Why write well?

If you are reading this, chances are you are a professional writer.

You may not think of yourself this way; more likely you think of yourself as a researcher or an academic. But the most brilliant ideas in your head or the most cutting-edge features of your model will go nowhere unless you can share them with others effectively. We trade in ideas, and the universal currency of that trade is the written word.

You likely spend a considerable amount of time writing, critiquing the writing of others and teaching writing to students – even if you aren’t explicitly aware that is what you are doing. We, in turn, learned by absorbing the critique of our supervisors or reacting to feedback from journal reviewers. But rarely do we have the time or inclination to reflect on our writing, and rarer still to have the courage to question assumptions. This editorial was inspired when I started to re-evaluate my own writing and question some of the assumptions that had been engrained into me as a budding researcher.

Many talented writers have tackled this tricky subject. I recommend starting with two short reads: “Dancing with professors” to get you inspired (Limerick, 1998) and “Why academics stink at writing” to get you thinking (Pinker, 2014b). If you’re ready for more, dive into “Stylish academic writing” (Sword, 2012) or try “Writing science” (Schimel, 2012). Yet in my reading I found very little guidance from within transport or its associated fields. So here, for your consideration, is my attempt to distil and reflect on the state of writing in the field of transport.

The building blocks of good writing

Academic writing is a skill like any other that requires conscientious practice and revision to improve. Writing well is time-consuming, and even the most gifted writers struggle. For a busy academic, it can be tempting to leave that job to our students, colleagues or paper reviewers. Writing in English as a second language, as many academics do, adds an additional challenge.

There is a school of thought (particularly within some universities) that poor writing should be excused or overlooked as long as the ideas are good. Yet in academic writing, this does a disservice not just to the reader but also to the ideas. A well-written paper catches the eye of busy readers who might otherwise turn away from those good ideas. In the end, it is the writer’s job to make the reader’s job easier – and perhaps even make reading pleasurable.

There are a number of basic principles that can significantly improve academic writing. Some are simple, others take time and practice to master. What follows is a summary of what I consider the “big three”.

Beware the curse of knowledge

The more you know about a topic, the harder it is to imagine what it was like not to know it. This is a pervasive cognitive bias known as the “curse of knowledge”: assuming that other people know what you know. It’s one of the most common sources of bad writing (and bad communicating in general) and one of the quickest ways to alienate your reader (Pinker, 2014a).

One of the most common incarnations of this curse is the improper pacing or omission of information. I see this issue time and time again as a paper reviewer or research student supervisor. Terms are introduced on page 1 but not defined until page 5; a study method isn’t mentioned until the results; the writer assumes the reader is familiar with local terminology or geography. Some papers are sprinkled with excessive acronyms (ask yourself: is it for the reader’s benefit or only because it’s faster to type?). Others introduce unnecessary jargon (again: is it for the reader’s benefit, or to demonstrate the writer’s prowess?). Often this is because writers are so familiar with their work that they’ve lost the reader’s perspective. It takes a great deal of practice to overcome this problem, but it is worth the effort in the long run.

Consider the audience of your paper. Do you only want to communicate with the few experts in your field? What could you gain from appealing to a slightly broader audience? Learning to write for the intelligent reader who is just outside your subject field is a useful skill for writing grant applications. What might you gain from using these same techniques in your journal articles?

Stylish writing

What is it that makes some writing an impenetrable, stodgy morass to wade through and other writing an effortless read? According to Helen Sword, “stylish” writers employ three key principles (Sword, 2012).

1. They use concrete nouns and verbs, especially when discussing abstract concepts

2. They keep nouns and verbs close together

3. They avoid weighing down their sentences with extraneous words and phrases, or “clutter”

The first point is the most important of the three. The more abstract the concept you are discussing, the more important it is to embed it within concrete language. Take this example by John Urry, who is renowned for his abstract conceptualisations of “mobilities” (bold text added):

While the phone, text messaging and email are crucial everyday practices for staying in touch amongst distant friends and kin, they afford socialities of a disembodied and de-materialised kind. One cannot buy a round of drinks or kiss the bride or shake hands on a deal over the telephone/Skype or through email or videoconference. (Urry, 2012, p. 26)

This example contains both highly abstract text (in bold) and very concrete descriptions. Without those concrete anchors, readers might find themselves feeling “disembodied” and “de-materialised”.

Sword’s second point is fairly straightforward and easy to look out for. For example:

• A writer who brings together nouns and verbs is easy to understand.

• A writer who, in the interests of managing to incorporate the maximum amount of information into a single sentence, so as to appear to be an advanced writer, spreads their nouns and verbs far apart, is not.

Which leads to the third point. Dividing nouns and verbs is often a symptom of excessive clutter. Have you ever asked a student to read an overly ornate sentence out loud, to highlight how impossible it is to follow on the page? It’s a surprisingly useful tool to identify excess clutter or overly complex sentence structure.

Find your voice

The first two principles will make your writing easier to read. But is that all we expect from journal articles – that they shouldn’t be too painful to read? Might we dare to hope that an article might, at least occasionally, be enjoyable to read?

