentence paragraphs CAN work

Grammar: Rules vs. Myths

Myths to Ignore:

• "Never split an infinitive" — Myth. "To boldly go" is fine
• "Never end a sentence with a preposition" — Myth. "That's something I won't put up with"
• "Never begin with a conjunction" — Myth. And sometimes it adds punch
• "Never use 'which' restrictively" — Myth in practice
• "Passive voice is always wrong" — Myth. It has legitimate uses

When Passive Voice Is Good:

• When the agent is unknown or irrelevant
• When maintaining topic continuity
• When the patient is more important than the agent

Real Rules Worth Keeping:

• Subject-verb agreement
• Pronoun-antecedent clarity
• Dangling modifiers (fix them)
• Parallelism in lists

The Writer's Attitude

• Write as if you have something important to show
• Don't hide passion for your subject
• Treat the reader as intelligent but uninformed
• Visualize yourself in conversation with the reader

Quick Checklist

Before finalizing any piece:

1. Curse of Knowledge: Will a fresh reader understand this?
2. Abstractions: Can any be replaced with concrete examples?
3. Word Choice: Any clichés or metaconcepts to cut?
4. Sentence Flow: Heavy before light? Left-branching tangles?
5. Coherence: Given-new contract honored? Topics consistent?
6. Endings: Do sentences and paragraphs end strong?
7. Rhythm: Good variation in sentence length?

Examples of Transformation

Before (Academese):

"The implementation of the organizational restructuring initiative resulted in the achievement of significant improvements in operational efficiency metrics."

After (Classic Style):

"After we reorganized, the team worked faster."

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Before (Zombie Nouns):

"There was a presentation given by the committee about the documentation of the procedures."

After:

"The committee presented how we document procedures."

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Before (Left-Branching):

"Many of the senior researchers who had worked at the lab for over a decade and who had published extensively in the field's top journals disagreed."

After:

"Many senior researchers disagreed—those who had worked at the lab for over a decade and published extensively in top journals."