In all your professional writing, you need to convey not only your intended message but also that you are indeed a professional. No matter if you are writing a research manuscript, a grant application, a journal cover letter, a job application letter, an academic essay, or a work email, you you need to sound like a knowledgeable writer, an effective communicator, and a professional in your field. Your text has to be easy to read and understand, while not annoying or offending the reader in any way. Especially if there is a limit on the number of words allowed (eg, in journal manuscripts), you need to concisely say what you mean, mean what you say, and not be mean in what you say.
Make every word count
Paul Grice is well known in linguistics for developing four overlapping principles that govern effective and cooperative conversations. The same principles, summarized below, also apply to professional writing:
(1) Quantity: being informative and not saying too much or too little
(2) Quality: being truthful and presenting information that is supported by evidence
(3) Relevance: being relevant at all times
(4) Manner: being clear, concise, orderly, and unambiguous
The four principles cover both content and style. Not following one or more of these principles will annoy the reader and make the writer seem unprofessional and uncooperative. Mastering all four principles takes a lot of practice, patience, reflection, and editing. Getting feedback from a native English-speaking professional editor or researcher will also help.
Academic writing uses semiformal style with language that is clear, concise, precise, and logical. The writer also has to be sensitive to the typical reader's level of knowledge and the writing conventions of the international research community. Here are some ineffective sentences from a fictitious introduction section of a manuscript, with comments:
(1) This is the introduction of this present research article. This introduction will first introduce the context and background of this present research article and then explain what one of the many knowledge gaps in the field is, as a prelude to outlining what the current study aimed to achieve in order to fill that specific knowledge gap in the field.
[The principle of quantity is not followed. The text is too long, repetitive, and does not say anything useful. Researchers will already know how a manuscript's introduction is structured, and they expect to immediately read useful content.]
(2) Gricean principles can be violated while preserving communicative effectiveness. Here, we analyzed such violations.
[The principle of quantity is not followed. More details are needed. The first sentence needs to name the principles; the second sentence needs more information about the study context, design, and aim. Some bridge sentences are needed to justify why the study is needed.]
(3) The four Gricean conversational principles (quantity, quality, relevance, and manner) can sometimes be violated for special effect. Even young children can notice such violations.
[The principle of quality is not followed. Evidence is needed to support the claim made in the second sentence.]
(4) The four Gricean conversational principles (quantity, quality, relevance, and manner) can sometimes be violated for special effect. However, spellchecking tools are not 100% accurate.
[The principle of relevance is not followed. The two sentences are unrelated.]
(5) The four Gricean conversational principles (quantity, quality, relevance, and manner) can sometimes be violated for special effect. Although amusing, we discourage it in research reporting.
[The principle of manner is not followed in the second sentence, which is ambiguous. What "it" refers to is unclear, "we" could refer to either the general community or specifically the authors, and "amusing" sounds like it refers to "we".]
Be civil in your writing
Robyn Lakoff and Geoffrey Leech also introduced conversational principles related to politeness. To sound professional, authors need to be concise and direct but also respectful to readers as well as authors whose work may be criticized in the text. There is some overlap with the Gricean principles. For example:
(1) The four Gricean conversational principles (quantity, quality, relevance, and manner) can sometimes be violated for special effect. However, don't you ever do this in your research articles!
[The second sentence is impolite and also does not follow the principle of quantity (too short). Journal manuscript authors usually do not refer to the reader as "you" or give direct commands, avoid informal language such as contracted forms (don't), and avoid exclamation marks/points.]
(2) The four Gricean conversational principles (quantity, quality, relevance, and manner) can sometimes be violated for special effect. Such violations are not recommended in research article writing. However, X et al (2018) decided to ignore academic convention and irresponsibly confused the whole world with their use of sarcasm in their article; that was really professional of them. Here, we assessed the usefulness of teaching Grice's principles in a postgraduate writing class.
[The third sentence is impolite and does not follow the principles of quantity (too long), quality (subjectivity, exaggeration in "whole world", saying the opposite to be sarcastic at the end of the sentence), relevance (breaks the flow of the text), and manner (personal attacks as part of an argument is a poor logical strategy).]
Brush up your grammar
Using incorrect grammar can make a writer seem unprofessional and careless. It can also obscure the intended meaning and can say the wrong thing by mistake, thereby violating the principles of quality and manner.
(1) The participant said the picture she had drawn showed her parents, Barack Obama and Michelle Obama.
[There is a missing comma before "and", so the list currently implies the Obamas are the participant's parents; adding a comma would clarify that the participant drew four people, not two. The sentence violates the principle of manner (ambiguity) and possibly quality (falseness).]
(2) As participant 1 drew her parents, participant 2 also drew her parents.
["As" has several meanings, including "because" (describing the reason) and "at the same time that" (describing the timing). It is also unclear who the second "her" refers to: participant 1 or 2 (did participant 2 draw her own parents or participant 1's parents?). This sentence needs to be rewritten because it has multiple meanings and violates the principle of manner (ambiguity) and possibly quality (falseness).]
The Edanz website contains many tips in its resource center, Edanz Academy, to help you improve your grammar and writing, including the following grammar tips:
There is also a free online course, the Edanz Author Academy.
Good luck, and please let us know if you have any questions on professional writing.
Dr Trevor Lane
Education and Engagement Consultant
Edanz Group
tlane@edanzgroup.com
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