Is your writing in need of a diet?
It is really hard to write good texts. The reason some academic prose is so hard to read is because it is too ‘heavy’: it has too many passives, prepositions, adjectives and other complex grammar constructions. In short: it needs to lose weight!
Helen Sword – Professor and Director of the Centre for Learning and Research in Higher Education at Auckland University – has a simple test on her website test to find out if your writing is fit. Click here for the test.
Helen Sword explains the limitations of the test but also illustrates that some grammar constructions are really very hard to read. The test will be explicit and clear.
Let me know: are your texts in need of losing weight?
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