Three senses of "conversational" writing

[Builds on What is classic prose?: "Clear and Simple as the Truth” reinterpreted through construal-level theory]

Writing advice confuses when it extols ambiguous virtues such as being “conversational,” a term that might identify a manner of writing by any of three characteristics: stylistic similarity to conversation, stylistic suitability for conversation, and conversational aim. Whether a writer ought to strive for conversationality depends on the term’s intended sense and the writer’s purpose.

1. Similarity to ideal conversation: Ideal conversation is not ideal writing.

Conversation fundamentally differs from writing in its reliance on nonverbal cues. Ideal conversation is more fluent than ideal writing because of conversation’s reliance on the nonverbal: where less needs be explicit, its cognitive load should be smaller. Ideal classic and practical writing will lack the fluency of ideal conversation.

2. Suitability as conversation: Ideal written sentences might be ideal conversation.

Sentences utterly unsuitable for conversation because they can’t be parsed in one hearing do not conform to any established contemporary style. Although most writers should avoid sentences that require rereading due to their structural and semantic complexity, even this advice is conditional. Past styles have been influential where the sentences demand rereading, for example, Samuel Johnson’s (Preface to Shakespeare):

That praises are without reason lavished on the dead, and that the honors due only to excellence are paid to antiquity, is a complaint likely to be always continued by those, who, being able to add nothing to truth, hope for eminence from the heresies of paradox: or those, who, being forced by disappointment upon consolatory expedients, are willing to hope from posterity what the present age refuses, and flatter themselves that the regard which is yet denied by envy, will be at last bestowed by time. (From Thomas and Turner, "Clear and Simple as the Truth" at p. 15.)

3. Conversational aim: Only some writings should have conversational aims.

Writing styles taking a far-mode stance—styles which are “deeply” formal—can nonetheless seem conversational if they deal with opinion rather than belief by working through the intellectual issues and then presenting the results from a detached perspective. This form of conversationality is correctly prized, but it isn’t universally applicable. The practical style, ideal for a brief’s argument section, generally won’t sound conversational, even in this sense, because the legal-practical style typically requires describing the main results found in judicial opinions, not working through intellectual issues.

What is classic prose?: "Clear and Simple as the Truth” reinterpreted through construal-level theory

The book

Writing is only good or bad relative to the author's tacit stance on deep questions like whether truth is knowable, according to Francis-Noel Thomas and Mark Turner in their contrarian book, Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose (2nd ed. 2011). While no style is in an absolute sense better than another, they propose to explain and teach the style “classic prose,” which they recommend for its perpetual reinvention as the instrument of choice for broad influence.

Although written mostly in classic style, the book itself is in ways disappointingly unclassic. Rather than creating an elegantly seamless work as the classic style encourages, the book is divided into three unequal parts: the Essay (captivating), the Museum (repetitious), and the Studio (painfully dull; for starter, describe a visual scene orally to a friend). 

My reinterpretation

Fortunately, construal-level theory affords insight into the mental states of writer and reader that can bypass the Studio's tedious exercises. From construal-level theory, I’ve adapted the distinction between writing that is self-contained, nuanced, and impartial (far-mode and “deeply formal”) and writing that is context dependent, simplified, and overt (near-mode and “deeply” informal). That distinction pertains to the author’s stance; another distinction pertains to the objective: influential writing might present the author’s independent thinking and seek to change the reader’s opinion or describe his considered belief, dependent on what others opine. Opinion is near-mode and is related to the words agents say to themselves in self-justification; belief is far-mode and is applied more often to others than to oneself.

The relevant styles for legal writing that Thomas and Turner present are those that respect the Writing Virtues, Clarity and Concision. The chart below depicts the relevant styles—plain, practical, and classic—each derived from a combination of the level at which the author construes the message (STANCE) and its aim (TARGET).

