Empty Phrases

Good writing is more than just figuring out which words to put on the page. Good writing has just as much to do with figuring out which words you don't need. As I've written before, a writer's job is not just to get what's in his or her head onto the page, it is to make sure what is in his or her head gets into the reader's brain. Something is "well written" when a reader expends as little mental energy as possible in understanding the writer's intent.

One simple thing you can do to improve your writing, then, is to avoid using too many words. The more words you use to express a point, the more work your reader has to do to understand your point.

Here's a very common example of what I mean. Read the following two sentences:

The results demonstrated that Long-Evans rats took more trials to learn the maze than Sprague-Dawley rats.

Long-Evans rats took more trials to learn the maze than Sprague-Dawley rats.

Both sentences are perfectly acceptable, but notice that the words "The results demonstrated that" are superfluous. Variations of this show up time and again in papers written for psychology class. The following phrases are hardly ever useful:

• The authors demonstrated that
• The graph reveals that
• The data show that
• The experimenters concluded that

I call these "empty phrases". They are words that you've forced a reader to read that don't help a single bit. Phrases like this clutter your writing. These examples aren't particularly difficult to understand, but when a paper is littered with empty phrases in complex sentences, the reader is left with the impression that the writing is padded and unnecessarily difficult.

After finishing a draft of a document, read it with a critical eye, and hunt down and eliminate these empty phrases. Economize where possible. Scientific writing often requires that you use long sentences in order to specify details clearly, so it becomes especially important that you avoid long sentences when you can.

Wrong Way, Write Way

A 10-page, double-spaced paper contains about 125 sentences. The English language is wonderfully flexible - each of those sentences can be written many different ways and still convey the same point. But just because a sentence is valid does not mean it is well written. As a writer, your job is not simply to put your thoughts into words - your job is much more difficult. Your job is to write words that, when your reader reads them, will convey your intention as easily and efficiently as possible.

Consider the following sentence:

The horse raced past the barn fell.

Is this a valid sentence? You may be surprised to learn that it is, in fact, a valid sentence. It is also extremely poorly written.

The reason the above sentence is so difficult to parse is because horses race and barns fall. Readers are naturally biased to assume that the verb will follow the subject of the sentence - that nouns will be paired with the closest verb.

The sentence only becomes understandable when you realize that "raced past the barn" is an adjectival phrase modifying the noun "horse". In other words, the above sentence is the same as the following sentence:

The horse, which was raced past the barn, fell.

Only now is the meaning of the sentence clear, although it was valid in both cases. Does that mean the writer was "correct" in both cases? Only if the writer views his or her job as the crafting of valid sentences to express his or her ideas. If the writer views his or her job as making it easy for the reader to grasp the intended meaning of the writer, then only the second sentence is correct. Still better, though, would be finding a way to bring the subject and verb together:

While being raced past the barn, the horse fell.

This sentence is still better, since it now conforms to the readers' expectation of the subject and verb being close together. (The new version has the additional benefit of being "poetic" - when horses fall, they do so suddenly and violently, and this is conveyed not only by the word "fall" but also the brevity and suddenness "the horse fell" relative to the longer introductory clause.) This new version is also better because it resolves an ambiguity in the first two versions: the horse - the one that had been raced past the barn - fell, but did it do so while it was going past the barn or did it do so later? It might even have been the next day (the horse, which had been raced past the barn yesterday, fell today while on a routine trot).

I've spent a lot of time on one particular badly written sentence, but the general point is this: you can always express an idea in multiple ways. It is very likely that one way will be the easiest for your reader to mentally process. Your job does not end until you figure out which version of the sentence is the best version. That's precisely the reason writing is hard - you must think your way through each of those 125 sentences. It's hard work - but that's the work of writing.

The Hourglass Method

When approaching writing a paper or giving a presentation, the analogy of an hourglass can be helpful. I'm not talking about the time ticking away until your presentation or paper is due - though of course, that's important! I'm talking about the shape of the hourglass.

The Funnel Method Of Journalism

I sometimes call this "The Funnel Method", and I first heard about it in connection with journalism. One of the truisms of journalism is that most readers read every headline, some readers will read the first couple of paragraphs, and only a scant few will read the entire article. As a result, journalists often try to impart the "take home message" right there in the first couple of paragraphs and provide more specific detail later in the article. A "funnel" is created in which the broadest issues are related first, followed by ever-more specific details.

