Ch 2

Tools, not rules

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary, so that the necessary may speak. – H Hofman

The reader expectation method utilizes areas of psycholinguistics, textual linguistics, functional sentence perspective, and more. Along those lines of research, Joseph M. Williams, Professor of English at Chicago University, created the Little Red Schoolhouse project many years ago, to facilitate advanced academic and professional writing, and so wrote the first edition of Style.¹   On a line of parallel interests, George D. Gopen, with both an English & Law background, developed his approach at Harvard University, taught it there, and then brought it to Duke University as Director of Writing Programs, and continued working on structure from the reader’s perspective.²  The sum total of the work that both these scholars created in the business of analyzing and producing effective writing, created a conceptual shift in how we understand and teach effective business and academic writing. As folk who taught in the English Department at Duke University, we used a combination of both Williams and Gopen in bringing the skills of Reader Expectation to our students.

Joseph Williams has always held that³

1.      Writers have principles at their disposal that allow them to reliably predict reader responses, so they can revise their work accordingly;

2.      His questions in sentence analysis have been:

a.      What is it in a sentence that makes readers judge it as they do?

b.      How do we diagnose our own prose to anticipate reader’s judgments?

c.       How do we revise a sentence so that readers will think better of it?

3.      And as he put his thoughts down on defining such a style, key concepts began to take shape. We will consider four of them – clarity, concision, coherence and cohesion.

And for George Gopen, it has always been the perspective that⁴

1.      There are recognizable patterns in the interpretive process of readers of English…these patterns help us make sense of what we read. It is not the words you use but where you place them in a sentence that is critical.

2.      This takes us from word choice to word placement.

3.      And his questions in sentence analysis have been:

a.      What’s going on here?

b.      Whose story is this?

c.       What needs to be most emphasized in this sentence?

d.      How does this sentence link to the sentence before, and the sentence after?

Working along these lines, George created tools and not rules, in defining reader expectation’s skillset: agency and action, topic and stress, old information and new information, and issue and point.⁵ Alongside these, he identified habits of style such as metadiscourse, noun strings, ineffective comma use, interruptions and others.  Some of these - like pronoun misuse, are extremely common to our local context.

     As we work through the examples before us, we will understand the weaknesses in local writing styles and see how the tools of reader expectation can help resolve the presenting issues. Everyone who reads and writes must deal with information streams from diverse sources of information. We often find ourselves struggling when we need to share specialized information that ordinary folk need to know about – in law, medicine, public policy and so many other areas where specialization has created specific terms of subject discourse. How may these be effectively and clearly shared? We do the best we can. We try to choose our words carefully. And if they seem right, we go with it and leave it at that. But in a time of information overload, such a habit often proves inadequate and frustrating to readers.

   The status quo in written communication is not acceptable. Effective writing in the business and professional world must speak briefly and clearly, so that everyone can learn about the matters that affect them, figure out the implications, and then decide how they wish to respond. That is being both fair and just. And readers must be able to respond concisely and clearly with their concerns and questions. If they cannot, they are severely hamstrung. If the sender doesn’t send with clarity, the receiver cannot figure out the message and may draw the wrong conclusion! And if the receiver is unable to respond with clear and strong inquiry, they stand a good chance of being ignored. The goal is not achieved, and the results are not satisfying. How do we go forward? Do we carry on as is and hope for the best? Or use an available method that enables readers to identify problems and respond?

     This is where the work of Joe Williams and George Gopen breaks new ground – for when the skills of clarity, concision, coherence and cohesion are applied to writing, together with the structural tools of agency and action, topic and stress, old information and new information, and issue and point, it becomes possible to produce structured and efficient clarity in writing that is easily understandable. Let’s continue with an overview of how this idea plays out.

1.Clarity, agency and action; how we make the meaning of a sentence clear.

In writing, the first challenge is to control the location of subject and verb. Writing doesn’t just ‘happen.’ We make it happen. And we can control that.