The difference between practical style and classic style is that practical style addresses belief and it aims, accordingly, to persuade; whereas the classic style addresses opinion and aims to convince. Thomas and Turner consider the in-house legal memorandum addressed to a superior prototypical practical style, and legal briefs, too, are mainly written in that style. The practical style in legal application doesn’t hesitate to be explicitly argumentative because the legal advocate can’t hide his partiality, as required by the classic style. Yet the more classical a brief can be made, the better; the classic style is the most effective for changing opinion. A brief must address the judge’s beliefs by citing authorities, but it will accomplish the most reliable results by reaching further to the judge’s personal impressions. Often, the facts section can be written in classic style.

Where the practical style and the classic style differ from the plain style is in their self-contained deep formality. This detachment and distance is key to writing intending to be influential—whether convincing or merely persuasive—and the progressively duller second and third parts of the book attempt to teach it by having the reader master and extend the “classic visual scene,” which consists of equal conversationalists viewing the same surroundings with reciprocal knowledge of their common perceptions. The presentation of this scene, without the unarticulated gaps that pervade near-mode communication, amounts to approaching composition in far-mode. The plain style, often purveyed as the model for contemporary writers, imitates near-mode communication and lacks the detached explicitness and nuance of far-mode communication.

My advice

If you can move your legal writing toward classic prose, you will improve it, but classic prose is difficult to produce because it adapts a far-mode stance to the representation of near-mode thought, allowing its dispassionate exploration. This is unnatural to perform because in relating our opinions we naturally assume a rich, shared context. But for influential writing, classic prose ranks highest on the Writing Virtues, as this chart depicts.

The pattern above is that as the style comes to invoke an increasingly far-mode stance the writing becomes less fluent but more cohesive and selectively omissive. Near-mode thought is capable of superior articulation into parts, but far-mode affords the superior sense of a cohesive whole and inattention to the incidental. The plain to classic dimension trades off fluency for cohesion and omission, and for influential writing addressed to serious, interested readers this advances both Writing Virtues.

My conclusion

Some commentators lay great stress on the deceptiveness of the classic style, which conveys false tacit assumptions, such as the flattering appraisal that the reader is truly interested in finding truth. Construal-level theory implies these conventions are idealizations, employed by far-mode to grasp the essential and exclude the distracting. Idealization is emblematic of far-mode cognition. Thomas and Turner contend that all styles have characteristic epistemological stands, but construal-level theory implies that that idealizations aren’t as prominent in near-mode writing styles.

[Developed further in Three senses of "conversational" writing.]

Verbosity affronts the court

An attorney’s pomposity affronts the court, transgressing a status formality. Since verbosity is a signal for pompous arrogance, it damages attorneys’ credibility—and their cases—more than the profession recognizes.

The social function of pomposity

To identify and understand the phenomenon of pomposity, one must know its social function, which I find no one has addressed. Signaling theory, a hybrid of economics, game theory, and evolutionary psychology, is the analytic tool of choice for discerning what people are really trying to accomplish when they’re pompous. People signal to demonstrate possession of an otherwise invisible high-status trait, using behavior that would be too costly to display if they lacked the trait. A classic example is conspicuous consumption. Owning a huge house confers status because it signals that the owner is rich enough to afford it.

Its link to evolutionary psychology takes signaling beyond Thorstein Veblen’s conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure. What makes signals (like owning a big house) effective is not so much their present correlation with status but the correlation in humankind’s evolutionary history. Evolutionary psychology proposes that status is conferred by traits that would make an individual a powerful ally.

Under the signaling framework, pomposity is a costly signal because self-important displays by one unimportant discredits the signaler as a liar. One’s fellows in the primal human environment of bands and tribes could easily discover such exaggeration. Today, the barriers to ascertaining reputation make pomposity both harder to discredit and less convincing. These limitations render pomposity a somewhat desperate gamble by persons who feel undervalued.

Verbosity and pomposity

If the link between pomposity and power is instinctual, so must be the means of expressing pompous arrogance. Verbosity, I contend, signals arrogance because of a deep connection between claims to power and consumption of time and space. The connection can be seen in body language: adolescents wanting to suggest they have the power to resist adult coercion, for example, will assume a posture that occupies as much space as possible, sprawling over their chairs. More controversially, you may also notice that the severely obese are apt to be narcissistic and power-oriented. Analogously, the pompous will consume ten minutes to make a banal ten-second point.

