Clearer sentences & paragraphs:

By Xiaochi Liu in Scientific Writing

Clear writing is not something that you just automatically get through years of practice. It’s a set of skills that you apply in your drafting and in your editing processes. The culture of English academic writing is that the writer should work hard so that the reader can understand easily.

Planer & Drafter

Planner: thinking first, then draft, working on clarity while drafting
Drafter: writing is a bit of thinking, write early, write lots of drafts, don’t work on clarity until editing

Predictability & Transparency

The reader wants/expects/feels comfortable when they have predictability and transparency
Predictability: where are we going? I’m not blindly going with you, what’s coming up?
Transparency: where are we? why am I here and how I got here? what’s this connected to?
People should know where they have come from and where they are going.
There should be nothing surprising.

Tool-box for charity

Levels of the text which you can adjust for clarity

Context

Who is the audience

Make readers' life easier

Global structure

Major parts/chapters/sections

Differences between disciplines

Key parts of the structure for clarity

Table of contents
Introduction & mini-introductions
1. Background or context
2. Topic (purpose/aims/topic/research questions/hypothesis)
3. Outline: give reader predictability & transparency
Section headings & sub-headings

Paragraph structure

3-part structure:

Topic sentences (one or more sentences)
- topic
- outline (optional) (a list, a plural or an abstract/general term)

It can be argued that a Western political system has failed in Pakistan (topic) for two major reasons (outline).

Body

The first is that none of the leaders of the government, which has been based on a Western democratic constitutional system, has attempted to rule the country in a democratic way. Instead they have instituted autocratic rule. The second reason has been the lack of strong political parties. As a result, when constitutional crises have arisen there has not been sufficient popular support behind any one party to overcome the situation.

Conclusion (option)

While it is necessary to recognize that these are not the only factors determining the failure of a democratic system, they stand as the most prominent reasons.

Links between sentences

Chain of information, the flow of information, the connections of information

2 parts to the chain link in the sentence

Theme: starting point
Rheme: forward direction

Sociological research concentrates on social structures and norms.

Sociological research on secondary school attrition concentrates on social structures and norms.

The main complaint about the sociological perspective on secondary school attrition is that it concentrates on social structures and norms.

Short-distance link: new theme link back to the previous rheme.

Internet use has been found to be the fastest growing addictive behaviour in the West today. Some indicators of addiction are not sleeping, missing meals and avoiding face-to-face contact with friends and family. The lack of social interaction can lead to serious problems for young addicts. One of these problems is difficulty in developing intimate personal relationships and another is finding and holding down a job.

Long-distance link: each theme link back to the topic sentence

There are three main indicators of addictive behaviour amongst Internet users: not sleeping, missing meals and avoiding contact with friends and family. Sleep deprivation causes a range of health problem, leading to both physical and cognitive ill effects. Undernourishment similarly leads to health problems. The lack of social contact may be the most serious as it can lead to an inability to form personal relationships and in finding and holding a job.

Checklist for clear sentence links

Old information before new information
Long-distance links to show the structure of ideas
Short-distance links as ‘sticky tape’