British grammar has always taught that a subject (a noun or naming word) is followed by a verb  (an action word). An agent or actor is named and an action carried out by the actor is then described. The one follows the other, and the transition is clear. We know who did what. But the implications of and the rationale for this rule have never been effectively maintained. Over time, idiosyncrasies in individual style have tweaked the rule in varying directions, and now when readers don’t get what’s being said, it is often assumed that the reader has failed to grasp the agency and action that was intended.

But take a sentence like the following – and ask how clear the meaning is?

 

1.1  There was a fear that there would be a recommendation for a GST increase.

                                                      And, as revised:

1.2  We were concerned that the Government would increase the Goods and Services Tax.

 

Compare the two. Does the first example show effective writing? Neither agency nor action is clear. ‘There was a fear….’Whose fear? Why is it not identified? Agency refers to the main character of the sentence - the main actor. Action is seen through the effective use of verbs describing the action or actions of the main actor.  But where is the subject? And what is the subject? A fear? Well, that’s all that the reader gets in the first eight words! And where’s the action?  Well, the action lies in a verb that has been used as a noun, which makes the verb a nominalization. Is that effective? No, because the verb then loses its action and becomes descriptive. There is no such thing as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ writing – only effective or ineffective communication. This is one reason why Singlish in Singapore continues to be popular - because it uses forms that communicate quickly, easily, and accurately. It works! I have always loved our local ‘Come we go!’ (no comma/pause after ‘come’) for the neat way in which it juxtaposes opposites.⁶ Effective, but only for use by locals in a local context. They know the style of it. The discerning reader will note that throughout this text, my tone will shift as needed from formal academic discourse to a conversational Singapore style, simply to drive the point home quickly. This text is focused on and for Singaporeans. The English writing academic enterprise here already has all of the good stuff they need from Joe Williams and George Gopen et al.

     In writing, motive and circumstance are always important. Behind a statement, there is always intention, and readers must either know or learn to expect this. Ambiguity, especially in political discourse, is very often deliberate. When actors are not named, they cannot be identified. No liability can be read into the statement! The reader then faces one of the following possibilities: the writer does not know; the writer does not wish to say; or the writer does not want to get involved. In such instances, a little ‘distance-creating’ ambiguity is useful. Hence, with any piece of writing, a reader must always ask who wrote it and why. A sentence like this example demonstrates non-informative communication. Perhaps intentionally so.

   Is this a step away from misinformation, or disinformation? It is not apolitical but very political. Writers cause problems for readers when they fail to provide character and agency. When you encounter such writing and need to discover actions and actors, you might have to do a little checking. Find out when and why it was written, by whom, and in what context. Once this is done, the actors, their actions, and the implications of the statement are seen and recognized! 

    Let’s take an example and consider how agency, action, topic and stress apply, starting with the old structure of subject, verb and object in a sentence. The subject of a sentence is what the sentence is about. It should always be up front, at or near to the beginning of the sentence, so that the reader sees it right away. Reader Expectation calls this ‘the topic position’ in a sentence. The stress position, by contrast, is the point being made about the subject. It is the point of emphasis, or stress, and occurs at the end of the sentence. Every sentence then, has a single stress position:

 

1.3 Moreover, it is incumbent upon a constitutionally established democratic state to ensure that its officers in the exercise of its laws are consistently and transparently applied.

Look at the topic position – can you find the subject there? No. It does not appear until some 20 or so words into the sentence, in the word ‘laws!’ Look at the stress position at the end of the sentence. Is the most important information about the subject to be found there? No. ‘consistently and transparently applied’ is a weak ending with no clear emphasis that the reader can take away. At best, we could say that both topic and stress elements have been lumped together at the end of the sentence. But written that way, the point is not clear! What can we determine from ‘consistently and transparently applied’? Nothing. What’s the key word that applies here? It’s ‘justice’ i.e. laws that are justly applied, and that isn’t in the sentence at all. Remember, bad laws can also be consistently and transparently applied! And that’s not what the writer is aiming at! Unfortunately, the way the second clause is written, it actually says that officers should be applied consistently and transparently! Obviously unintended. Read it again if you missed that. Quite humorous! The writer wants to say that

1.4 The laws of a constitutionally established democratic state must be justly applied by its Officers.

Compare the two. Now, the actors have been clearly identified – Officers. And the sentence is about – Laws. In such a style, this is what needs to be fixed.  How can we present the issues before us if we cannot state them clearly? And how can listeners respond with constructive criticism? 