Verbosity, to be sure, isn’t always or even usually caused by pomposity. More often, it’s the result of poor writing skills or lack of grasp of the subject matter, but a strong correlation isn’t necessary when the impressions rest on an instinctual basis.

Succinct writing avoids affront

Adverse repercussions follow for the verbose legal-brief writer. Verbosity is an implied challenge to the court’s status because 1) it signals a claim to power and importance and 2) it does so at the expense of the court’s time. Recall that burdening the court to the attorney’s personal advantage breaches a status formality. The court will perceive verbosity as self-promotion achieved at the court’s expense—in time and, ultimately, in status.

Most criticism of verbosity concerns its shortcomings as communication, but the unconsciously experienced violation of a status formality represents a still greater threat to a brief’s favorable reception. 

A comma puzzle: The false-interjection error

If you enjoy puzzles about the comma—and who doesn’t?—here’s an elegant but very difficult one, courtesy of Daily Writing Tips where Mark Nichol proved it’s difficult indeed by getting it wrong, as did my wife, a short-story author with a postgraduate degree in English. But it’s not impossibly hard, since the first commenter on Mark’s blog got it exactly right. (I’ll delay the link so you can try it.)

In the form I’ll use, the puzzle requires you to choose the two correct versions:

Version 1. Residents decide driving, and shorter trips to places like Canada are safer options.
Version 2. Residents decide driving and shorter trips, to places like Canada, are safer options.
Version 3. Residents decide driving, and shorter trips to places like Canada, are safer options.
Version 4. Residents decide driving and shorter trips to places like Canada are safer options.

My wife chose Version 4 alone.

Mark Nichol chose Version 3 and Version 4.

The correct answer is Version 2 and Version 4 (with Version 2 the more likely intended meaning).

Everyone agrees that Version 4 is correct; the questions are why does Mark erroneously think Version 3 is also correct and why does my wife fail to recognize that Version 2 is correct? Mark’s explanation supports my previous claim that among grammatically literate writers the most important comma errors derive from or at least implicate grammar errors. My grander claim is that comma errors create useless cognitive disfluencies, since they affect the reader’s grammatical parsing. In fields like brief writing, where the highest levels of clarity are advantageous, repeated comma errors—even if they’re subtle or controversial—summate to undermine Clarity.

Mark’s reasoning expresses a more straightforward error in grammatical analysis than the error I analyzed in The fundamental error of comma usage, as Mark claims that the string, and shorter trips to places like Canada, in Version 3, is an interjection, but an interjection (like Oh!) is grammatically isolated from the rest of the sentence. If the string were an interjection, the clause’s verb, are safer options, should be singular rather than plural. Since there’s no way to punctuate the sentence to make the verb singular, the italicized string, which must form part of its clause’s subject, can’t be an interjection.

But Version 2 is the correct answer if you’re allowed only one choice. The difference from Version 4  is that to places like Canada is a restrictive modifier in Version 4 and a descriptive modifier in Version 2, and the descriptive meaning is more probable. Read closely, Version 4 advises shorter Canadian trips, whereas the writer almost surely intended to advise limiting the length not just of trips to Canada (and similar places) but trips in general.  

Emphasis by brevity of sentences, paragraphs, and sections

To emphasize an idea, put it in a short sentence. To emphasize a sentence, put it in a short paragraph. To emphasize a paragraph, put it in a short section. In general,

Readers will give information relative emphasis in inverse proportion to its density.

I haven’t seen this principle articulated, and it only became apparent to me through the lens of construal-level theory; although the tip to use very short sentences for occasional emphasis is a commonplace, to use long sentences for de-emphasis isn’t. That the principle hasn’t been generalized might be because the effect is often subtle: it is only one of at least five means of emphasis, but a more interesting reason that the effect has gone unnoticed will emerge, in that the construal processes explaining emphasis by brevity also explain why writers aren’t apt to notice.

I’ll begin with an example at the sentence level. Compare this very long sentence to the constituent propositions:

With capitalism’s evolution, a decreasing proportion of the value produced is constituted of labor directly employed, an increasing proportion from labor already concretized in capital goods, since mechanization of production is the fundamental means to increasing economic efficiency, where capital goods contribute to the value of a product to the extent they are consumed in its production. (Context: Juridical Coherence.)

