Preface

Editors, peer-reviewers, lecturers, customers, managers, all these people are readers. But they are not mythical readers: readers with infinite attention, infinite time, infinite memory, and just the right amount of knowledge required to understand your work. They are regular readers, people like you and me, with limited memory, attention, and knowledge.

It took you weeks of effort, years maybe, to understand the topic you are writing on. Your readers have hours, minutes maybe to understand you. Yes, they are in a hurry. They have always been in a hurry. Case in point, in 1905 Professor Clifford Allbutt wrote, “At present few people have time to wade through pages and pages of discursive and ill explained writings on the off chance that they may ultimately light on an interesting result.”

Writing that reads fast, reads well, and interests, is not straightforward. It requires design. Your writing is an intellectual product consumed by the mind of a reader. You are its designer and ‘mindufacturer’. Ask yourself how good your skills are in product design? Do you know how much writing consumes in reader memory and attention? Do you know how a reader reconstructs meanings from words? In short, do you know about reading and readers?

The book includes 130 examples to illustrate the design principles of reader-centered writing. A hundred plus examples will help you understand what distinguishes good from bad writing. With that knowledge and with the tools described in the tools chapter, you will be able to evaluate your own writing.

The book also includes 25 “swimming” exercises, some in shallow pools, some in deep pools. Get your feet wet. One does not learn swimming by watching others swim! Discover your writing style. Find out what does not read well. In short, be your own copy-editor.

I added six stories to make reading this book more story-like, plus a chapter with more than fifty multiple choice questions to test your knowledge. Finally, I made sure that the book’s readability score is low enough to be accessible to all, and in particular to non-native English writers. I am who you are. I know how difficult it is to write clearly. This book is also written for you.

There is no need to read this book linearly. I do recommend you read the first two chapters, and then, jump directly to a chapter that best corresponds to your needs. Your writing is complex? Start with the chapter on memory. Your writing is dull? Start with the chapter on attention. Your writing is unclear? Start with the chapter on knowledge. Your writing is choppy, lacks fluidity? Start with the chapter on expectations. Your writing is unconvincing? Start with the chapter on persuasion. Your visuals are complex, ineffective? Start with the chapter on visuals. Or Enjoy them all!

Newton had his giants. He saw further afield by standing on their shoulders. My giants are Dr. George Gopen, and Dr. Don Norman. Dr Gopen is Professor Emeritus of the Practice of Rhetoric at Duke University. His book “Expectations, Teaching Writing from the Reader’s Perspective,” opened my eyes to a new fluid way of writing. Dr. Donald Norman is the director of the design lab at the University of California San Diego. His design principles expounded in “The Psychology of Everyday Things,” helped me understand that writing is an intellectual product that needs design to reach its full potential. We, the writers, have to go beyond the design principles promoted by Apple—What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG), i.e., what is on the printed page looks identical to what is on the computer screen. We must make sure that what is on the printed page is understood by our readers as clearly as we understand it ourselves.

For that, we need to THINK READER.

Jean-Luc Lebrun