Some Don’ts of Professional Writing

Finally, I have a list of things you should avoid in professional writing. Some of these are really important, while others are matters of taste. Most share in common a concern for either clarity or conciseness.

• Rhetorical questions:Authors frequently use rhetorical questions to mark transitions in a paper. However, rhetorical questions are inevitably followed by the author’s answer to that question. “What does this mean for democ- racy? Well it means . . . ” The main point the author is trying to make is wholly contained in the answer to the rhetorical question. The question it- self adds nothing to the paper. It contains no information – it merely takes up space. If a general rule to professional writing is to eliminate what is not needed, then eliminating rhetorical questions is an easy place to start.

• Analogies, metaphors, and similes: These three forms of argument are all similar to each other in that they seek to explain one thing by making reference to how that thing is similar to or like something else. Such strate- gies are inherently weak forms of argument that risk confusion and mis- understanding by readers. As an author, you should strive to explain what something is rather than trying to explain what something is like.

In my experience, this form of argument appears in the social sciences most often when authors make reference to some process routinely studied in the natural sciences. Metaphors about evolution, the spread of viruses, and the like are used to describe social and political phenomena. I suspect that the intent is to sound more scientific in using these references. Unfortunately, such approaches generally create confusion and often expose gaps in the theoretical thinking of the author. This occurs because the metaphor never fits precisely, often leading to distracting arguments about the metaphor rather than the actual topic under study.

• Negatives and double negatives: Authors frequently use negative terms to describe what they are studying. A common phrase is some variant of, ”This finding is not surprising given . . . ” Such a statement actually provides almost no information. It says what the finding is not, eliminating one thing that could have been, but it leaves available a virtually infinite number of things about what the finding is. Imagine asking a friend what time it is and they tell you it is not 10:30. Saying what time it is not provides you with virtually no information.

It gets worse when authors use double negatives. Again, a common phrase goes something like, ”It is not uncommon to see such a result.” This uses the negative form of the word common, but precedes it with the negative word not, which implies that it is in fact common to see such a result. If so, saying that it is common is much better than saying it is not uncommon. Another version of confusing writing using negatives involves sentences that start with, ”Not only . . . ” Such sentences generally contain a redundant restatement of something in the first clause of the sentence, followed by what the author often considers the most important point of the sentence in the second clause. Since the first clause is often redundant, it can be eliminated completely. If the second clause is the most important part of the sentence, it should not be buried in the second clause – it should come first.

• Long block quotes: Long quotes taken from other published papers are rarely helpful. Such quotes generally require additional explanation because the quote itself has been pulled out of the context in which it was originally written. If you as the author have to explain the quote after you present it, the quote itself is not conveying a clear meaning to your readers. Just remove the quote and provide your explanation in your own words as you must do for the rest of the paper anyway.

• Long sentences: Many authors write long complex sentences with lots of often improperly used punctuation to connect clauses and phrases. The ideas we convey are often complex, so our writing tends to follow that same pattern. I believe complex ideas are more clearly conveyed by a series of well ordered short declarative sentences. Readers get lost in the long sen- tences and authors often mistakenly bury the most important part of a long sentence somewhere in the third or fourth clause.

• Unnecessary negative tone: Too many authors appear to believe that the best way to make a case for their paper is to point out what is wrong with the work of others. Criticism of existing work is certainly fair. Every new paper is at some level a criticism of existing scholarship because the new paper provides something that was not there before. Still, nearly every new paper owes its origins to some idea that was provoked by existing research. Even if your paper demonstrates why some other paper had it backwards, your paper should still be thought of as building on that existing work rather than tearing it down.

This can be a challenge because some scholars, no matter how you phrase it, view any criticism of their work as unwarranted and/or as a personal attack. Still, that is no reason for you to be impolite or unnecessarily negative in tone. I am sure there have been times in my own writing when my effort to be direct came across as unnecessarily negative. I apologize to anyone reading this who I might have offended.

• Starting sentences with and, but, or or: These three words are the most common conjunctions. Conjunctions are words meant to connect phrases or clauses within a sentence. By definition, conjunctions cannot be the first word of a sentence. This has become more a matter of taste than of hard and fast adherence to grammatical rules, but I think it has no place in pro- fessional writing. Just watch Conjunction Junction from Schoolhouse Rock if you are confused (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPoBE-E8VOc).

Put differently, you will never offend someone by using proper grammar, though you might by breaking common grammatical rules. This is an easy one to follow. More generally, you should review and apply the basic rules of grammar in professional writing. The most common errors I see relate to subject/verb agreement, misuse of pronouns, and misuse of punctuation. • Common typos: We have become accustomed to automatic spellchecking.

As a result, it is easy to read past typos in electronic versions of our papers. The result can be some particularly unfortunate typos. Dropping the letter L out of the word public or replacing it with the letter R in the word election can produce embarrassing moments for authors. Read carefully, and do word searches for common typos like these.

• Efforts to be cute, flowery, or clever: Every author wants their work to be engaging. Formal academic writing must rely on the power of the ideas being presented to engage readers. Efforts at flowery prose or at a clever twist of phrase are very poor substitutes. Such writing is almost always imprecise, and efforts to be clever often fail. You are better served to devote your writing efforts toward clarity and completeness.