The simple ideas the sentence contains, such as that mechanization of production is the fundamental means to increasing economic efficiency, are commonplace ideas others have expounded at length. To subordinate their importance to the ideas I deemed novel, I demoted them by including them in one complex sentence.

Construal-level theory explains why emphasis by brevity works, by the low granularity of far-mode. The theory predicts and experiments find that reading occurs in far-mode, whereas writing occurs in near-mode (I conclude that the latter is lamentable), where far-mode apprehends in global units as we see from afar. In far-mode, each sentence has equal value; the more thoughts occurring in a sentence, the less the relative value of each. The theory also explains why emphasis by relative brevity isn’t common knowledge. Even while writing in far-mode, the writer is nearer his work than the reader because the self-other axis is a major dimension of construal level, and in near-mode, the longer sentence is more important than the shorter, rather than the reverse—near-mode adds when far-mode averages.

The phenomenon of emphasis by brevity confirms some standard writing advice and rebuts other standard advice. Commentators have expressed surprise at the degree to which variation in sentence length improves comprehension, suggesting more is at work than maintaining interest by variety. Varying sentence length makes writing clear by informing the reader how important the writer regards each component idea.

The misguided advice includes limiting sentences to one idea, implying writers should avoid compound sentences (and semicolons). Compound sentences serve to de-emphasize the ideas they contain, so their avoidance sacrifices emphatic contrast. Other misguided advice concerns paragraphs. Consistently short paragraphs have the same leveling effect on importance as consistently short sentences. And routine use of separate paragraphs for transitions between paragraphs is bad practice because the merely transitional usually doesn’t merit emphasis.

For a document’s sections, one all-too-common practice gravely offends against construal-level theory. A conclusion is almost mandatory in legal briefs and is necessarily short, but nonetheless, the emphasis it receives is often bestowed on a platitude with an initial “whereas,” in all caps no less. The better practice is to reserve a memorable idea for the short concluding section.

Emphasis by typography

Attorneys often use boldface (and italics) to emphasize arguments, an overdone practice if it should be done at all. Yet typographical emphasis seems effective in blog writing. Exploring the reason for the difference might help refine the usage of typographical emphasis in briefs—or preclude it.

Bloggers use typographical emphasis effectively to highlight key claims, but claims are rarely key in a legal brief. Blog writing is an exercise in originality of conception, so it’s incumbent on the blogger to draw attention to those original conclusions, whereas legal briefing should seek to minimize the appearance of being original. What warrants emphasis in briefs is argument, not conclusion. Succinct conclusions are easily emphasized. But every part of an argument is equally important objectively, and which part is most important subjectively depends on the reader, so emphasizing part of an argument typographically creates a sense of non sequitur, since the bolded argument doesn't pull its weight. Various parts of the argument are more important for different readers, the emphasized passage or words miscuing them. Typography is too crude a technique for emphasizing parts of an argument, which must display the precise relationships among its parts in nuanced fashion.

Legal writers usefully emphasize headings typographically, but bolded headings must function as headings if they are to avoid the heavy-handedness of bolding parts of arguments. Rather than state part of the following argument, they should summarize or describe the section of text they govern.

There’s also a more speculative reason why bolding body text might always be a bad idea for legal briefs: it may subtly offend the judge by violating a status formality, an informal rule designed to protect the judge’s status. One of the common demands of rules of status formality in courtrooms is that lawyers must always avoid making their own work easier at the expense of making the judge’s work harder. Since it is actually a bit harder to read boldface than roman text, this status formality might apply, the author having other means of emphasis that don’t burden the judge. 

Avoiding irrelevance and dilution: Construal-level theory, the endowment effect, and the art of omission

Deciding what to omit (omission) is one of three fundamental writing skills—besides fluency and cohesiveness—supporting the two major Writing Virtues: Clarity and Concision. Although omission is a sophisticated skill not acquirable through panaceas, it is unique among the three fundamental skills because a single roadblock causes most of the congestion. The roadblock is the writer’s innate aversion to deletion; the aversion derives from a universal cognitive bias called loss aversion, meaning we’d rather maintain the status quo than bet a significant amount on the flip of a coin. (See D. Kahneman, Thinking, fast and slow (2011).) The most dramatic expression of loss aversion is the endowment effect: owners will sell property only at a much higher price than they would pay to acquire it. Loss aversion explains an impressive part of wordy or irrelevant writing because it makes adding matter easier than deleting it.