Incorporating elements of voice, storytelling and emotion are the ingredients that elevate some journal articles from a chore into a pleasure. They tap into the deeper parts of our brains that were communicating ideas long before the written word (Haven, 2014).

Yet we are taught that impersonal, “voiceless” prose is more academically sound and objective. The use of personal pronouns (“we” or “I”) is extremely contentious; some people equate the use of “we” with unprofessional, subjective or journalistic writing. Others argue that personal pronouns reduce the use of passive voice and make text easier to read.

Narrative voice, emotional language and storytelling elements do not have to shout; they can work their magic in subtle ways. Take, for example, these quotes from Daganzo’s “Requiem for second-order fluid approximations of traffic flow” (1995):

The starting point of our discussion …  (p. 277)

As in fluid mechanics, it is tempting to investigate the structure of shocks …  (p. 278)

Before proceeding with our critique of high-order models, we should mention …  (p. 279)

On the contrary, it is my opinion that the evidence points to improper numerical approximations (p. 284)

The voice of the author is evident throughout the paper, including a clear invitation to the conversation (“our discussion”), the use of first-person pronouns (“we” and “my”), emotional language (“tempting to investigate”) and even an explicit opinion! These “journalistic” touches certainly haven’t hurt its standing in the field as the paper has attracted over 400 citations.

Catchy titles and compelling narratives won’t disguise a weak paper, but they can make good ideas stand out from the crowd. These techniques don’t have to be gimmicky, confronting or flashy; they just have to make the reader want to keep reading.

The state of transport writing

Across academic fields there is a huge variation in writing styles, including the use of personal pronouns, unique structures, engaging titles or opening sentences (Sword, 2012). Where does academic writing in transport fall along the spectrum from conventional to creative? With the help of a Ph.D. candidate we classified articles from the top six journals in transport in 2012, determined by their impact factor.¹ Only the first 25 articles of 2012 were classified due to time constraints. Editorials were not included.

Judging the quality of writing is very subjective (not to mention time-consuming), so we used simple indicators of conservative vs. expressive writing including:

• Length and type of title

  • ° Number of words

  • ° Informative (descriptive) vs. engaging (creative or playful) title

  • ° Simple title vs. compound title (which include a subtitle)

  • ° Use of a question in the title

• Structure

  • ° Traditional structure (introduction, literature review, methods, results and discussion) vs unique or hybrid structure

• Use of personal pronouns (“we” or “I”)

Table 1 provides the results of this analysis broken down by journal.

Table 1. Transport journal paper structural conventions (2012 sample).

				Title type				Structure	Pronouns
Journal	Sample size	Average citations	Title word length	Informative (simple)	Informative (compound)	Engaging (compound)	Question in title	Traditional	Use of “we”
Transportation research Part B: Methodological	25	24.2	10.5	80%	20%	0%	0%	12%	88%
Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice	25	20.2	13.1	44%	52%	4%	4%	60%	96%
Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review	25	27.6	10.4	84%	12%	4%	4%	48%	96%
Accident Analysis and Prevention	25	26.5	12.0	76%	16%	8%	16%	72%	64%
Journal of Transport Geography	25	24.8	12.6	32%	52%	16%	12%	40%	76%
Transport Reviews	25	18.1	10.0	48%	44%	8%	8%	4%	76%
Total	150	23.6	11.4	61%	33%	7%	7%	39%	83%

Notes: Journals are ordered by 2012 journal impact factor. There were no recorded uses of the pronoun “I” in this review. Classification methodology adapted from (Sword, 2012).

In some ways, the transport field is very conservative. Only 7% of papers incorporate an engaging element to their titles (e.g. “Walk the line: station context, corridor type and bus rapid transit walk access in Jinan, China”) or use a question (“Are rail charges connected to costs?”).

Yet in other ways transport shows a welcome range of writing conventions. In some journals (like Transportation Research Part A), the standard paper structure dominates; in others (such as Transport Reviews), the content is better suited to unique structures. Some 83% of papers used the personal pronoun “we” at least once. As this simple review shows, there is more than one way to put together a journal article.

Finishing thoughts

Good writing is hard work and it takes time. Even good writers struggle and no-one gets it right the first time. Anne Lamott summarises this with humour and insight when she writes about “shitty first drafts”:

All good writers write them. That is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts. I know some very great writers … and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much. (Lamott, 2016), cited in (Schimel, 2012, p. 7)

Yet I firmly believe that time invested in writing, and learning to write, is time well spent. If you have something worth writing about, give it the best chance you can to be heard.

If you’re not ready to be bold, then concentrate on small things – fight the curse of knowledge, or check that your nouns and verbs are close together. But if you are ready, I challenge you to find your voice and encourage your students to do the same. Just as crucially, I challenge journal editors and reviewers to encourage and support writing that their readers might actually enjoy reading.

Every journal article is a conversation between the reader and the writer. It’s time we all started to enjoy that conversation.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to James Reynolds for assembling the journal articles for this editorial.

Notes

1 2012 was chosen to allow sufficient time for citations to accrue. I originally attempted to associate these characteristics with their citations to uncover whether catchy titles or personal pronouns increase citation rates. Not a single analysis was significant which suggests that catchy titles alone will not increase your citation rates (but may not hurt your chances either).