Craig Van's Deep Dives

The Science Behind Clear Writing | Ep12

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Writing mastery isn't about natural talent or rigid rules—it's a learnable craft that anyone can develop through understanding how language works and how readers process information.

• The "curse of knowledge" explains why good writers struggle to communicate clearly—we assume readers know what we know
• Classic style adopts a conversational approach, treating language as a clear window to the subject
• "Tree thinking" helps understand how sentences are structured and avoid common syntax problems
• Garden path sentences and syntactic ambiguities create confusion when readers must backtrack to understand meaning
• Coherence requires building logical connections between ideas using parallel structure and connecting words
• Many traditional writing rules are outdated—writers should understand when rules help clarity and when they don't
• The Oxford comma, strategic punctuation, and avoiding redundancy improve readability
• Reading aloud and getting feedback from intended readers helps overcome your own knowledge bias

The ultimate test of your writing: show it to someone from your intended audience to see if they understand what you meant to say.


Speaker 1:

Welcome curious minds to another deep dive. Have you ever wondered if great writing is just? You know something. You're born with a natural talent.

Speaker 2:

Or maybe the opposite, just a pile of rigid, arbitrary rules you have to memorize.

Speaker 1:

Exactly Well for anyone looking to truly master their mission through clear communication. We're here to tell you it's really neither.

Speaker 2:

It's a craft, a skill, something you can absolutely learn and well perfect, really like any other complex thing you set your mind to.

Speaker 1:

That's right, and our mission today is to give you a new way of thinking about effective communication. We want to help transform how you approach your own mastery and mission, especially where a clear expression is absolutely crucial.

Speaker 2:

We'll unpack the real purpose behind good writing, look at the principles that actually make it work and then get into some practical steps you can use right away to sharpen your own prose. Make sure your message, you know, lands.

Speaker 1:

And for this deep dive, our insights are coming from a modern guide to writing style. It's informed by linguistics, which gives it a really fresh perspective.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it goes beyond some of that traditional advice, some of which, let's be honest, can feel a bit outdated.

Speaker 1:

Definitely outdated. We're talking about a guide for now, for the 21st century, one that gets how language and communication have actually changed since I don't know 1869.

Speaker 2:

Right Before telephones, before the Internet, before we really understood cognitive science the way we do now.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so let's start with the big picture, the philosophical side. Why does mastering style actually matter for your mission? It's well, it's a lifelong challenge, isn't it?

Speaker 2:

Oh, absolutely. The sources even mentioned complaints about bad writing on ancient Sumerian clay tablets. So yeah, people have been grappling with this for a long time.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so not a new problem. And while some classic advice holds up like Strunk and White's famous omit needless words, omit, needless words. Can't argue with that one. Right, it's timeless. But apparently a lot of what's in traditional style guides is more like folklore.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's a good way to put it. And what's really interesting is that some of those old rules, if you just follow them blindly like that classic one, always avoid the passive voice they can actually make your writing worse.

Speaker 1:

Wait, worse, hold on. I feel like I've had avoid the passive drilled into me forever. Is that really bad advice sometimes?

Speaker 2:

It absolutely can be. Yes, linguistic research, you know, actual studies show the passive construction has some really indispensable function.

Speaker 1:

Like what.

Speaker 2:

Well, sometimes you want to emphasize the recipient of the action, or maybe the actor is unknown or irrelevant. A skilled writer needs to know when and why to use it, not just slash every passive sentence. They find the point is our understanding of language has evolved.

Speaker 1:

We need guidance that reflects that, not just sort of dusty old dogma.

Speaker 2:

Exactly.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so maybe a lot of old rules need a rethink. But fundamentally, what's one of the biggest hurdles? Why do people still struggle so much with writing? Clearly, the sources point to something called the curse of knowledge.

Speaker 2:

Ah yes, the curse of knowledge. This is so, so central to why clear communication is hard. Basically it means we as writers are sort of cursed because we assume others know what we know.

Speaker 1:

We attribute too much of our own knowledge to our readers.

Speaker 2:

Sure, precisely it's this fundamental cognitive bias, and it leads to writing that might make perfect sense to us but is just opaque, incomprehensible to anyone outside our own head or immediate circle.

Speaker 1:

So, like if I just learned a new project codename this morning, I might just drop it into an email, assuming everyone gets it, even people in totally different departments.

