Notes on Writing - Dick Langlois

Notes on Writing

Richard N. Langlois

February 1997

This is a list of semi-random notes on writing. It is intendedprimarily as a check-list of common mistakes rather than as anysort of comprehensive guide to writing. There are a number ofgeneral books available that intend the latter. On Writing Wellby William Zinsser is particularly good,but there are lots ofothers, including the ubiquitous Elements of Styleby Strunkand White. D. N. McCloskey has produced a little book, called The Writing of Economics (Macmillan, 1987),geared specifically for our profession. I strongly recommend it.The serious dilettante should also consult thepronouncements of such writing gurus as William Safire, EdwinNewman, and John Simon.

Style.

Good writing requires the mastery of two aspects of technique.One is grammar in the broad sense -- the basic rules of language.This would include syntax, punctuation, and usage. But goodwriting also requires style -- the art of applying the rules oflanguage. One can easily imagine a piece of writing that violatesno rules of grammar but nonetheless displays a terrible writingstyle. (The converse is harder to imagine.)

The term "style" is often taken loosely to comprehend not onlystyle in the narrow sense but also the larger issues of structureand form. These latter represent the "macro" aspects of writing-- the overall organization of a text and the logic with whichthe pieces are integrated into a coherent whole. By contrast,style in the narrow sense has to do with the "micro" aspects ofwriting. It deals, if you will, not with overall organization(structure) or with the way sections and paragraphs fit together(form) but with the ways words are tied together to buildsentences and paragraphs. I will be concerned here with thisnarrower conception of style.

The passive voice.

Writing in a clear and livelystyle is ultimately a skill; it is a feat of what the philosopherMichael Polanyi called tacit knowledge. For that reason, onecan't learn to be a good writer by following some list ofexplicit rules. As in any skill, one learns writing only bypractice and by imitating accomplished writers.

But explicit rules can sometimes be useful in a negative way;they can often tell us what notto do. In my view, perhapsthe most important rule in this category has to do with thepassive voice. The rule is a simple one: don't use it.

Obviously, this is a rule that an accomplished writer can(sometimes) violate; otherwise, there would be no need for thepassive voice at all. But it is also quite easy to do withoutthe passive voice in virtually all circumstances. It is almostalways weak, diffuse, pseudo-scholarly, and bureaucratic. Andavoiding it is perhaps the single best way to improve your style.

"Stated."

Lifeless, bureaucratic turns of phrase are not limited toexpressions using the passive voice (expressions like "it shouldbe noted that..."). One ubiquitous offender inscholarly (especially student) writing is the verb to state, asin "Adam Smith stated that..." The rule here is the same: don't use it. Almost any synonym -- "suggested," "wrote,""argued," "opined," or just plain "said" -- is better. (The onlytime I use the verb to state is when I'm trying to set amock-serious tone.)

The first person.

Many people use the passive voice out of a fear of using thefirst person singular. The fear is unjustified. If youcan't phrase something in a way that is both lively andimpersonal, then go ahead and say "I." Similarly, you should use"we" if you have a co-author or if you are speaking for awell-defined group.

In mathematical writing, one often finds what I call "theengineering 'we.'" "First we divide by x and then we integrateover the real numbers," etc. This can be construed as referringto the author and the reader, who are jointly performing themathematical operations. But many writers treat it more like thephysician's "bedside 'we'" ("How are 'we' feeling today"?); andothers use it as a rhetorical crutch and thought-substitute. Ineither case, too much of the mathematician's "we" leads toinsipid prose.

Telegram style.

English is in part a Germanic language. But one area in whichEnglish does not follow German is the use of extended adjectivalconstructions before the noun. This is sometimes called"telegram style," and it is a practice particularly prevalent inwriting about economics.

To a limited extent, stacking adjectives before the noun isunavoidable -- and even adds a little punch to one's style. Butit's one thing to talk of "firm-size variables" or "sales-growthprojections" and quite another thing to describe "prior periodsales changes" or "the total net long-term portfolio capitalflow." It may take slightly more space to say "sales changes inthe prior period" or "the total net flow of long-term portfoliocapital"; but it definitely scores lower on thebureaucratic-prose index.

