Communications corner

Five tips for keeping scientific and technical writing crisp:

1. Start each paragraph with a sentence that summarizes the top priority information in the paragraph. Other sentences in the paragraph should complement the topic sentence with definitions, examples and extended explanations of the idea contained in the topic sentence.
2. Try to hold your average sentence length to 18 words.
3. A good rule of thumb for paragraph size in scientific and technical writing is four or five sentences. (Paragraphs that are double that size, or larger, will often contain sentences that repeat information that's already been covered, or the paragraph contains two key topics, and should be separated into two paragraphs.)
4. Avoid technical jargon as much as possible, even when writing for professional journals.
5. Be careful about vague pronouns, with unclear antecedents. (When "this" or "it" refers to a concept or idea, readers can readily get confused.)

Posted January 18, 2006 04:00 PM

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