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What makes one sentence easy to read and another a slog that demands rereading? Where do you put information you want readers to recall? What about details you need to reveal but want readers to forget? Drawing on cognitive neuroscience, psychology, and psycholinguistics, this book provides a practical guide on how to write for your reader. Its chapters introduce the five 'Cs' of writing – clarity, continuity, coherence, concision, and cadence – and demonstrate how to use these features to bring your writing to life. This science-based guide also shows you how to improve your writing while also making the writing process speedier and more efficient. Brimming with examples, this humorous, surprisingly irreverent book provides writers with the tools they need to master everything from an email to a research project. If you believe good writers are simply born that way, Writing for the Reader's Brain will change your mind – and, quite possibly, your life.

Summary

Because sentences in English have gaps between them, we read more slowly and laboriously when sentences lack explicit linguistic or logical ties between them. Continuity involves using tools to make sentences seem tightly coupled, including transitions, sequencing, and common wording. However, continuity principles also enable writers to showcase important information by placing it in a sentence’s stress position. Similarly, long sentences can prove difficult to read because so little information receives stress, and so much detail can fall into the “dead zone” of sentences where readers’ recall is weakest.

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Writing for the Reader's Brain

3 - Continuity

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2 results

Writing for the Reader's Brain

3 - Continuity

Summary