2.Concision: topic and stress, brevity and emphasis – short, simple and strong; writing that is free of superfluous detail and gets to the point quickly. An example:

 

2.1 In my personal opinion, it is necessary that we should not ignore the opportunity to think over each and every suggestion offered.

The sentence says too little, in too much! Opinion is personal, so why say personal opinion? That is neither needed nor helpful. It’s just a preface, or at the least, a weak habit of style. Trouble is, few have pointed it out. Nor has the use of the personal pronoun any value or purpose, since we all know that the writer is speaking. This is overkill - what I call a historical and very British ‘pronouncement’ that says, ‘I am now speaking.’ Opinion may be wonderful and varied, but most of the time it is not the product of hard thinking, but of emotion. Then consider ‘think over’ and ‘not ignore’. Both mean ‘Consider!’  Same goes for ‘each and every’. So, what do we have here? A repetitive sentence, with little substance. Keep this in mind, because as we go through our examples, you will see this style repeatedly. In writing, repetition is a poor strategy. In persuasive speech, repetition is an excellent tool that serves to drive the point home!

Place the original against a structurally improved version, and we get:

 

2.1 In my personal opinion it is necessary that we should not ignore the opportunity to                           think over each and every suggestion offered.

                                           Revised form:

   2.2 We should consider every suggestion.

 

Look over both. We now have a clear and effective sentence. Less time needed to read and process content, for it is short, sharp, and to the point. Less energy spent in delivering and understanding the message. Weak writing makes poor use of reader energy! If we can say a thing more effectively, we should make every effort to do so.

3.Cohesion, old information and new information.

These have to do with consistent connectivity! Cohesion is about sticking together, so that the parts of a statement are not separated easily and constitute a cohesive unit, while coherence indicates that there is also a logical thread that functions to facilitate an inherent cohesiveness! Both are important in creating effective argument. Cohesion is created when we bring separate strands of information together, as with different colored threads, and then tie them together in logical form, using their common or shared presuppositions and properties, into a single thick strand. When we have tied the strands together, they need to stay together, supportive of a shared goal and purpose. Then they gain strength and can carry the weight of a strong statement. This notion has considerable depth and is a great analogy for the forward movement of community! In the Chinese movie ‘Red Cliff’, there is a comment in one scene about weak single strands that when bound together, become effective and strong.⁷ To do this effectively, a writer must control cohesion and coherence in structure and sequence. This may seem easy enough when we work with a sentence or two, but when we get into three or more sentences or have a paragraph on our hands, it requires disciplined skill. An example:

 

3.1 While our Government has managed our economy and daily essentials well, it has sometimes been too focused on maintaining our economic edge that it heaves stress on people. Espousing self-reliance and the need to keep businesses here, it has adopted policies grounded in financial prudence and economic competitiveness. In the process, some people have fallen through the cracks, and the social safety net is not wide enough. The fallout is from allowing the foreign inflow without first persuading firms to train locals for the jobs and ensuring that education and industrial needs match.

Consider the intent and see how it has played out in its written expression. I have italicized the verbs, and underlined subjects as they appear. The writer intends a fair and accurate criticism but fails to get it off the ground. Why?

In the first sentence, the distinction between ‘economy’ and ‘economic edge’ is not clear. The reader gets the impression that the economy is being handled well but that the economic ‘edge’, is causing stress. The writer wants to compliment the Government but also wants to identify flaws. However, ‘policies’ grounded in ‘financial prudence’ and ‘economic competitiveness’ do not tell the reader what has gone wrong. If anything, they can also be read as positive! When we get to ‘process’, nothing is clear. And when the claim is made that this ‘process’ has caused folk to fall through the cracks, there is no connection to show why and how such a turn of events has occurred. The ‘social safety net’ does not relate. The reader needs to know how policy and process has affected the people. But these have not been linked and no causality established. The writer has switched from Government to social structure, wants to show that the two are related, but has not shown how.

