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Get a good structure

This article appeared in the autumn 2003 edition of Short Words, the newsletter of Tim Albert Training. It was written by Tim Albert.

Structure, not style

Tim Albert explains how 'storyboarding' helps readability

What is a readable style? As Jane Smith writes, it is harder to pin down than many people think.

So perhaps a more sensible approach is to worry less about style, and more about structure.

With short documents - such as emails, letters, news stories and executive summaries - this is straightforward. We formulate a simple message - and put it across in the first sentence.

Scientific papers, however, have a complicated structure, which is where the concept of storyboarding comes in useful.

A few years ago I analysed 300 papers in six different journals. It became clear that many published scientific papers were (consciously or not) built around four key sentences.

(a) First sentence of the introduction: a 'mini-seminar' that introduces us to what is known about the subject (and not particularly interesting).

(b) Last sentence of the introduction: a brief description of what the authors did ('Therefore we ….).

(d) Last sentence of the discussion: this tells us what it all means - in other words, the message. (Sadly, our researches showed that only in about 50% of papers did a clear message emerge in the final sentence, but that's another story).

Once you have written a first draft, extract these key sentences and put them together. Do the conform to this structure? Is there a logical development? And are they clearly written?

If there is a problem, it is not hard to bring the four sentences (and therefore the article) back on line.

And once these four sentences are clear and consistent, readers will be able to extract the message easily. And in my view that is the real test of effective writing.

Example one: consistent

(a) Little is known on whether the comprehension of scientific papers is affected by writing style.
(b) We therefore conducted a multi centre double blind trial using samples of active and passive writing.

(c) We found that those receiving passive versions were less effective at identifying the key message.

(d) We should encourage authors to write in the active voice.

Example two: inconsistent

(a) Little is known on whether the comprehension of scientific papers is affected by writing style.
(b) We therefore conducted a multi centre double blind trial asking readers to identify key messages.

(c) This is the first time that such a study has been carried out.

(d) We should encourage authors to write in the active voice.