Construal-level theory is a theory about decision and judgment that explains loss aversion and teaches us how to avoid it in writing. Construal-level theory deals with the biases the distinction between practice and theory introduces into our thinking. When our objectives are immediate, the information available rich, and time bountiful, we analyze in a way of thinking called near-mode, which uses high-grain, concrete concepts and attends to incidental features. When our objectives are long-term and the information or time scant, we analyze in a way of thinking called far-mode, which uses low-grain, abstract concepts and focuses on the essential.

Construal-level theory furnishes an explanation of loss aversion and the endowment effect. (D. Kahneman, supra.) Consider a standard example of the endowment effect: a holder of concert tickets costing $50, the most the concert-goer would have paid, refuses to sell for $300. More usually, we value property about twice as much just because we happen to own it already. Construal-level theory explains loss aversion by the tendency to give greater importance to the near than the far. Analogously, we over-value what we’ve written because it’s near, and we’re loathe to part with it.

Construal-level theory has unearthed another source of our reluctance to cut inferior matter: the audience reads in far-mode, which is global, but legal writers often compose it in near-mode, which is sequential. The consequence is that the audience averages the quality of the documents’ parts, whereas the writer is apt to add their quality, meaning that, for the audience, subpar arguments detract from overall quality but, to the writer, they may seem to increase the quality. (K. Weaver et al., The presenter's paradox (Oct. 2012) 39 Journal of Consumer Research 445 [Hat Tip: Overcoming Bias].)

Construal-level theory provides insights to help writers overcome the biases implicated in writing in near-mode for an audience reading in far-mode. Writing systems involving different roles for the author, such as the roles of writer and editor, serve to vary the author’s mode. Specifically for brief writing, Bryan Garner has advanced a more elaborate system of roles, which are distinctively near and far. (B. Garner, The winning brief (1999) at p. 3) The chart below displays the Flowers roles, their typical activities, and the mode mainly engaged.

Flowers-paradigm role	Typical activities	Mode from construal-level theory
Madman	Brainstorming, “Deep thought,” background research	Far
Architect	Outlining, planning, detailed research	Near
Carpenter	Primary writing	Far
Judge	Editing, proofreading	Near

Madman is far because it encourages intuition, a far-mode product. (See G. Gigerenzer, Gut feelings: The Intelligence of the unconscious (2008).) Architect is near-mode because it accentuates logical relationships, which depend heavily on sequencing, a near-mode activity. Carpenter is far-mode because it attempts to make ideas intelligible to others. Judge is near-mode because it involves close reading for error.

The alternation of phases is powerfully effective in engaging both modes without causing the mutual interference to which they are prone when combined simultaneously. It is so effective that the modes can be seen to alternate within roles. Although Madman is predominantly far-mode, it includes periods of near-mode activity, such as close reading of selected cases. Judge, although mostly near-mode, may include far-mode phases, such as hearing the document read aloud. Carpenter and Architect usually alternate more than once, because Carpenter excels at abstraction and Architect at sequencing.

Construal-level theory offers far-mode as the remedy for excess. Because of the relationship between the endowment effect and near-mode, cutting excess is performed most effectively in far-mode, and typical problems in legal writing occur when lawyers compose their briefs in near-mode, often because they write their briefs while they read cases closely. The result is not only the absence of the big picture but also an accumulation of excess. To avoid much of this excess, learn to write in far-mode, and master the research in near-mode in the Architect phase.

Some common advice is misguided because it contributes to excess. Writers are often instructed to be Madmen in the Carpenter role, but although both Madman and Carpenter are far-mode, Carpenter provides the opportunity to pare down irrelevant matter generated in the Madman phase, and the advice to suspend the critic when doing primary writing sacrifices the main opportunity to trim excess. This shouldn’t be left to the Judge, as editing is a near-mode activity, and among the errors the Judge isn’t good at correcting is excess. The erroneous advice comes from seeing an alternation between writer and critic rather than between near-mode and far-mode.