By the time the reader reaches ‘fallout’, the meaning has become ambiguous. We remain unclear as to what the intention is because the point has not been made.  Anyone seeking to make a legal claim based on such an argument would have the case thrown out. A lot has been said, but it has not come together cohesively and coherently to create a single powerful conclusion! Much has been said, but nothing is clear. The case has not been made. Allegations have been made but not substantiated. The reader remains unconvinced, and all because of a lack of coherence and cohesion. 

    The writer intends something and wants to go somewhere with it but makes unrelated statements. He does not hold them together, maintain coherent focus, discuss the issue, and establish the point. If we string words together because we like how they sound and then claim that we have an argument, we fail. We have done very little thinking about what we are saying.  So, what exactly is being taught in our ‘world class educational’ system? Certainly not the ability to think hard, write well, and act decisively, whatever else may be taught. OECD can claim what it will, but it does not deal with thinking, writing or speaking effectively.  So why are we taking its findings seriously? Is the electorate too accepting of what it is told? It’s like the phrase ‘plausible deniability’. Or perhaps the OECD claim provides the credibility needed to support a narrative that the MOE has espoused in favor of Government position?  Here, the statement shows little or no thinking over how these issues relate. Coherence fails, the paragraph rambles and presents as a series of random thoughts. 

     Four unrelated claims stand out because of the writer’s lack of cohesion and coherence – the Government is causing stress for people; policy and process have created stress; some folk fall through cracks that should not be there; finally, education does not sufficiently serve economic needs. Let’s try rewriting and see what happens:

3.2 Our Government has handled our economy well, but its primary focus on economic competitiveness has had consequences. It has failed to notice the stress caused to the people. Nor has it seen the tears in our social safety net. Some folk have fallen through, and this is disturbing. It may sound great to speak of financial prudence and economic competitiveness, but at what price to the lives of the people? That question has not been asked. Instead, we have adopted a quick-fix approach, from bringing in more foreign workers to not sufficiently training our folk to meet the needs of a growing economy. 

 

Does it make better sense now? Yes. Why? Because the reader can see the logical sequence that runs through, from sentence to sentence. In the original, the train of thought gets derailed in the second sentence because the writer uses misleading terms, confusing the reader. Is it cohesive now? Yes, because we can see the connections. And is it coherent now? Yes, for the argument is clear and strong? This is the desired result.

 

The old information - new information transition, and the challenge of continuity

This is where the Williams-Gopen approach to writing makes such a difference. This is a tool that teaches both cohesion and coherence. It is easily overdone and may be just as easily oversimplified, and that makes it a little difficult to put to work effectively. The idea is not to repeat identical words, but to make sure that the point you emphasize in the stress position at the end of a sentence is picked up through a key word or phrase in the topic position of the next sentence so that the thought stream is continued. Then you do the same for the next sentence. And then you proceed through the paragraph. In this example, word use makes a difference. Get it right, and your reader will follow your train of thought easily and clearly as it runs through the paragraph! This is the only way to avoid lateral thinking in writing. In conversation, the tendency to think and speak in lateral streams is hard enough to follow, coming across as random most of the time.  It is almost never linear, and listeners have difficulty because the one who listens is not in the mind of the speaker, who adopts a branching logic not easy to follow. When a speaker’s thought stream branches off, the hearer loses track of it! And such a style does not help when we need to be focused and clear in our writing! An example:

 

4.1 Political analysts noted that independent hopefuls face an uphill battle given the crowded electoral landscape and their historically poor track record. Singapore’s political system has, from the outset, been party based. Over the years, the PAP government has sought to mould a political system in which elections are not only about choosing a representative for the legislation, but also about electing a Government. Independent candidates do not quite fit into this political paradigm.

Each sentence starts off with a different topic. Could this have been because of the instruction many of us heard in school about varying your sentence beginnings? If so, is it effective? Obviously not, from a reader’s perspective! Note the lack of continuity between each sentence. The paragraph starts off with ‘political analysts noted’ – not useful reporting, since it does not tell you exactly who said what!

