“The starting point for becoming a good writer is to be a good reader. Writers acquire their technique by spotting, savoring, and reverse-engineering examples of good prose.” – Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker “writes like an angel.” – The Economist

Cotton clothing is made from is grown in Egypt. Did that sentence make sense to you? Probably not. It’s what’s called a garden path: a sentence that lures the reader into interpreting a phrase in one sense (in this case, cotton clothing), when in truth it is meant in another, a fact that is made clear only at the end of the sentence. They are, unsurprisingly, a good thing to avoid in good writing.

The Sense of Style is not really a prescriptive, ‘this is how to rite good,’ sort of guide, though some sections do give concrete guidelines. Instead, it is a study of what it is to write well; an effort to understand the basic principles that can illuminate and expose ideas in text.

What makes us bad writers? Several factors. First is a reluctance to take responsibility for our opinions – academics in particular hedge their sentences so much to avoid being wrong that they lose all coherence and meaning. Many of us also fall into the trap of writing about abstractions: good writers, Pinker argues, write with nouns and verbs, not adverbs and adjectives, so that the reader can visualize what is going on. Worst of all, however, is the Curse of Knowledge. We do not realize that readers don’t know what we know, and as a result, writers fail to explain jargon, explain logic, or provide detail, making their writing obtuse and obscure.

All is not lost. The answer, Pinker argues, is to write in classic style; to write as if you were in conversation with the reader, directing their gaze to something in the world. Good writers ensure their readers don’t have to keep a lot of information in their memory as they read, share their drafts with others and read aloud while editing, and above all attempt to write clearly and coherently, presenting ideas in an order designed to make them clear to the reader, not in which they occurred to the author.

The book is good reading for anyone who spends their time writing, whether in academia, journalism, business, or anywhere else. Since I finished, I’ve found myself rereading many of my own sentences over with Steven Pinker’s principles in mind, and if my writing isn’t quite up to his standard yet, it’s improving.

A final comment: writing well is in many ways about thinking well, and in his parting comments Pinker gives advice that applies to both. Good writers, he suggests, look things up; make sure arguments are sound; don’t confuse a personal experience with the state of the world; avoid false dichotomies; and base arguments on reasons, not people. If you never write another word in your life, it’s still good advice.