Both far-mode phases are good for trimming excess, as the writer can take steps to stem excess in the Madman role despite heeding the advice to suspend the critic. Although this advice applies to Madman, not to Carpenter, when applied to Madman it admits critical comments. To take advantage of the Madman to combat excess, treat critical ideas related to scope and breadth just as you would any other ideas. If you’re brainstorming, if you think you’ve come up with an idea of doubtful relevance, you should note that thought alongside the idea itself. Having added exclusion as an idea, you will later be unable to avoid discarding one idea or the other, the marginal thought itself and the imperative to disregard it. Therefore, near-mode’s reluctance to part with sentences will resist rejecting the idea to discard as much as it resists rejecting the idea itself.

Uncomfortable ideas and disfluent expression affect us similarly

Cognitive fluency

Integrating the research on cognitive fluency and cognitive dissonance can enrich our understanding of the cognitive strain (or excessive disfluency) produced by convoluted expression. I’ve extensively discussed  research on cognitive fluency-disfluency, whose basic lesson is that when a message is understood effortlessly it is more believable. Daniel Kahneman in his landmark work in cognitive psychology, Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011) at pp. 62 – 64, provides the following advice on minimizing cognitive strain in persuasive writing:

• Maximize legibility.
• Do not use complex language when simpler language will do.
• Make the message memorable.
• Choose sources with names that are easy to pronounce.

Cognitive dissonance

The term now part of the vernacular, cognitive dissonance, a social-psychology research program started by Leon Festinger in 1956, refers to our aversion to disharmonious ideas, but there’s unfortunately no quick way to understand what disharmonizes ideas. You have to grasp the concept from key experiments. I present two, displaying the breadth of the cognitive-dissonance concept:

In the “$1 and $20 experiment,” subjects performed a boring task, which they understood as the experiment’s real purpose, and they then sought to persuade another subject to participate on the ground that the experience was interesting. One group was offered $1 and the other $20 for their persuasive efforts (today’s values would be inflated by a factor of 7.5). Both groups subsequently evaluated the boring task’s enjoyability. The then-surprising result, as Festinger predicted, was that the subjects receiving $1 rated the boring task more interesting than did the subjects receiving $20. The counter-intuitiveness of the results is what made cognitive dissonance the most popular research program in social psychology in the 1960s: under the reigning reinforcement theory, the subjects in the $20 condition should have rated the task more interesting, since they were reinforced (rewarded) more for claiming it was interesting. Festinger had predicted the results by reasoning that the subjects in the $1 condition would experience more cognitive dissonance due to the disharmoniousness  between the two beliefs: 1) they had misrepresented a boring task and 2) they had done it for a mere dollar.

In another study, Festinger observed a group of fanatics who believed the end of the world was nigh and sought to prepare for it. When the world didn’t end, rather than relinquish their belief, they elaborated and deepened it by explaining away the disconfirmation and becoming yet more fanatical. To make their beliefs more harmonious, they construed the apparent disconfirmation as confirmation.

While my concern is to apply cognitive-dissonance research to cognitive strain, which is directly relevant to writing persuasively, cognitive fluency also clarifies cognitive dissonance, needing clarification because defining the harmoniousness that reduces dissonance is elusive. Social psychologist Eliot Aronson had proposed that cognitive dissonance comes from conflicts with self-concept, but recent research hasn’t supported this interpretation: choices affect beliefs even when the earlier beliefs are forgotten. (See Coppin et. al, I'm No Longer Torn after Choice: How Explicit Choices Implicitly Shape Preferences for Odors (2010) Psychological Science 21(4) 489 ‒ 493.) Cognitive-fluency theory suggests that disharmonious (dissonant) beliefs are beliefs whose understanding takes effort. They are disfluent beliefs, although the disfluency arises not from the manner of expression, as in cognitive-fluency research, but from the content of the beliefs.

