Cowboy English

When people ask me what is most important to good writing, I always think of the reader. The goal of writing is to communicate an idea from the mind of the writer to the mind of the reader. Far too often, however, the writer leaves the reader guessing, unable to grasp whatever it was that the writer was trying to get across. Everything involved in writing, thus, is directed toward the reader. Writing can be personally very satisfying, but it is essentially an exercise in unselfishness. You don’t write to make yourself feel good, but to offer something to your reader, to sacrifice your own time and energy to help the reader understand.

Good writing, especially in technical and scientific fields should be unselfish, which means it must be efficient and elegant. 

Consider efficiency. Is it more efficient for one person to spend time making an article clear and concise or for thousands of readers to spend time trying to figure out just what that writer is trying to communicate (and probably getting it wrong)? Is it more efficient for a writer to use unnecessarily complex words, long sentences, immense walls of text, or to strip the writing down, to simplify it, to make it easy to read, easy to understand, even easy on the eyes? 

Think of race cars. The fastest cars, the ones that win, are among the lightest, stripped to the essentials. (That lightness must be balanced against sufficient weight to give the car traction, however, but that’s another topic.) 

This sort of writing is not only efficient in communicating ideas, it is also cost efficient. Consider the costs of publication in the sciences. Most people think writers are paid for their writing, but in research, the opposite happens. A journal charges writers to publish--once the journal is satisfied that the article meets their needs and standards. The longer an article is, the more it costs to publish.

That is an obvious cost, but publication has hidden costs as well. Instructions or reports can be too long. A long report costs more to print, to bind, to mail. It wastes bandwidth, and it wastes the readers’ time. Someone must pay for that time. Still worse, inefficient writing can actually cause harm. Unclear, long instructions or reports often mean people don’t read them, which may mean damage, and damages, and the cost to replace a piece of machinery or the cost of workman’s compensation (not to mention the human cost).

Good writing is elegant as well. Just as computer programmers strive for elegance in their programming, seeking the shortest, simplest, most parsimonious program that will get the job done, a writer should seek short, simple prose. Just as an elegant solution in mathematics has no unnecessary steps, as simple and direct as the mathematician can make it, writers should seek simplicity and directness. 

Most people seem to think elegant writing means long words and long sentences, yet elegant writing, especially in technical and scientific fields, is concise, simple, and easy to understand.

Hemingway (whose novels I actually dislike) was an elegant writer, known for the simplicity of his language. A scientist I know claims he writes Cowboy English, going directly for the point, keeping his writing simple. Perhaps it’s coincidence (I doubt it), but he has published nearly 200 articles and has made countless presentations.

If the goal of a writer is to communicate, then simple, concise language is the path to that goal."You don't need decorated words to make your meaning plain. Keep it simple, and save some breath for breathing."*

*From "Don't Squat with Yer Spurs On: A Cowboy's Guide to Life"