Speaker 2:

That's a perfect example. And the cost of doing that, the cost of being obscure, isn't trivial. It puts a real burden on the reader.

Speaker 1:

How so.

Speaker 2:

Well, think about those acronyms or jargon, like the source mentions. Using something like D-A-DNSASN might save the writer. What a few keystrokes.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, maybe five seconds.

Speaker 2:

Right, but the reader they might spend many minutes trying to remember what it means Flipping back, getting frustrated. It's a tedious memory task. Or, using jargon like post-stimulus event, when you just mean a tap on the arm.

Speaker 1:

Or assessment word, instead of just saying true or false. It sounds unnecessarily complicated.

Speaker 2:

It does. It makes communication feel like cracking a code instead of sharing information.

Speaker 1:

I've definitely felt that way, reading things sometimes Like I need a secret decoder ring. And it's not always intentional obfuscation, is it?

Speaker 2:

No, often it's just well bad writing stemming from that curse. And here's the kicker Plain language. Simple, clear writing actually takes real effort, real cognitive toil and literary dexterity, as the source puts it.

Speaker 1:

Like that. Dolly Parton quote.

Speaker 2:

Exactly. You wouldn't believe how much it costs to look this cheap. Making something seem effortless and simple for the reader often requires the most skill and effort from the writer.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So mastering style isn't just about grammar points and sounding smart. It's fundamentally about fighting that curse of knowledge.

Speaker 2:

Yes, it's about truly connecting with your audience, making your message, your mission, actually land. You want your words to be like a clear window, not a murky, fogged up piece of glass.

Speaker 1:

Right. So if the curse of knowledge is the big problem, how do we actively build that clear window? Let's get into the principles, the how Our sources talk about adopting what's called classic style.

Speaker 2:

Yes, classic style. The core idea is having a really clear conception of the make-believe world in which you're pretending to communicate.

Speaker 1:

Make-believe world. What does that mean in practice?

Speaker 2:

It's about the stance you take, so like a text message sort of pretends you're having a real-time conversation, right?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it mimics speech.

Speaker 2:

Or a college paper ideally pretends the student knows their stuff, maybe even more than the reader, even if the professor actually knows more. A sermon writer acts as if they are standing in front of a crowd.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so it's about adopting the right persona or context for the communication.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, and the key is that classic style focuses exclusively to treat its subject. It puts aside all the navel-gazing about language itself and just gets straight to the point presenting the world clearly.

Speaker 1:

Like being a clear conduit for the information, and a huge part of that conduit working is understanding syntax, how sentences are actually built. The source uses this idea of tree thinking.

Speaker 2:

Right Tree thinking is a way to visualize how words group together into phrases and phrases into sentences. Every phrase has a core word, a head that determines what kind of phrase it is Like. In married his mother, the verb married is the head making it a verb phrase.

Speaker 1:

And understanding this structure helps avoid problems.

Speaker 2:

It does Because even if you don't consciously diagram sentences anymore, who does? Yeah, your brain processes language using these structures and glitches happen.

Speaker 1:

Like agreement errors where the subject and verb don't match up. I see those a lot.

Speaker 2:

All the time the example given. It sounds plausible, maybe because forces is plural and right next to the verb.

Speaker 1:

But the subject is readiness, which is singular, so it should be, is.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, and tricky ones like that often slip past even good grammar checkers. So you, the writer, need to be vigilant. Another issue is tree blindness with coordinations like lists.

Speaker 1:

Making sure all the branches match.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you wouldn't say he likes running to swim and bikes. You need parallel structure Running, swimming and cycling. Each part needs to fit the same grammatical slot.

Speaker 1:

Okay, that makes sense. What about these left-branching sentences? English usually puts modifiers after the noun right Right-branching.

Speaker 2:

Mostly, yeah. We tend to put the main clause first, but sometimes we use left-branching structures putting modifiers at the beginning, like in Sophocles' play Oedipus married his mother. A short one like that is fine adds variety.

Speaker 1:

But long ones are bad.

Speaker 2:

They can be. Yeah, bushy left branches, as the source calls them, can give the reader a headache. Think of those super long job titles like Anne E and Robert Bass. Professor of Government Michael Sandel.

Speaker 1:

Or trying to explain who my mother's brother's wife's father's cousin is.

