Workshop: Writing for clarity and grace

[ Note: this was a writing workshop that I gave in CUHK. The slides of the workshop are available here. ]

Abstract: This is a hands-on workshop on English writing. I will show you some concrete examples of how different writing styles can have very different effects on your readers. For example, compare the following two sentences:

A) Better evaluation of responses to treatment modalities depends on the standardization of an index allowing accurate descriptions of learning disorder behaviors.

B) We could better evaluate how those with learning disorders respond to treatment if we could standardize an index that accurately describes how they behave.

Which one do you like better? Why? There are some principles that help you write in one style but not the other. Please come to the workshop and I will show you what these principles are.

Related Readings (Articles):

Felicia Brittman, The most common habits from more than 200 English papers written by graduate Chinese engineering students (PDF file here)

R.T. Compton, Jr., Fourteen Steps to a Clearly Written Technical Paper, IEEE Circuits & Devices Magazine, September, 1992 (PDF file is available here)

Related Readings (Books):

Joseph M. Williams, Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace

William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White, The Elements of Style

Michael Swan, Practical English Usage

Lyn Dupre, BUGS in Writing: A Guide to Debugging Your Prose