OpenSees Cloud
OpenSees AMI
Make Every Word Count
Original Post - 04 Nov 2023 - Michael H. Scott
Visit Structural Analysis Is Simple on Substack.
A couple years after moving to Eastchester, I decided to become a better writer. I wasn’t a bad writer (some academics do not like writing, but not one believes they are a bad writer), I was simply aware of room for improvement.
After deciding to improve, I read a few books on writing. The books all had similar messages, one of which was be economical, i.e., don’t be wordy.
The book that best conveyed the message of economy (and several others) was Keys to Great Writing by Stephen Wilbers. In Chapter 1, Wilbers gives four strategies to eliminate wordiness.
- Delete redundancies, e.g., instead of saying “nonlinear dynamic response time history analysis simulations” you can say “nonlinear response history analyses” or “nonlinear dynamic simulations”
- Replace wordy expressions with single words, e.g., “A total of seven ground motions…” should be “Seven ground motions…”
- Know how to start by avoiding protracted introductions like “It is important to note that…” where you can say “Note that…”. And know when to stop by removing meaningless information, e.g., use “…did not converge.” instead of “…did not converge after many iterations.”
- Use direct wording, e.g., you can write “localization is difficult to simulate” instead of “localization has been found to be difficult to simulate”
Peruse the abstracts from the latest issue of your favorite engineering journal–I guarantee you will find wordy passages like the ones listed above. And if the 300 word abstracts are wordy, imagine how wordy the accompanying 10,000 word articles will be.