Writing Style 4

Joseph Williams and Gregory Colomb's continue to tackle the question of clarity in the fourth lesson of their book Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace (10th Edition). In the last lesson the point was made that clear, direct, concise writing is characterized by two principles of clarity:

Principle #1: A sentence seems clear when its important actions are in verbs.
Principle #2: A sentence seems clear when its important characters are subjects.

In lesson four the focus is on the second of the two principles: “Make the subjects of most of your verbs the main characters in your story”.

Now you might be saying to yourself, I don’t write stories; I write non-fiction essays or blog posts or something other than narrative. But before you stop reading, consider this: every sentence is a story with actors and actions. It is true that sometimes our “characters” are abstractions like “the argument” and “my thesis”, or “freedom of speech” or “the incarnation”. Nevertheless, our sentences tell stories about those subjects.

Readers expect to find characters expressed in simple concrete words early in a sentence. Williams and Colomb’s put it this way:

Readers want actions in verbs, but even more they want characters as subjects. We create a problem for readers when for no good reason we do not name characters in subjects, or worse we delete them entirely (47).

Williams and Colomb’s recommend that whenever possible, we use flesh-and-blood characters as our subjects. Often, even when we’re using abstract nouns as subjects, we can convert them into flesh-and-blood characters.

Consider my silly simple examples:

My argument is dogs are better than cats.
* I argue dogs are better than cats.

or

It has been shown that people find more enjoyment from dogs than cats.
* Researchers conclude that people gain more enjoyment from dogs than cats.

These are very simple examples admittedly, but the principle can be applied to the writing on the most complex of subjects. It is not the subjects so much as it is the style of our writing that is at issue. One qualification: when your main characters are necessarily nominalizations (verbs or adjectives made into nouns), be sure to use as few around as is possible. Keep the nominalizations to a bear minimum.

One final thought from the lesson: In summing up the main point, Williams and Colomb’s refer to something Albert Einstein said. Einstein used to say that everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler. They develop that one step further to make their point: “a style should be as complex as necessary, but no more” (64).

Here’s the Writer’s Golden Rule:

“Write to others as you would have others write to you”.

See first post: Writing Style 1, 2, 3.

Writing Style 3

In the third lesson in Joseph Williams and Gregory Colomb's book Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace (10th Edition)they begin to tackle the question of clarity. They usefully observe that readers reflect on the writing of others with words like

clear, direct, concise or
unclear, indirect, abstract, dense, complex.

These adjectives don’t really tell us anything more than how the writing makes us feel. To say something is unclear does not actually say anything about the writing on the page. What then makes a piece of writing feel or seem clear or dense? Williams and Colomb begin here to make their case. Clear, direct, concise writing is characterized by two principles of clarity:

Principle #1: A sentence seems clear when its important actions are in verbs
Principle #2: A sentence seems clear when its important characters are subjects.

Lesson three’s focus is on the first of the two principles.

Readers will think your writing is dense if you use lots of abstract nouns, especially those derived from verbs or adjectives, nouns ending in –tion, -ment, -ence, and so on, especially when you make those abstract nouns the subjects of verbs (32).

When, for example, you create an abstract noun by putting an –ing on the end of a verb (e.g., eating), you are nominalizing the verb. Nominalization is the technical name for the phenomenon. You are transforming the part of speech from a verb to a noun. This can be done to both verbs and adjectives. Consider these examples:

Examples of verbs:
discover = discovery
resist = resistance
She flies = her flying
We sang = our singing

Examples of adjectives:
careless = carelessness
different = difference

No element of style more characterizes turgid writing, writing that feels abstract, indirect, and difficult, than lots of nominalizations, especially as the subjects of verbs. (33).

Williams and Colomb recommend a three-part revision process for writers. This process is is tailored here to address the question of clarity.

1. Diagnose – Underline the first seven or eight words of each sentence
2. Analyze – Decide your main characters and look for the actions of the main characters
3. Rewrite – Make nominalizations verbs, make characters subjects and rewrite using subordinating conjunctions (because, if, when, etc).

Near the end of the chapter they return to a key question they raised earlier, but return to again:

Why are we so often right about the writing of others and so often wrong about our own?

Answer:

Because we all read into our own writing what we want readers to get out of it.

Thus we need a "mechanical" method of revision that sidesteps our "too-good understanding" of our writing.

So the bottom line here is that to be a clear writer we need to take two concrete actions: (1) remove most of the abstract nouns from our sentences (certain abstract nouns are necessary) and (2) revise our sentences so that the action is contained in the verb and the character is in the subject.

Writing Style 2

In the second lesson of Joseph Williams and Gregory Colomb's book, Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace (10th Edition), the question of grammatical rules is the topic. They argue that a scrupulous focus on following rules and being grammatically "correct" is misguided.

They put grammatical rules for English into three categories:

1. Real Rules – these are rules that do matter and must be followed. They are the rules that make English English (e.g. articles precede nouns).

2. Social Rules – these are rules that separate standard usage from nonstandard usage. Schooled writers follow these naturally. Only those for whom English is not their first language have to think about these.

