Writing for the Reader's Brain
A Science-Based Guide

A science-based approach to writing virtually anything, ensuring readers perceive your writing as clear, coherent, concise and effective.

Yellowlees Douglas (Author)

9781009221849, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 12 December 2024

298 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.44 kg

'Drawing on cognitive neuroscience, psychology, and psycholinguistics, Douglas offers a practical guide on how to write with the reader in focus. The book addresses such questions as: What makes one sentence easy to read and another a slog that demands rereading? Where do you put information you want readers to recall? What about details you need to reveal but want readers to forget? The goal is to improve the writer's style while also making the writing process speedier and more efficient.' Howard S. Erlanger, Law & Social Inquiry

What makes one sentence easy to read and another a slog that demands rereading? Where do you put information you want readers to recall? What about details you need to reveal but want readers to forget? Drawing on cognitive neuroscience, psychology, and psycholinguistics, this book provides a practical guide on how to write for your reader. Its chapters introduce the five 'Cs' of writing – clarity, continuity, coherence, concision, and cadence – and demonstrate how to use these features to bring your writing to life. This science-based guide also shows you how to improve your writing while also making the writing process speedier and more efficient. Brimming with examples, this humorous, surprisingly irreverent book provides writers with the tools they need to master everything from an email to a research project. If you believe good writers are simply born that way, Writing for the Reader's Brain will change your mind – and, quite possibly, your life.

1. Writing is a system, not an art
Getting writing done: stages in the writing process
2. Clarity: choosing words and building sentences
Getting writing done: what you read influences how you write
3. Continuity: tying sentences together
Getting writing done: writing collaboratively
4. Coherence: structuring paragraphs and texts
Getting writing done: standard English is a dialect
5. Concision: maximizing efficiency, minimizing words
Getting writing done: writing from the top down
6. Cadence: making sentences sophisticated and rhythmic
Getting writing done: harness the power of paradox
Supplement: grammar and punctuation made (relatively) painless
Answers to test your chops
Notes
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Linguistics [CF]