Speaker 2:

Exactly. You're forcing the reader to hold way too much information in their working memory before they even get to the main point of the sentence. It's a big problem in headline writing too.

Speaker 1:

And then there are those sentences that just seem designed to trip you up syntactic ambiguities or garden paths, like the horse raced past the barn fell. Ah, the classic garden path, sentence I always thought those were just mistakes, bad grammar. Is it more complicated?

Speaker 2:

It often stems directly from the curse of knowledge. The writer knows what they mean, so they don't see the ambiguity. The horse that was raced past the barn fell.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I see. Or like wanted man to take care of cow that does not smoke or drink.

Speaker 2:

Right, who's not smoking or drinking? The man or the cow? Or this week's youth discussion will be on teen suicide in the church basement. Discussion will be on teen suicide in the church basement. It's ambiguous and, in that case, pretty unfortunate phrasing Psycholinguists actually study how our brains get momentarily derailed by these Fascinating Okay.

Speaker 1:

So we've looked closely at making individual sentences clear. But clear sentences alone aren't enough, are they? You can have perfectly grammatical sentences that still feel messy Totally.

Speaker 2:

That brings us to coherence, the arcs of coherence. Even crystal clear sentences, one after another, can feel choppy, disjointed, unfocused if they don't connect logically.

Speaker 1:

Like that Heron text. Example from the source Exactly.

Speaker 2:

It's a bunch of sentences about Herons, each one perfectly understandable on its own, but together they make no sense. There's no flow, no connection between the ideas. Coherence is about building that smooth pathway for the reader's mind.

Speaker 1:

And one way to do that is with structural parallelism, using the same sentence structure repeatedly.

Speaker 2:

Yes, it's a really powerful technique. When you use a similar grammatical structure, the bare syntactic tree lingers in memory. As the source says, the reader's brain kind of expects it.

Speaker 1:

So when the next phrase fits that same structure, it just slots right in.

Speaker 2:

Effortlessly. It makes the prose feel elegant, rhythmic, sometimes even stirring. Think of famous speeches. They often rely heavily on parallelism for impact.

Speaker 1:

Beyond the structure, though, you also need the ideas. To connect logically right Using connecting words.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. These are the connectives words like and, but. So because, however, therefore, they explicitly signal the relationship between clauses or sentences and because of the curse of knowledge, we probably don't use enough of them. That's the danger. We know how idea A links to idea B in our heads, so we forget. The reader might need an explicit signpost. The advice is, when in doubt, connect. Better to have one too many, therefores, than leave your reader wondering how you got from point A to point B.

Speaker 1:

Okay, that's good practical advice. What about that really old advice? Tell them what you're going to tell them. Then tell them what you told them. Does that fit with this classic style?

Speaker 2:

Ah, the meta discourse advice. It comes from classical rhetoric, mainly for speeches right when the audience can't just rewind or reread.

Speaker 1:

Makes sense for an hour long lecture.

Speaker 2:

But in written classic style which tries to mimic a direct conversation or presentation of a subject. That kind of explicit signposting in this section I will discuss three points can feel really intrusive and, frankly, clunky.

Speaker 1:

So you wouldn't start a conversation saying I am now going to tell you about the woodpecker.

Speaker 2:

Exactly. You'd just say look, there's a woodpecker. The source suggests signposting sparingly, as we do in conversation. Maybe open a section with a guiding question instead of a formal statement of intent.

Speaker 1:

That sounds much more natural. And, finally, under coherence. We need to watch out for pointless repetition and confusing negatives.

Speaker 2:

Right Redundancy, like saying the reason is because the word reason already implies, because it just adds clutter and makes the reader think wait, did I miss something? Is there another reason?

Speaker 1:

They're searching for a second point that isn't there.

Speaker 2:

Exactly. And those tricky misnegations, like no head injury is too trivial to ignore. It takes a second to unpack that double negative to realize it means all head injuries should be taken seriously.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, those definitely require mental speed bump.

Speaker 2:

Negatives work best when they deny something plausible. A whale is not a fish. Ok, that clarifies a common misconception. But saying Vladimir Nabokov never won an Oscar, Well, who thought he did? It's just confusing.

