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Thursday 25 december 2008
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| The aim of this style guide is to give general advice on writing, to point out some common errors and to set some arbitrary rules. |
Only two scores can The Economist hope to outdo its rivals consistently. One is the quality of its analysis; the other is the quality of its writing. The first requirement of The Economist is that it should be readily understandable. Clarity of writing usually follows clarity of thought. So think what you want to say, then say it as simply as possible. Keep in mind George Orwell's six elementary rules ("Politics and the English Language", 1946):
1. Never use a METAPHOR, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a SHORT WORD will do.
3. If it is possible to cut out a word, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a FOREIGN PHRASE, a scientific word or a JARGON word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
The reader is primarily interested in what you have to say. By the way in which you say it you may encourage him either to read on or to stop reading. If you want him to read on:
1)Do not be stuffy. "To write a genuine, familiar or truly English style", said Hazlitt, "is to write as anyone would speak in common conversation who had a thorough command or choice of words or who could discourse with ease,force and perspicuity setting aside all pedantic and oratorical flourishes".
Use the language of everyday speech, not that of spokesmen, lawyers or bureaucrats (so prefer LET to PERMIT, PEOPLE to PERSONS, COLLEAGUE to PEER, PRESENT to GIFT).
Avoid, where possible, euphemisms and circumlocutions promoted by interest-groups. The hearing-impaired are simply deaf. It is no disrespect to the disabled sometimes to describe them as crippled. Female teenagers are girls, not women. The under-privileged may be disadvantaged, but are more likely just poor.
And man sometimes includes woman, just as he sometimes makes do for she as well. So long as you are not insensitive in other ways, few women will be offended if you do not use OR SHE after every HE(i.e. Let HIM or HER depart; HE or SHE which hath no stomach to this fight).
2)Do not be hectoring or arrogant. Those who disagree with you are not necessarily stupid or insane. Nobody needs to be described as silly:let your analysis prove that he is.
3) Do not be too pleased with yourself. Don't boast of your own cleverness by telling readers that you correctly predicted something or that you have a scoop. You are more likely to bore or irritate them rather than to impress them. So keep references to The Economist to a minimum, particularly those of the we-told-you-so variety. References to "this correspondent" or "your correspondent" are always self-conscious and often self-congratulatory.
4) Do not be too chatty. "Surprise, surprise" is more irritating than informative. So is "Ho, Ho", etc.
5) Do not be too didactic. A recent issue of The Economist had an imperative on six out of seven consecutive pages. If too many sentences begin with COMPARE, CONSIDER, EXPECT, IMAGE, LOOK AT, NOTE, PREPARE FOR, REMEMBER, or TAKE, readers will think they are reading a textbook (or, indeed, a style book). This may not be the way to persuade them to renew their subscriptions.
6) Do not be sloppy in the construction of your sentences and paragraphs. Do not use a participle unless you make it clear what it applies to. Thus avoid HAVING DIED, THEY HAD TO BURY HIM, or PROCEEDING ALONG THIS LINE OF THOUGHT, THE CAUSE OF THE TRAIN CRASH BECOMES CLEAR.
7) Don't overdo the use of DON'T, ISN'T, CAN'T, WON'T, etc. Use the subjunctive properly. If you are posing a hypothesis contrary to fact, you must use the sbjunctive. Thus, IF HITLER WERE ALIVE TODAY, HE COULD TELL US WHETHER HE KEPT A DIARY. If the hypothesis may or may not be true, you do not use the subjunctive: IF THIS DIARY IS NOT HITLER'S, WE SHALL BE GLAD WE DID NOT PUBLISH IT. If you have WOULD in the main clause, you must use the subjunctive in the IF clause. If you were to disregard this rule, you would make a fool of yourself.
8) Do your best to be lucid. Simple sentences help. Keep complicated constructions and gimmicks to a minimum. Mark Twain described how a good writer treats sentences: "At times he may indulge himself with a long one, but he will make sure there are no folds in it, no vaguenesses, no parenthetical interruptions of its view as a whole; when he has done with it, it won't be a sea-serpent with half of its arches under the water; it will be a torch-light procession".
9) Long paragraphs, like long sentences, can confuse the reader. "The paragraph", according to Fowler, "is essentially a unit of thought, not of length; it must be homogeneous in subjects matter and sequential in treatment". One-sentence paragraphs should be used only occasionally.
10) Clear thinking is, in fact, the key to clear writing. "A scrupulous writer", observed Orwell, "in every sentence that he writes will ask himself at least four questions: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?"
Scrupulous writers will also notice that their copy is edited only lightly and is likely to be used. It may even be read.
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