The Hourglass Method In Journal Articles

An hourglass is basically a funnel on top and an inverted funnel on the bottom. When you are writing a paper or planning a presentation, this analogy reminds you to start broadly and work your way to the specifics at the beginning. At the end, work your way from specifics back to the take home message or broader themes.

Research articles in psychology typically have the following sections, in this order: Introduction, Method, Results, and Discussion. These sections lend themselves rather well to the Hourglass Method, since the Method and Results are, quite obviously, the most detailed and specific parts of the research article. A good Introduction funnels its way into these details: it begins with the broad research question, moves on to discuss the relevant literature, and finally specifies the goals of the particular study being described. On the way "out" of the paper, a good Discussion begins with a summary and careful consideration of the results, then links these results to those reported in the literature, and concludes with real-world applications or discussion of where the research area is headed next.

The Hourglass Method In Presentations

Often, a presentation requires an introduction, method/results, and discussion, or can be organized with a similar flow. With a presentation, it is absolutely critical to grab your audience right away. Students often interpret from this advice that they need some "attention getter", joke, or activity at the beginning. What's really needed, though, is just to make contact with some broad issues.

Students also often worry about telling an audience something they already know. It's certainly true that you do not want to patronize your audience. But the hourglass analogy provides a guide here as well. Begin with things your audience does know - get them nodding their heads in agreement, or at least in recognition. Subconsciously, this lets the audience member know "I'm smart enough to follow this presentation, it's worth my time." If you lose them at the beginning, you'll probably not get them back. But if you have them at the beginning, they will be more willing to struggle to keep up when the tough stuff comes.

Don't finish the presentation on details either. Work your way back to the big picture at the end, at the very least by reprising the broad themes you began with. Even if you have "lost" some of the audience in the middle, by leaving them with something they can relate to at the end, they are likely to feel that the presentation has been worthwhile.

Your Audience

In-class presentations are usually graded. It stands to reason, then, that your audience is really one person: the professor doing the grading. It also stands to reason, then, that the presentation is really about you - how well you know the material.

It's a mistake to think so, and in order to give a great in-class presentation, you have to completely change your mind about who the audience is and what the professor cares about.

The professor is actually the least important person in the audience. The reason this is so is that it is very likely the professor won't learn very much from your presentation. In some cases, the professor will know more about the topic than the presenter. In other cases, the professor may not know the topic deeply, but will be the most equipped person in the room to understand what you are saying. The professor will be able to "fill in the gaps" if you are less than clear.

But a good presentation isn't defined by the fact that the most knowledgeable person in the audience gets it - it's exemplified when most or all of the audience gets it. The professor is likely to grade you not based on what the professor gets out of your presentation, but rather what the professor guesses the weakest students in the class get out of your presentation.

Class time is valuable. There are only so many sessions in a semester, and if the professor is giving 2 or 3 or more class sessions over to student presentations, you can bet the professor is hoping that those sessions aren't wasted for the audience. The professor is expecting you to teach them - it's not just 15 minutes for you to show the professor what you know.

So what should you do? When designing your presentation, don't think about what the professor knows, think about what your classmates know. The more effective you are in teaching them, the more successful the presentation will be and the better grade you'll receive.

Who's speaking? You, or your slide?

Giving presentations in class can be a very intimidating experience. Probably the greatest fear a student has is forgetting what he or she wanted to say.

Most people defend against that by over-preparing. The whole talk is typed out, or paraphrased on note cards, or written on Power Point slides.

It's natural to be nervous before a presentation - arguably, you should be nervous. The problem is that we're nervous about the wrong thing. What we should be afraid of is not forgetting what we had intended to say - we should be nervous about losing the audience. Your job as a presenter isn't finished when you speak the words - you are also responsible for your audience understanding your words.

Well then, doesn't it make sense to write everything on your slides?

It turns out: no. Presentations "go well" when the audience is paying attention to the speaker - when your eyes are on the audience and the audience's eyes are on you. The last thing you want is your audience's attention diverted. Put words on a screen, and people will read them. That takes their attention away from you and your attention away from them.