By the way, attention to hyphenation is important when stackingmodifiers. When two or more nouns are used as adjectivesmodifying a third, absence of hyphens indicates that all theadjectives modify the same noun. For example, a foreign exchangestudent is an exchange student from overseas; but aforeign-exchange student is someone who studies foreign exchange.

Newsdesk style.

News reporters have the job of conveying a lot of information ina small amount of space. Thus, they often cram together severalunconnected pieces of information in the same sentence. "Anunemployed electrician from Florida who likes tapioca pudding fordessert, Hawkins, 36, admitted at his trial, which entered its257th day yesterday, that he strangled his estranged wife inHawaii, which was the 50th state to join the Union...." You'renot a newspaper reporter. Stick to one thought per sentence.

Contractions.

It is a mistake to think that elegant writing means avoiding allcontractions (saying "cannot" instead of "can't," for instance). Inmodern American style there is no such rule. The best advice isto mix contractions and non-contracted forms, and to avoid apedantic sound on the one hand and an excessively breezy sound onthe other.

Read your writing out loud.

The best test of your writing style is to read what you'vewritten -- out loud if necessary. Be sure to read it as written,pausing where your punctuation really demands andadding inflection the way the text actually requires. Is thetext choppy and hard to read? Is it monotonous -- with all thesentences equal in length? Cadence is important. Try for amix in which short, clean sentences punctuate long, elegantones.

Punctuation.

From the artistic realm of style we move suddenly to thetechnicalities of punctuation. Here there is greater scope forexplicit rules, even if their correct application ultimatelyrequires its own kind of art.

Quotation marks.

And other punctuation marks.

Do commas, periods, etc., go inside or outside of quotationmarks? In so-called American Preferred Style, the answer isstraightforward. Commas and periods alwaysgo insidequotation marks. Always. Without exception. Colons andsemicolons always go outsidequotation marks. And questionmarks and exclamation points vary according to whether they arelogically part of the quoted material. This rule may seemillogical (it evidently developed as a way of saving space intypesetting); but it remains the preferred rule.

Internal and external.

In American style, primary quotations take double quotes.Internal quotations (quoted material within a quotation) takesingle quotes. Further nested levels simply alternate doubleand single quotes.

Block quotations.

As a general rule, quotations longer than eight linesshould be set off from the main text -- indented and singlespaced. Do notput quotation marks around such indentedtext. Remember that setting the quoted material off from themain text does not make it logicallyseparate from the maintext; that is, punctuate and capitalize the quotation (and useellipsis) just as if the quote were part of the main text. Avoidprefacing quotes with expressions like "Adam Smith wrote: ..."Try to integrate the block quote into the text. Introduce it witha complete sentence like "Adam Smith argued this way." Or usethe following trick. "The statesman," wrote Smith,

who should attempt to direct private people in what manner theyought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself with amost unnecessary attention, but assume an authority whichcould safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no councilor senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as inthe hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancyhimself fit to exercise it. (Smith, 1776 [1976, p. 456].)

Note also that the text following the block quotation should notbe indented unless it is logically a new paragraph.

Mathematics.

An equation is syntactically a sentence or part of a sentence,and requires the same punctuation as a verbal expression: commas,semicolons, and periods.

Hyphenating after adverbs.

Never hyphenate between an adverb ending in "ly" and theadjective (or participle) it modifies. For example, it's the"theoretically predicted value" not the "theoretically-predictedvalue." Don't ask me why this is so.

You shouldhyphenate in other cases. But notice that thehyphenation occurs only when the compound modifies the noundirectly -- not when it is used as a predicate adjective. Thus,"the semicolon is a much-misused and oft-neglected punctuationmark"; but "the semicolon is much misused and often neglected."

The semicolon.

As I was saying, the semicolon is a much-misused andoft-neglected punctuation mark. It is used to separate twoclauses that are complete (that have their own subjects andverbs) but that do not require the force of separate sentences.When to use a semicolon is thus a matter of style. Also,semicolons should be used to separate items in a list when thoseitems are relatively complex or when commas would beconfusing.