3. Invented Rules – these are rules that grammarians have created which they think we should follow. Most of these date from the last half of the eighteenth century. A good example of these kinds of rules is the “split infinitive”.

Williams and Colomb’s advocate a careful, but balanced approach to the invented rules. They write with some irony,

But if you try to obey all the rules all the time, you risk becoming so obsessed with rules that you tie yourself in knots. And sooner or later, you will impose those rules—real or not—on others. After all, what good is learning a rule if all you can do is obey it? The alternative to blind obedience is selective observance. But you then have to decide which rules to observe and which to ignore (14).

So which rules should you follow and which can you ignore? It goes without saying that Real Rules must be followed and that Social Rules will usually be obeyed out of habit. But when it comes to Invented Rules, selective use is recommended.

What then should be the overarching concern when it comes to grammatical rules if it is not to be a scrupulous rule keeper? The primary concern should to be your audience. Some audiences expect a more elegant sophisticated style of writing, while others a more straightforward style. For the former, paying attention to Invented Rules that have come to represent a more elegant style will win over your audience. This list of rules includes:

1. Don’t split infinitives.
2. Use whom as the object of a verb or preposition.
3. Don’t end a sentence with a preposition.
4. Use the singular with none and any.

I think what this lesson is driving at is that what we should be aiming for in our writing is not correctness but clarity. And if we can throw in a little grace and elegance all the better.

See first post: Writing Style 1

Writing Style 1

I've started reading the book by Joseph M. Williams and Gregory G. Colomb Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace (10th Edition). The first lesson provides some gems about writing clearly. They list four reasons for unclear writing:

1. Some writers complicate their prose to impress. They wrongly think that the more complex the writing the deeper the thinking. Fact is the less clear the writing often means we don't really know what we're talking about.

2. A writer is too self-conscious about their writing so that they over think as they compose. They are afraid to make even the slightest grammar mistake.

3. Some writers especially those new to a subject freeze up as they are trying to think and write. They are intimated by the material and consequently the prose worsens as we seek to master a new idea.

4. Writers cannot predict what bits of their writing will appear unclear to a reader or even what makes it unclear. They point out that our writing always appears clearer to us because we don't read out what we've written, we read in what we think.

Williams and Colomb argue that the most important skill to master in order to write clearly is how to objectively analyze your writing that is "on the page".

One other point of advice the first lesson raises is one I have found so true and can be captured in a saying I've been repeating since reading it during my doctoral days:

"Good writing is the result of many revisions".

As Williams and Colomb put it, "most experienced writers get something down on paper or up on a screen as fast as they can. Then they revise that first draft into something clearer" (8).

Projects for 2011 - Gospels and Romans

I'm winding up my research for 2010. All I have left to do is to polish up my ETS and IBR papers and a write dictionary article on John and the Synoptics . Next year will involve editing a Four Views book for Zondervan and co-editing the 2010 Tyndale Fellowship volume in memoriam of Prof. Martin Hengel with Jason Mason.

For me, 2011 is going to be the year of Gospels and Romans. Projects I'll be working on include:

Jesus is the Christ: The Messianic Testimony of the Gospels (Paternoster).

This volume examines how the messiahship of Jesus functions in the narrative and theological horizon of the individual Gospels. It examines their apologetic, kerygmatic, and evangelistic usage of messianic themes. It includes developing some articles I've previously published in Reformed Theology Review.

The Gospels of the Lord (Eerdmans)

This volume looks at the formation of the Gospels in the setting of the early church including chapters on "gospel to Gospel", "Jesus Tradition", "Formation of the Gospels in Early Church", "History and Theology", with some stuff on canonical versus historical approaches to interpreting the Gospels. I also hope to add in some excursus on things like "Q", "Text of the Gospels in the Second Century", and "An Evangelical and Critical Approach to the Gospels", plus a section on how to read the non-canonical Gospels.

On Romans, I intend to sink my teeth into a Romans commentary in the Regula Fidei series for Zondervan. But along the way I'm also writing an essay on Romans and Imperial Perspectives (IVP) and an introduction to Romans for a text book on Paul (Eerdmans).

Gospels and Romans sounds like a cool year ahead indeed. Though I'm starting to think that it might pay to do some stuff on the Catholic letters some time soon for my own benefit more than anything else!

Turns of Phrase

There is perhaps no New Testament scholar better at turns of phrase then Tom Wright. Not long ago I was reading in his The Resurrection of the Son of God and came across this gem about his argument concerning "Christos": 

But, as I say, even if this is not so, it merely tightens the screw of the argument even tighter, because clearly it would mean that the very early Christians used the word so frequently for Jesus that it had worn smooth (557).

That is amazing prose. Tom is a pleasure to read and it is this that scares some folks. Why would they be fearful? Because people will actually read him!

Academic Editing

A good friend of mine, Anya McKee, has as an editing company called youneedaneditor.com which specializes in proof reading, editing, and also indexing academic works. It's a very good service, well-priced, and ideal for getting someone to double check your Ph.D thesis prior to submission (esp. for persons whose first language is not English!). Also since she is in Australia in means Americans and Brits get a good exchange rate on the price! I intend to make use of this for essays that I write since I am the worst proof reader of my own work (as anyone who has read my SROG will know!).