But analyze for continuity, and you find that

‘poor track record, end of sentence 1(stress/emphasis) does not link to ‘Singapore’s political system (topic/subject)’beginning of sentence 2…and so on

‘party based’(stress/emphasis) does not link to ‘over the years’(topic/subject)

‘electing a Government’ (stress/emphasis) does not link to ‘independent candidates’ (topic/subject)

Are the connections clear? No. just a bunch of unlinked sentences. Rambling? Perhaps.

Each sentence has started off on a different topic. So how exactly is the reader to get a sense of continuity and flow? The reader must deconstruct and then reconstruct…a frustrating waste of time and energy! Read it a couple of times, and you get the idea that this story is about independent candidates. Because of the Government’s methods, such candidate’s chances of success are dead from the start, for in the government argument, single Independent candidates simply lack the numbers to form a government!  

 Further, word choice can also make a difference, especially when used in the stress position.  There is no paradigm here.⁸ The word is used wrongly. It sounds impressive and this pleases local writers, who have made it popular. What would you replace it with, that would bring the meaning out –  ‘format/framework/concept/system/interpretive tradition, even? What changes would you make to help the reader see the train of thought running through the writer’s mind? Is there a train of thought moving along, or is the train being driven at all? For now, just a quick rewrite that keeps much of the original content but maintains continuity and keeps the end in sight, viz:

 

4.2 Political analysts noted that independent hopefuls face an uphill battle given the crowded electoral landscape, their historically poor track record, and a PAP defined electoral system. This system, designed and tightened over the years, frames the electoral process as an opportunity to select the party which will form the next government. In such a construct, individuals cannot succeed.

The next part of our effort to create and maintain coherence and cohesion has much to do with how we sustain meaning in a paragraph as we discuss an issue we are presenting.

 

Issue and point: from sentence to paragraph

Just as topic and stress deals with sentences, issue and point deals with paragraphs: an example…

 

5.1 The danger is that people will fail to fully understand, much less appreciate, the totality of the many separate schemes now in place, and yet to come in the next fifty years, and may be perplexed by the State’s role in ensuring retirement adequacy. Should that happen, a creeping cynicism may start to undermine the social contract which the CPF in its simple boldness represented. It may be appropriate then, at this critical juncture of Singapore’s history, during which the Government’s budget has implicitly embraced a model of co-responsibility for what was previously a self-funded model of retirement savings, to explicitly create an integrated, unified platform for all future schemes to supplement the CPF.   

 

What can we say about this paragraph?

Both topic and stress positions have not been effectively used. The paragraph is certainly not about danger. Where is the subject? Some nineteen words into the sentence! Coherence is not there. Which comes first – the self- funded model or the co-founded model? Why has the writer reversed chronological order here? There seems to be no reason other than that of style. Punctuation is not effective, and there are commas and interruptions where there need not be. The result – truncated meaning, no clear sense of what the issue really is, and certainly not about what the point is.

The issue is about adequate funds for retirement. The point is that the current system that ensures adequate funding for retirement needs to be clearly understood. Not very clear, is it?

Try an experiment. Read it to a friend or two. Ask them how it sounds. Then ask them what it means. They will probably say it sounds great, but….; so, cleared up and revised, we get:

5.2 The current savings scheme may not be clearly understood. A lack of understanding can cause uncertainty over the government’s ability to ensure that people have adequate funds for retirement. It could lead to folk questioning government commitment towards fulfilling the existing social contract. But the government has now adopted a model of shared responsibility for retirement savings. It would help to bring all supplemental savings schemes under a single CPF umbrella. This would show citizens how the combined system functions and that savings accrued will be sufficient for their needs.

Editing and revising requires effort and is essential to all effective writing. It is difficult to get any statement effectively correct at the first attempt. To do that, you have to be well equipped in language, writing and cognition. And if we are disciplined, this can gradually become second nature. Do the examples we have worked on thus far result from a ‘just write, lah!’ approach?  If the needed thinking had gone into them, would we see what we have seen and are seeing? And the other side - is this the result of what we perceive to be good writing?  And if so, how did it get that way? We were educated to think so? However, this is not an exercise in the history of local English teaching, so we won’t go there. We will simply take the current set of problems in writing and work at fixing them.