The colon.

Some people would argue that a colon should be used only after acomplete clause. I wouldn't go that far; but it is true that thecolon ought not to be relegated to introducing lists orequations. The effect of the colon is to concentrate the force ofwhat went before into what follows. As such, it can be usedlegitimately in a wide variety of creative ways.

The question mark.

Remember that the question mark is a full-fledged punctuationmark, with all the rights and privileges appertaining thereto.That means that you never need to follow a question mark with acomma or a period. It's "What time is it? he asked," not"What time is it?, he asked."

Syntax.

By syntax I mean primarily sentence logic. The two most frequentproblems here are misplaced clauses and faulty agreement. Butthe message is a more general one: make sure your sentences meanwhat you think they mean.

Misplaced clauses.

A perennial problem in writing is the misplaced or floatingclause, especially the introductory clause. Consider thissentence. "As an economist, costs and benefits are importantconcerns to me." It seems to make sense, but it is in factillogical. The clause "as an economist" is obviously intended to refer to thespeaker, whereas by its placement it actually modifies "costs andbenefits." Costs and benefits are not an economist.Make sure that the word immediately after anintroductory clause is always the word you want the clause to modify.

Faulty agreement.

The most frequent agreement problem I encounter is in the agreementin number of verbs with pronouns like each, any,none, or every. All of these are singular, and thus takesingular verbs. (Examples: Each of the billions and billions ofstars is a sun like our own. None of them is made of green cheese.)The common mistake is to make the verb agree with a nearby objectof the preposition rather than with the subject.

Placement of "only."

"I only have eyes for you," says the song. What this literallymeans is that I have eyes -- and no other bodily parts -- foryou. Presumably, the singer really intends something like "Ihave eyes only for you." While it has become conventional inspoken English to let "only" sit near the verb even if itmodifies some other part of the sentence, it is notacceptable in written English. Put the word near what it reallymodifies.

Split infinitives.

Don't.

Usage.

We now move down to the most microscopic level of writing: theindividual words themselves. Usage has to do with the meaningsof words and the rules for when they should -- and shouldn't --be used. What follows is a non-comprehensive compendium.

That/which.

Always use the relative pronoun "that" to introduce restrictiveclauses and "which" to introduce non-restrictiveclauses. What does that mean? Arestrictive clause is one that restricts a noun to a particularinstance or class. For example: "The book that was on the tableis mine." Contrast this with the non-restrictive variant: "Thebook, which was on the table, is mine." (This latter type ofclause is also called a descriptive clause.) Notice that thenon-restrictive clause is set off by commas. This rule is ofrecent vintage (as far as I can tell), and it is still routinelydisregarded, even by some accomplished writers. But those in theknow now regard it as gospel.

Due to.

The expression "due to" should be used only to attribute a stateof affairs, not to indicate causality. For instance, "thisequation is due to Einstein" is OK; but "the volcano erupted dueto underground lava pressure" is wrong. In 90 per cent of thecases in which people use "due to," they should have used"because of." Incidentally, I know of absolutely no instance inwhich the horrendous expression "due to the fact that" should beused. Get rid of it.

Hopefully.

Although English permits many adverbs to be used in dangling,free-floating form, current opinion has singled out "hopefully"as a major no-no. Never use this expression to mean "I hope" or"it is to be hoped." You can use it only as an ordinary adverbmodifying a specific verb. "Hopefully this megatron space-proberwill work on the first try, said Tom" is out; but "I know thismegatron space-prober will work on the first try, Tom saidhopefully" is OK. In the first case "hopefully" just floatsaround the sentence trying to convey guarded optimism; in thesecond case it modifies the verb "said." Other free-floaterslike "unfortunately" and "happily" have passed safely intoaccepted usage.

Fortuitously.

Fortuitously means simply accidentallyor by chance.It does notmean "fortunately" or "luckily." It does not even mean"by lucky chance." Same goes for the adjective form, of course.

Currently/presently/momentarily.