Just as cognitive disfluency is useful in persuasion, so is cognitive dissonance, although the uses of dissonance, like those of disfluency, have been largely overlooked. To discourage the error of ignoring dissonance’s uses, I’ll offer a few obvious examples supporting the position that just as there’s an optimal level of fluency, so there’s an optimal level of dissonance needed to maintain a reader’s interest. It’s well known that skilled readers of fiction prefer complex to simple characters; paradox can be useful in exposition; and implausible beliefs and even logical contradiction have helped make religions popular—as with the Trinity doctrine.

Lessons for persuasive writing

Now for what cognitive dissonance research implies about cognitive fluency. The research on cognitive dissonance conceives it as a drive to reduce an unpleasant arousal state: we’re motivated to reduce dissonance. (Kiesler and Pallak, Arousal properties of dissonance manipulations (1976) Psychological Bulletin, 83(6), 1014 ‒ 1025.) Cognitive-fluency researchers haven’t considered the motivation behind the preference for cognitive ease, but if cognitive-dissonance reduction is due to the motive that also enhances the believability of fluent messages, that has lessons for writers. The difference is that cognitive strain's unpleasantness motivates the reader to reject the disfluent expression, not only to find the fluent more credible. The analogy to cognitive dissonance suggests that when we disbelieve the disfluent, it’s because believing the disfluent is uncomfortable. Since we must believe to understand, unpleasant affect associated with the effort to understand prejudices the reader against the proposition itself even when it’s later expressed clearly.

The implication is that persuasive writers should avoid unwarranted disfluencies even when they're immediately clarified. If a concept is hard to understand without examples, prematurely presented conceptualizations undermine subsequent understanding. It's better to introduce the examples before the proposition they support.

Cognitive strain's unpleasantness supports using the method of successive approximations for introducing complex ideas. To use successive approximation, the writer presents a simplified concept that is subsequently elaborated in a series of changes, each simple enough to avoid cognitive strain.

You, too, have an optimal sentence length

Plain-writing proponents advise you to check your documents’ average sentence lengths to guarantee against excess: Bryan Garner recommends an average of 20 words per sentence, and some plain writers recommend 15. Since every writer has an optimal average sentence length, the better advice is to use your own optimum rather than an arbitrary standard. I find, in fact, that when the average sentence length departs from my average, the document needs more work. Nobody has previously explained why writers consistently prefer a certain average sentence length, but inasmuch as “writer’s voice” is mostly sentence length, an explanation could help writers find their “true voice.”

I assume excellent writers prefer their strengths to their weaknesses, and I hypothesize that optimal sentence length is a trade-off between two abilities integral to writing: abstraction and sequencing. Typically, we construct sentences by abstraction and paragraphs by sequencing. Constructing a coherent sentence requires abstracting a suitably deep idea, but linking sentences to form cohesive paragraphs requires attending to their sequential relations. Long sentences capitalize on the writer’s ability to entertain a complex abstraction to be stated in words. Short sentences capitalize on the writer’s ability to link ideas in successive sentences. To make the most of their ability to entertain complex abstractions, writers strong on abstraction compared to sequencing will write long sentences, and to make the most of their ability to sequence thought, writers strong on sequencing compared to abstraction will write short sentences.

The distinction between abstraction and sequencing sounds somewhat like right and left hemisphere, but it isn’t. Here, we’re not talking about whether the internal processing is simultaneous or serial but whether the output is a unified abstraction or a sequence. The dimension of relative strength in abstraction compared to sequencing most resembles construal level: abstraction being far (resulting from abstract construal) and sequencing near (resulting from concrete construal). Personal consistencies in tendency to think far or near are shown, as in the finding that people who wake up late and prefer to work at night (“night owls”) tend to think far.

One educator’s questionnaire estimates your position on what amounts to far versus near thinking, conceived as Global-versus-Sequential learning style. (Hat tip: Words, Ideas, and Things.) I’d be interested in anyone’s results measuring their sentence lengths and testing their Global-Sequential position. My average sentence length is 25 and Global-Sequential learning-style score is 7 (moderately high Global). 