A special form of attempting to be clever has emerged in recent years in political science – the clever title. Looking at journals today suggests that it is almost an editorial requirement to title an article as, “Effort to be clever: the real title of the paper.” If you can succeed at this, there is no harm, but given the high likelihood of failure and the lack of value this adds to the article, I suggest that authors avoid this strategy.

• In theory . . . The standard paper should certainly be guided by a theory, but authors should avoid using the phrase “in theory” in their papers. It should be obvious when you are writing about your theory. Also, in ev- eryday language people often use the phrase “in theory” in contrast to the phrase “in practice.” In this usage, the author is saying what should be hap- pening in theory is different from what actually happens in practice. Aca- demic writing is about predicting what will happen if a theory is correct and then observing whether it happens or not.

• Significant: The word significant should be used in academic writing only in the context of describing whether a statistical result meets the definition of statistically significant or not. If you mean something more general like important, consequential, meaningful, etc., use one of those words instead.

• Synonyms: Young scholars, especially students, tell me all the time that they do not want their writing to be boring. The goal is admirable, but oftentimes they use synonyms as they write simply to avoid using the same word over and over. The problem is that synonyms are words that only have similar meanings to each other. They do not have identical meanings. Scholars might talk about a partisan cleavage, partisan division, partisan gap, or party polarization. These terms are not identical even though they are similar. Authors should be careful to select the terms that most closely describe the concept under consideration. If necessary, they should provide explicit definitions of those terms. After doing so, it only confuses readers to use synonyms, even if you add a footnote or phrase saying you plan to use two or more words interchangeably. Just use the same word and avoid the confusion.

• The literature:In the outline above, I already made the case for not having a separate literature review section of the paper. Here I suggest avoiding use of the phrase “the literature” altogether. When you write something making reference to the literature, just provide appropriate citations after a declarative sentence. Instead of saying the literature finds that democracies are less likely to go to war with each other, simply say democracies are less likely to go to war with each other. The second version is more direct and takes fewer words, and both versions would need to be followed by the same citations anyway.

• Quotation marks around words or phrases: Sometimes authors want to emphasize a particular word or phrase. Other times they want to define a word or phrase. Using quotation marks around the word or phrase in question is incorrect in either setting. It is much better to use italics or bold face to set a word or phrase apart from normal text because these two methods do not change the meaning of the word. Quotation marks often do. Putting quotation marks around a word generally implies to the reader that you mean something somewhat different from the actual word you are using. In most settings, it means you intend to communicate something in- tentionally different from the actual word. Quotation marks around words or phrases are often meant to convey irony, such as the “simple” mathemat- ical formula, or the “lovely weather” we are having in Antarctica. Even if irony is your goal, this method of conveying it is imprecise.

something does not mean the same thing as the percentage point change in something. However, authors routinely get this wrong. They will write something like, “The chance of voting for the Democratic candidate in- creased from 20% to 40%, or an increase of 20%.” That is not correct. The chance of voting for the Democratic candidate increased by 20 percentage points, but the chance also doubled, meaning that it increased by 100%. The percent increase differs from the percentage point increase.

Note also that an increase from 0.1% to 0.2%, an increase from 1% to 2%, and an increase from 50% to 100% are all increases of 100%. Obviously each increase is different if expressed in terms of percentage points.This demonstrates that knowing the percent increase in something really tells us very little about the chance that something might happen. It is always more clear to report the range of the increase from one level to another. It is also more clear to discuss these changes in terms of percentage points. This becomes even more clear when you realize that increasing from 20% to 40% constitutes an increase of 100%, but decreasing from 40% down to 20% constitutes a reduction of only 50%.

8.8 Conclusion

As I said at the beginning of this book, offering advice is a presumptuous act. Writing advice about writing is particularly challenging. No doubt anyone who reads this book will find numerous examples where I violate my own suggestions. Still, I believe academic writing is a craft that can be learned and a skill that can be developed. It is not an art, though certainly some writers are more gifted than others. Whenever a researcher tells me that they are just a bad writer, I tell them that is something they can fix.

The best way to become a better writer is to write a lot and to do so regularly. People can only organize so many thoughts in their own heads. We can talk with friends and colleagues about our work and often feel like we have it nailed down. That is because it is easy to miss or gloss over gaps and inconsistencies in our ideas when we are only thinking or talking.

Writing imposes discipline and structure on thinking. Writing anything at least gets you started. You should set high standards for your final drafts but low

standards for your first drafts. No first draft is suitable as a final draft. However, you cannot get to the final draft without producing the first draft. This makes the first draft essential, but the stakes for its quality are very low. It just needs to get done. Writing a lot and rewriting with care will help anyone at any point in their career become a better writer.

Lastly, you must share your work with others. Academic writing is meant to be shared, and academic writing always attracts criticism (unless it is completely ignored). Sharing drafts with mentors and friends will help you improve your writing, and also help you get used to receiving criticism. You have to learn to find balance between confidence in yourself and openness to criticism from others. Overconfidence can easily morph into closemindedness or defensiveness that prevents you from learning from the criticisms others offer. Being too open to criticism can lead you to prematurely discard your ideas or accept the ideas of others unthinkingly. Emotionally, authors must learn to manage hurt feelings or to avoid snap judgments about the criticisms they receive.

Scholarly writing sits at the core of the academic enterprise. It is how ideas are conveyed. Research is not done until it is published. Knowledge is not generated until it is available for others to consume. I hope this chapter removes any mystery about the scholarly writing process you might’ve had and offers some helpful tips to make you a better writer.

Chapter 9