If you want to convey the idea that something is happening now,use currently. ("The theater is currently showing threeMarx Brothers flicks.") Or, better yet, just say "now." I objectto the use of presently as a synonym for "currently" or "now" --although I'm probably on the losing side of this one. Presentlymeans soonor in a little while.("Dinner will be servedpresently.") "Momentarily" means for a momentnot in a moment.When the captain says that the aircraft "will be in theair momentarily," you'd better hope that his usage is bad.

Continuously/continually.

The adverb continuouslymust refer (perhaps metaphorically) toa process that is continuous in essentially the mathematicalsense -- there are no gaps or holes. ("His routine was acontinuous progression of one-liners.") If you want to refer torepeated events that are discrete or intermittent, use continually.("He remonstrated continually [not continuously] onthe virtues of sacerdotal celibacy.") Again, same goes for the adjective.

Comprise.

To comprise means to include. If you can't substitute "include"for "comprise" in your sentence, you're misusing the word. Moreformally, "comprise" can be used only in reference to a propersubset of a specified set. That is, "New England comprisesMassachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island"; but "New England is composed(or made up) of six states." The whole comprisesthe parts, not the other way around. And the ubiquitousexpression "comprised of" is always wrong.

different from/differently than.

The adjective form is always followed by "from," the adverb formby "than." Thus: "I came up with an answer different from(not than)his. That's because I approached the problemdifferently than he did."

Between/among.

Don't forget that "between" should be used only when theconnection involves precisely two things; "among" should be usedfor three or more. "The choice among the twelve contestantsresolved itself into a choice between the two leading candidates."

Less than/fewer than.

As in the case of continuously versus continually, thedesideratum here is continuity versus discreteness. Use "lessthan" when the comparison involves a continuously measurablequantity ("less than three inches long") or when the numberinvolved is large ("less than a billion stars"); use "fewer than"when the numbers involved are small and discrete ("fewer than tenpeople per lifeboat"). The sign over the express-checkout lanein the supermarket is wrong.

Convince/persuade.

You can convince someone ofsomething, but you can't convincesomeone to dosomething. You persuadethat person to do it.

Ensure and enquire.

I've never seen anything written about this, but my own rule isto use ensurewhen I have in mind the loose ormetaphoric meaning ("He stayed behind to ensure that everyone wassafe") and to use insureonly when I mean the technicalactivity of providing insurance ("This procedure effectivelyinsured the farmers against crop losses"). Similarly, I use"enquire" for the general activity of asking, and reserve"inquire" for the kind of penetrating research that scientists anddetectives do.

Unique.

There are some adjectives and participles (pregnant and dead cometo mind) that can't be qualified (that can't be modified with anadverb). You can't be partially dead (in a non-metaphoric sense)or kind of pregnant. Uniqueis another example: it means "one of akind," and to say "rather unique" is illogical and consideredunacceptable in written English. There are other suchadjectives, so be on the lookout.

Nouns as verbs.

It is a long-established process in English to transform nounsinto verbs (a pitcher pitches, a cook cooks, etc.). Suchtransformations can add immediacy to the language; but carried toofar, they can rob the language of elegance and give it a boringbureaucratic tone. A gentleman establishes priorities; abureaucrat prioritizes. The rule should be to transform the nounto a verb if the transformation is a fresh metaphor, but to avoidsuch noun-verbs when they sound like bureaucratic buzzwords.Received opinion would draw the line, for example, at such wordsas author, critique, and host. One writes (notauthors) a book; criticizes (not critiques) an essay; and playshost at (not hosts) a party. It could be worse: people are nowtalking of "gifting" one another at Christmas.

He, he or she, s/he.

There is a rule from time immemorial in English that the pronoun"he" can be used in some circumstances as a generic orandrogynous pronoun -- one that refers to both men and women. It has become abundantly clear in the last few years that this rule has passed into history.Whatever you may think of political correctness, it is now considered Neanderthal among the intelligentsia not to say "he or she" and, more generally, to arrange one's prose for greater androgyny. Use expressions like "one" or "the economic agent." Underno circumstance, however, will I -- or should any human being of either sex-- use the formula "s/he." It's something I would expect to seein regulations promulgated by the Ministry of Sex Equality.