Doing a PhD right: Good (great!) writing

This post is a part of the series "Doing a PhD right".

Great writing sets the scene of your work, and (sub)consciously builds the reader's confidence that the author's work is of a high standard and can be trusted. I honestly feel that some of my publications were accepted largely on the quality of the writing and its presentation more so than the actual content and results.

For our PhD we're striving for academic writing, which is distinct from other styles such as journalism, technical writing, and conversational pieces for general audiences. In academic writing we need concise, direct, and to-the-point sentences. Remove extraneous connecting words, "background information" that isn't necessary for your intended audience, and keep it simple.

"The cat sat on the mat" - This is as complex as your writing needs to be.

It takes years to develop this skill and I am certainly no expert, but with experience does come improvement. Evidence that you have improved despite not always feeling such can come from scrutiny of your past works and recognising areas of improvement. In this post I critique my own blog posts to see where/how they should be improved, and provide takeaway strategies.

Critique of my own posts

"This post aims to inform PhD students on how to use source control tools such that data/file loss will never been a concern. The content here is applicable to any field, and any sized data regardless of diversity/type."

The above was the original opening paragraph of my "Doing a PhD right: Backups and Source Control" post. Even this already short paragraph leaves room for improvements:

"This post aims to inform..."

Why "aims to"? Does the post inform, or not inform? Is it instead simply "trying" to inform? This does not instill the reader with confidence, and does not belong in academic writing.

"... on how to use source control tools ..."

I can portray the same message without the "how to use". In a post introducing source control tools for PhD students and their work/data, it's already implied that how they can be used/implemented themselves will be covered.

"The content here is ..."

This is unnecessarily vague. Which content exactly is applicable to any field? In my post I was referring that 'source control' is applicable to any field, so I should just be explicit.

A revised paragraph:

"This post informs PhD students on source control tools such that data/file loss will never been a concern. Source control is applicable to any field and data size regardless of diversity/type."

Note that good writing isn't just about sentence/paper length. The revised paragraph is indeed shorter, which is great, but more importantly it sounds "punchier" and clearer than before. The revision was achieved by using direct language, removing unnecessary "fluff" words, and being explicit.

To be fair to myself, the paragraph I critiqued was written for a blog and not a publication, thus a more conversational presentation is perfectly fine. But it's still a fun exercise to see how it could be improved with a more academic style in mind.

Strategies

There's already a plethora of excellent online articles about improving your writing. However, I find there can be too many "tips to remember", becoming overwhelming. Below are my key mantras when writing that have served me well, and that I can progressively build on.

Rough draft, polish after

Begin by dumping your thoughts in a semi readable and structured format, and revisit later on. Even this blog post has had many of its sentences start out long, only to get condensed later.

Be direct

My PhD supervisor was such a stickler on this, literally keeping a list of "banned words" I had to abide by. His point is valid though; we need our writing to be direct. Avoid words such as "typically", "explored", "likely", "various", "presumed" and the like. Such words lead to vague statements, or even implies that your writing (or research) is lazily conducted as not all relevant information is presented. For example:

"... such methods are typically used when there is ..."

Is the method always used for this scenario, only sometimes, only under certain conditions? When is it "typically" not used? The use of typically sound weaker, and even invokes confusion or questions. Remove it.

Vocabulary

Broadening your vocabulary assists with making your sentence more concise. Consider the following:

• I can get the same message across without the "how to use".
• I can portray the same message without the "how to use".

They're both fine sentences, and admittedly I am nit-picking, but I feel that the second sentence with the use of "portray" sounds more direct. I am a frequent user of thesaurus.com, not in an attempt to make my work sound smarter, but to simplify/shorten a sentence's message.

Removing "fluff"

"PhD theses or publications demand great writing. Great writing sets the scene of your work, and (sub)consciously builds the reader's confidence that the author's work is of a high standard and can be trusted."

The above snippet is from the first paragraph of this post when it was still a draft. When polishing this post I asked: must I really start with "PhD theses and publications demand great writing"?

It's a terribly obvious statement (duh, of course we need to write well), thus ultimately does not add value to the paragraph's (or post's) message. Its removal would at worst leave the paragraph with the same amount of value it already has, and I'd consider it as fluff. When reviewing your writing really critique each line (and word), and question its value if it were to remain.

Similar fluff is found in phrases such as "In order to ...". Just say "To ...".

Avoid creating a "Detective Story"

For each paper, chapter, and even paragraph, get straight to the point. Too many papers have large introduction sections where the paper's main objective is embedded somewhere in the middle, or worst, at the section's end.

The reader is not reading a mystery novel, with answers or key messages subtly revealed to them at a later stage. Inform readers within the opening paragraph of each chapter/section.

Summary

Great writing takes time, and you'll never get it perfect, and that's okay. My supervisor would leave swathes of red crosses all over my writing, even in the final draft stage. It was demoralising, until I realised that I could send my supervisor a copy of his own publication, and he would cover it in just as many red crosses. It's a sign that improving your writing is forever evolving.

"I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time." - Blaise Pascal