McCloskey on How to Write Well
“People often excuse bad writing by saying that they know what they mean, and simply have difficulty expressing it. That is nonsense. If you cannot state a preposition clearly and unambiguously, you do not understand it. I took that lesson to heart. I learned that trying to write something clearly and unambiguously was the best way to find errors and omissions in my reasoning and clarify my own thought.
It was in a letter to Gary Becker in May 1955, when I was in Britain, referring to a draft of his thesis that he had sent to me: “Nine times out of ten, I wrote after criticizing his exposition, sloppy writing reflects (and advertises) sloppy thinking.”
Book recommendation of the day- Economical Writing, Thirty-Five Rules for Clear and Persuasive Prose by McCloskey, Deirdre;
Good writers, that is, write self-critically and honestly, trying to say what they mean. Sometimes you’ll discover in the writing that what looked persuasive when floating vaguely in your mind looks exceptionally foolish when moored to the page. You’ll discover, too, truths you didn’t know you had. Annie Dillard says in The Writing Life, “When you write, you lay out a line of words. The line of words is a miner’s pick, a woodcarver’s gouge, a surgeon’s probe. You wield it, and it digs a path you follow. Soon you find yourself deep in new territory… . The writing has changed, in your hands, and in a twinkling, from an expression of your notions to an epistemological tool” (1989, 3).
Writing resembles mathematics. Mathematics is a language, an instrument of communication. But so too language is a mathematics, an instrument of thought.
Related:
Strunk & White: 50 years of stupid grammar advice?
Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing