Five top writing tips explained

Question

A writing buddy recently told me that I have to “murder my darlings,” by which she meant that I had to cut out part of my literature review that I still thought was important, but that I recognize wasn’t 100 per cent necessary. I was able to chat with her about this comment, to get at her meaning, but sometimes I’m integrating edits and can’t immediately go to my reviewer for an explanation. How are those of us without writing training supposed to know what “murder your darlings” means?

– Anonymous, Earth & Ocean Sciences

Answer

For a field in which so many advice-givers instruct writers to avoid jargon, there’s sure a lot of it in writing and editing studies.

You’re right that “murder your darlings” usually means “cut this part of your text, even though you laboured hard to write it in the first place.” The brutal word choice reminds writers to be hard-hearted and ruthless when editing, to prioritize the needs of the reader over the desire of the writer to maintain their well-written but ultimately unnecessary phrasing.

When I have to cut text that I like, that I think is important, or that I otherwise hold as a “darling,” I cut and paste it into a Google Doc that I call “purgatory,” which I return to and regularly take from when I’m feeling stuck.

Let’s consider five additional oft-used but opaque writing advice clichés:

1. “Omit needless words”

This advice comes from Strunk & White’s Elements of Style, and it can be hard to interpret: I imagine that you don’t intentionally include “needless” details in your drafts.

Let’s look at an exaggerated example:

Original: “It is important to note that our analysis clearly demonstrates that there was a substantial increase in seafloor sediment accumulation rates over the course of the late Holocene period.”

When I find an “It is ____ that ___” phrase, I cut it. Consider also “our analysis clearly demonstrates” — if you’re in the discussion section of your article, do you need to tell the reader that you did an analysis? Similarly, “over the course of” unnecessarily lengthens “during.” Our revised sentence might read:

Edited: “Sediment accumulation rates increased substantially during the late Holocene.”

The edited sentence is shorter and clearer than the original because the needless words have been cut. Because needless words can be hard to identify in your own writing, I suggest using writingwellishard.com to identify sentences or paragraphs in which you have a dense concentration of “to be” verbs or prepositions (highlighted in teal and pink, respectively). These two parts of speech can be symptoms of wordy writing. Our original sentence had two “to be” verbs and three prepositions; the edited version has no “to be” verbs and only one preposition.

The goal isn’t brevity for its own sake, but rather to ensure that every word advances your argument.

2. “Use plain language”

“Plain language” is an expression that’s often misunderstood and misused. Ultimately, when you use plain language, you’re using words that your audience will understand, structuring content in an order that makes sense, and formatting your document for readability.

So, writing using plain language doesn’t necessarily mean writing for a lay audience, or writing such that any member of the public could understand your meaning. Feel free to reference “biogeochemical cycling” or “paleoceanographic proxies”: if you know that your audience will understand those terms, then you’re still employing plain language.

I’ve got more strategies about targeting academic audiences outside your niche subfield in my articles “Being understood outside your discipline” (May 2019) and “Writing for peer reviewers from outside your field: lessons from non-fiction” (October 2024).

3. “Improve flow”

“Flow” refers to the logical progression of ideas and the smooth transitions between them. A paragraph with good flow is one that effectively deploys:

• Coherence: the presentation of ideas in a logical, easy-to-follow order; and,
• Cohesion: the clarity of the connections between one sentence and the next.

If you’ve written a paragraph that lacks coherence — one in which the structure isn’t intuitive — then edit it so that it begins with an analytical topic sentence that clarifies the argumentative point of your paragraph. Next, check to see that the sequence of sentences follows a logical order. Some ways of ordering a paragraph include: chronological, specific-to-general, general-to-specific, cause-to-effect or claim-evidence-analysis.

If you’re written a paragraph that lacks cohesion — one in which readers need to stop, double-back, and re-read specific sentences to follow your meaning — then see my article “Literature reviews that work” (September 2020). Many inexperienced writers will try to fix a lack of cohesion by adding conjunctive adverbs like “likewise,” “moreover,” “nonetheless” and “furthermore.” Don’t fall into the transition words trap — it’s an ineffective band-aid.

4. “Show, don’t tell”

In academic writing, “show, don’t tell” means “provide evidence to support your claims.” Don’t simply state, “Climate change significantly impacts a wide range of marine ecosystems.” Instead, demonstrate both significance and range through specific examples, data or case studies.

I regularly see academics telling instead of showing in the “Most Significant Contributions” section of Tri-Agency grant applications. Don’t tell me that your previous publications were significant, innovative, novel or high-impact — show me by pointing to evidence of others’ citation, use or application of your prior study.

“Showing” in academic contexts also means making your reasoning process visible. Explain why certain evidence supports your argument, how you arrived at particular interpretations, and what assumptions underlie your analytical approach. In grant budget justifications, show the math behind each dollar figure. Such transparency strengthens your credibility.

5. “Write every day”

I’m including this clichéd advice because, well, I hate it! In this column, I usually try to avoid writing about the writing process, focusing instead on strategies to improve an existing draft, but I hate this advice so much that I have to address it.

Some people might need to write every day; others might feel they benefit from it. If that’s you, great, and keep doing what you’re doing.

For others, though, the idea that they need to write every day, or even every weekday, can induce feelings of shame. Maybe you’re at your best when you dedicate two days a week to teaching and supervision, two to research and writing, and one to service. If that’s your pattern, there’s no need for you to write every day.

The principles behind this advice are twofold: (i) touch your writing projects regularly, keeping up a consistent writing practice, to establish and maintain the neural pathways that help you to get new words written; and (ii) train your fingers to move quickly on the keyboard even in time-restricted chunks, so that you don’t delay writing until you’re pressed, stressed or late.

You do not need to write every day. I would advise you to write every week, ideally multiple times a week, even if, some days, the only word count you increase is in your ventilation file — the place where you jot down your thoughts and feelings about your writing. But if you’ve tried writing every day and it doesn’t work with your current phase of life or career stage, please, don’t beat yourself up about it. Of all the clichéd writing advice out there, this is one piece that I’m more than happy for you to completely ignore.

Ultimately, these oft-quoted pieces of writing advice — well, the first four, at least — share a common foundation: They prioritize communication that respects your readers’ cognitive resources and disciplinary knowledge. When you internalize this reader-centred approach, editorial decisions become less about following abstract rules and more about engaging in compelling scholarly discourse.