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The art of good writing is to be clear and concise at the same time.

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And probably one of the best tools to achieve that are signalling words.

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So in this lecture I want to show this to you and give you a couple of examples for that.

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So first of all let me show you how you can use signaling words to make your writing more clear.

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So let's say that you've written the following (for example): "Freud speculated that depression is caused

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by unprocessed traumas. Devin's findings indicated that depression may be caused by a learned focus on

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the negative."

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In this example, a reader could wonder what you're actually trying to say. But if we add one little expression

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which is "in contrast", it gets immediately clear that you're trying to describe a conflict.

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So now it says: "Freud speculated that depression is caused by unprocessed traumas.

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In contrast, Devin's findings indicated that depression may be caused by a learned focus on the negative."

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It's immediately clear that you're describing a conflict here.

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Okay here is another example.

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"The Depression level was measured prior to the treatment.

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Participants were randomly assigned to a treatment and a placebo group."

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Now compare this to the following.

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"First the pre treatment depression level was measured. Next,

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participants were randomly assigned to a treatment and a placebo group."

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So what's happening here is that the expressions "first" and "next" make immediately clear that there's

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a sequence of events. And in addition, the expression "pre treatment" makes immediately clear that there's

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a treatment coming next.

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And so what you can see here is that little words can really make a huge difference for the clarity

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of your writing.

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And you can use the "useful English expressions" PDF to find expressions you can use.

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Now I want to zoom in a little bit further even because ideally what you want to achieve is that readers

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are able to understand your text without ever going back.

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So at no point in time a reader should think "oh now I get it" but they should always get it right away.

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So let me give you an example for that.

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So let's say you find in an article this theory is supported by finding X. In addition, finding

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Y also provides support for this theory.

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Moreover, the theory is supported by finding Z.

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Now, here it's in principle clear what the author is trying to say.

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The author just lists three types of findings that support a particular theory. But the problem is that

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this isn't clear at every moment.

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So when you transition from sentence 1 to sentence 2: "This theory supported by finding X." And then

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you start sentence two:

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"In addition finding Y....". Now the sentence is about finding Y and you don't know yet that this finding

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is also gonna support the theory.

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So you don't even know that the sentence is still about the theory.

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So therefore a much clearer way to write this would be: "Three findings support this theory.

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First, the theory is supported by finding X. Another source of support is finding Y.

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Finally, the theory is supported by finding Z. So here the writing first gives you an outline of

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what's going to come. Then, signaling words make sure that you know that you were at the beginning of

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the list or the middle of the list or the end of the list.

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So at every point in time the reader understands what's going on.

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Okay.

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When you're trying to do that you might encounter another problem which is that you also need to keep

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it concise.

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There's the danger that if we try to get too clear the reader actually gets impatient: "get to the point..."

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And that's also something we want to prevent.

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So let me give you an example for that.

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So let's say we find in an article: "There are two conflicting views on depression that are worth considering.

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The first view was introduced by Freud.

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He speculated that depression is caused by unprocessed traumas.

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However, there is a second view on depression.

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The second view is that depression is caused by how information are processed. Specifically, Devon's findings

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indicated that depression may be caused by a learned focus on the negative." So in this example at pretty

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much every point in time it is clear what the text says but it's just way too long for a research article.

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So let me show you a better version: "There are two views on depression. Freud's view is that depression

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is caused by unprocessed traumas.

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In contrast Devon's findings indicated that depression may be caused by a learned focus on the negative."

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So again, we get an idea of what's going to come and then we get clearly signaled where we are in the

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list and that's really all we need.

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With the right signaling you can be very clear and also be very concise and if you find that sweet spot

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where readers feel that you're really telling them a lot without using a lot of words, they will really

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love your writing.

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All right.

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That's how you edit a paper and I see you in the next lecture.