Writing Clearly
Fluidity, Clarity, and Conciseness
Fluidity, clarity, and conciseness are elements of writing that are important to a successful formal research paper. However, they are often overlooked by students who are overwhelmed by the demands of the subject matter, or by students who believe that since this is a formal work of scholarship, they need to exert extra effort to “sound smart,” or to achieve greater length. In this chapter, we will cover some of the more frequent problems teachers have encountered in students’ formal research papers, and make some distinctions between the stylistic requirements of science papers and papers in the humanities.
Most of the issues on the list below, which your teacher may wish to enlarge, contribute to wordiness or lack of clarity. Try to avoid them.
- Excessive use of the “ing” form of verbs
- Using a thesaurus to find sophisticated sounding words when simpler, more precise words are preferable
- Redundancy (saying the same thing more than once)
- Overuse of prepositional or modifying phrases that make sentences unnecessarily complex
- Passive voice
- Tense inconsistency (Note: In science papers, you should only use the past tense, as in the clause “the study found,” or the present perfect tense, as in the clause “studies have found.”)