Too many presentations become a room full of people reading, rather than listening and conversing. Think about your own experience as an audience member: when there is a lot of information on a slide, you feel rushed - you have to read quickly, because who knows when the slide is going to go away. If you can't keep up, you lose the "thread", become hopelessly lost, and give up trying to follow it. Presenters are likely to feel exactly the opposite: because it is all on the slide, because the presenter worked hard to craft the sentences "just so", because the presenter knows what came before and what's coming next, it is all too easy to assume your audience must understand what they are reading - and so you forge ahead quickly through the slides.

Here's a suggestion: when you are first working on a presentation, go ahead and write it all out on the slide. Then, as you rehearse, take words away. Replace words with figures or pictures.

When you present, keep your eyes on the audience. Resist the urge to do more than glance at your slides. When a slide is critical - when it shows an important results figure or diagram, walk over to the screen and point to parts of the slide as you talk. Direct your viewers - don't let their eyes rove on their own. Don't make them do the work. Lead them. Teach them.

Who is they? What is it?

I vividly remember the first time my advisor returned to me a draft of a manuscript I had written as a senior in college. I considered myself a pretty good writer, but page after page contained corrections and suggestions that filled the margins. The comments were all written in red ink, which I'm sure made the situation seem worse than it was.

It turns out, though, that I wasn't a bad writer. I was in the same position that the vast majority of my students are in now - my writing was littered with little bad habits that collectively made my writing a lot less understandable than it could be. As a professor who now has to read student manuscripts, essays, and test answers, I'm impressed with how commonly-shared these bad habits are. This blog will provide writing tips (and presentation tips) each month in conjunction with the Psychology Department Newsletter.

Today's Topic: Who is they? What is it?

One of the most commonly repeated bad habits is the overuse of pronouns (especially "it" and "they").

1. Pronouns are ambiguous

One problem with overusing pronouns is that pronouns are often ambiguous. Consider the following example:

Fifteen rats were tested by the researchers over a two week period. They were housed in standard shoebox cages and had free access to food and water.

Who was housed in shoebox cages? The rats? Or the researchers? Surely, this is a trivial example - it must be the rats. But in many cases, the solution is less obvious.

Addiction to certain pain killers, such as Oxycontin, can cause hearing problems. This problem appears to be more common now than ever before.

Which problem? Addiction or drug-induced hearing loss? Of course the answer may become obvious a few sentences down the road, but if your readers have guessed wrong, you've forced them to rethink or reread when they shouldn't have to. You want your reader to comprehend your ideas immediately and without effort.

The funny thing is, it takes hardly any effort to be clear:

Addiction to certain pain killers, such as Oxycontin, can cause hearing problems. Addiction to such drugs appears to be more common now than ever before.

No more effort for you; far less effort for your readers.

2. Pronouns get repetitive

Pronouns should only be used to avoid repetition, and only when the antecedent is unambiguous. Pronouns are best used when the antecedent is in the same sentence or in the end clause of the preceding sentence.

In my experience, though, students tend to use pronouns in a repetitive fashion when specifying the subject would not be repetitive. I have counted as many as 7-8 repetitions of "they" in a single paragraph. If anything, repeating "they" is more wearisome for a reader than repeating "the participants".

3. Pronouns make your readers work
Every time we encounter a pronoun, our brains have to translate that pronoun into its antecedent. A pronoun is a code. In the sentence:

They were given a personality test.

the word "they" is code for "the participants". This code is constantly changing. Later in the same paper, there may be this sentence:

They standardized the scores before analyzing them.

in which "they" is code for "the researchers". But why write in code at all? Your job when you write is to be clear - if you have a choice to write "The researchers standardized the scores" instead of "They standardized the scores" - why wouldn't you?

(By the way, is it ever okay to use pronouns? Sure - in the previous example. The word "them" is code for "scores" - "The researchers standardized the scores before analyzing them" - but the antecedent is unambiguous, is only a few words away, and spares us the redundancy of saying "the scores" twice. Of course, better would be "The researchers standardized the scores before analysis" or, still better, "The researchers standardized the scores." So I got rid of the pronoun after all!)

The Tip
Don't fall into the lazy habit of using pronouns. Take he, she, it, they, them, and this out of your vocabulary. Or at least always ask yourself if you have a choice. If you do, and you can easily substitute a concrete subject for a pronoun, do it. Your writing will be livelier, clearer, and easier to read. And that's what "it" is all about!