Getting the Point Across
By George Gopen
Successful science writing places each sentence’s emphasis where readers expect it—in the stress position.
This Article From Issue
November-December 2022
Volume 110, Number 6
Page 346
How often do you arrive at the end of reading a scientific article or grant application and feel devastated that it had not been longer? How often do you jump up from your desk and rush to find colleagues to share with them this uplifting document so they might also experience your joy? I imagine you would have to answer, “Not often.” Instead, do you as a reader not tend to feel relief when you reach the document’s end? You are probably more tired than you were when you began. That fatigue is not only a problem in itself: It signifies a great probability that, on a sentence-by-sentence basis, you have failed to perceive the writer’s intended meaning clearly and with as little effort as possible.
Tom Dunne
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