Speaker 1:

Okay, this is great. We've got the why overcoming the curse of knowledge and the how classic style syntax coherence. Now for the payoff what can you, the listener, actually do? The practical steps to apply this and boost your own mastery and mission.

Speaker 2:

Well, the first, maybe most fundamental step comes right back to Strunk and White Omit. Needless words, but actively.

Speaker 1:

Not just passively trimming.

Speaker 2:

Right. Really scrutinize your writing. Look for those phrases that are bloated, that encumber the reader without conveying any content. Read your stuff aloud. If you stumble or run out of breath, that sentence is probably too long and complex.

Speaker 1:

Find shorter ways to say things like is instead of in the event of.

Speaker 2:

Exactly Because, instead of due to the fact that be ruthless with the fluff. Exactly Because, instead of due to the fact that be ruthless with the fluff.

Speaker 1:

And then, when it comes to those grammar rules we talked about, be a smart user, not a blind follower.

Speaker 2:

Precisely. Don't just avoid the passive voice because someone told you to Understand why it exists and when it's useful. Same with other debated points like less versus fewer. Ah yes, the less versus fewer. Minefield, it's mostly pedantry. Ah, yes, the less versus fewer, minefield, it's mostly pedantry. The source points out less is perfectly natural with singular nouns, one less problem or units, fifty words or less, six inches or less. Don't torture your sentences trying to avoid it just because of some zombie rule. Understand the nuance.

Speaker 1:

Okay, permission to relax a bit on that one. What about who versus whom? Still necessary.

Speaker 2:

Again, it's about calibration. Consider the complexity and formality In casual writing, who is often fine, even when whom is technically correct. You might use whom after a preposition in very formal writing to whom it may concern.

Speaker 1:

But maybe not agonize over it in an email.

Speaker 2:

Probably not. Even Shakespeare wasn't always fussed about it. And the rule about not ending sentences with prepositions also often overblown. Focus on ending strongly with important information, not just avoiding a preposition at the end.

Speaker 1:

Good, let's talk punctuation, not just rules, but clarity, right.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely Commas. For instance, If you insert an extra phrase mid-sentence of supplement, it needs commas at both ends, like matching parentheses, not just one before it Like bookends. Exactly and never use a comma splice. Joining two complete sentences with only a comma. It's jarring for the reader a guaranteed garden path. Use a period, a semicolon or rewrite, it's easy to fix.

Speaker 1:

And the great Oxford comma debate. Use it or lose it.

Speaker 2:

The source leans towards using it, the serial comma, think Crosby, stills and Nash. That final comma makes it clear it's three entities. Without it, crosby, stills and Nash could mean Crosby and the duo Stills and Nash. It avoids ambiguity.

Speaker 1:

So default to using it for clarity.

Speaker 2:

And that's the recommendation. And, briefly, quotation marks the American style of putting commas and periods inside the quotes even if they weren't part of the original quote.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that always felt weird to me.

Speaker 2:

It's described as gallingly irrational. It's a relic from typesetting days and can actually prevent you from expressing certain logical distinctions clearly.

Speaker 1:

OK, so lots of practical tips there. Okay, so, lots of practical tips there. But stripping it all back, what's the single most important practical thing you can do to overcome that curse of knowledge and know if your writing actually works?

Speaker 2:

It's simple, really, but crucial. Show a few of them, your intended readers, a draft to see whether she got it right. Get real feedback.

Speaker 1:

Let someone else read it.

Speaker 2:

Yes, you are inherently biased. You know what you meant to say. Only by seeing if others understand it can you truly know if you've succeeded. It's the ultimate reality check, the best way to bypass your own curse of knowledge.

Speaker 1:

That makes perfect sense. So there you have it. Mastering style isn't some mystical art or a rigid rule book. It's about understanding how minds process language, adopting that classic style mindset, tending to the trees of syntax and building arcs of coherence.

Speaker 2:

It's about empathy for your reader, really, and having a clear vision for your message, for your mission.

Speaker 1:

So, as you tackle your next writing task, maybe think about this If good writing creates that clear window onto the world, what specific Maple Leaf world are you trying to invite your reader into?

Speaker 2:

And maybe more pointedly, what assumptions are you making about their knowledge right now? What jargon, what acronym, what hidden rabbit illusion are you expecting them to just get without explanation? Recognizing those assumptions might be the first step toward true mastery.