If you apply this test, bear in mind these caveats: 

1. Short documents will diverge from your average due to random statistical fluctuation.

2. Some documents should diverge from your optimum when the need to write in a particular voice outweighs achieving your highest literary quality.

3. Any document will not only be more interesting but also clearer if you vary the sentences' length. 

Emphasis: Prosody or Grammar

Various devices can impart emphasis:

1. Emphatic and de-emphatic language
2. Specialized punctuation (dash and colon)
3. Short-sentence exceptions
4. Typography 
5. End (stress) position in sentence
6. Hierarchic grammatical relationship (supposedly)

Numbers 5 and 6 are this entry’s concern.

The end position in a sentence was dubbed the stress position by Joseph M. Williams, according to whom the two most important parts of a sentence are its beginning, where the reader expects the sentence’s topic grounded in old information, and its end, where the reader expects new information. Written language’s acknowledgement of the orally emphatic end position is a concession to prosody; sentence position rather than grammatical relationships determine written as well as spoken emphasis. Although grammar trumps prosody on punctuation, prosody trumps grammar on emphasis.

Joseph M. Williams best explains the connection between sentence position and emphasis, but he isn’t alone in concluding that the end position is emphatic. Citing six supporting authorities, Bryan Garner counsels, “To write forcefully, end your sentences with a punch.” (The Winning Brief, 36.)

To Garner I turn now for the view that subordination connotes de-emphasis. Garner replaces the meaningless demand to limit every sentence to a single idea with the formalistic one to limit them to a single main idea, which Garner equates with the sentence’s main clause—where Garner advocates putting important information. For Garner, subordination is de-emphasis:

As Trimble suggests, convert a “starveling”—a short sentence that says little—into a subordinate clause and merge it with another sentence. (The Winning Brief, 40.)

Elsewhere, Garner derogates subordinate clauses when he advises giving them separate sentences if they state important arguments.

One reason to question that grammatical relationship imparts emphasis is that its doing so conflicts with number 5, using the end position for emphasis, since that's where (supposedly de-emphasized) subordinate clauses usually occur. Garner’s four examples of combining sentences by subordination avoid the conflict by moving the subordinate clause to the beginning. But this surprising word order shouldn’t be routine.

Putting the main clause in the stress position, as in Garner’s rewrites, comports with Garner’s teaching that the main clause should contain information more important than the subordinate clause contains. But the following example shows that the subordinate clause can rightly be more informative, while Garner’s analysis, equating “subordinate” with “less important,” leads to putting it not in the most forceful position at the sentence’s end. Garner’s rewrites reveal the problem with Garner’s approach: a subordinate clause may properly contain a sentence’s most important information, and then it usually belongs at the sentence’s end. Consider one of Garner’s rewrites:

The original. Third, there are no extraordinary circumstances to support setting aside the court’s judgment. Consequently, there is no basis either to reconsider the Court’s decision or to grant Reynolds leave to amend his complaint.

Garner’s rewrite. Third, in the absence of extraordinary circumstances, the Court should not reconsider its decision or grant Reynolds leave to amend his complaint.

Garner misplaces the emphasis. Instead, stress-locate the subordinate structure:

My rewrite. Third, the Court should not reconsider its decision or grant Reynolds leave to amend his complaint in the absence of extraordinary circumstances.

Despite its subordinate grammatical status, “in the absence of extraordinary circumstances” receives the greatest emphasis. This seems right, since it’s a trivial move from no extraordinary circumstances to the lack of basis to reconsider.

Garner’s approach reveals the harm of equating subordination with lesser importance. If, like Garner, you also recognize that the final element is stressed, you’ll be reluctant to put subordinate elements at the end of sentences, with two adverse consequences: 1) you’ll overutilize a sentence pattern that doesn’t start with the subject, and 2) you’ll underutilize the stress position.

The language has good reason to accord emphasis to the stress position rather than to main clauses; grammatical hierarchy has another function, that of expressing factual and logical dependence. In the example above, “No exceptional circumstances” presents as a condition limiting a legal rule, and the rule belongs in the main clause because it's logically fundamental. But the condition, “no extraordinary circumstances,” is the argument’s real point, and it belongs in the stress position, despite being grammatically subordinate.