The University of Florida recently announced a new book, aimed at giving people guidelines on how to communicate well in writing.
Yellowlees Douglas is an associate professor of management communication at the University of Florida. She wrote The Reader’s Brain: How Neuroscience Can Make You a Better Writer (Cambridge University Press, 2015), drawing on data from eye-tracking, EEG brain scans, and fMRI neuroimaging.
Some of it gives scientific backing to the usefulness of old standbys like thesis sentences and active voice. However, the book also dispels many well-worn myths, like avoiding beginning sentences with “and.”
The Reader’s Brain also provides insight into where to put information you want readers to remember—and where to stash disclosures you’d rather they forget.
So, here are some highlights:
1. PRIME YOUR READERS
“Tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you’ve told them.”
Few of us realize this advice has its roots in cognitive psychology and neuroscience. In recent decades, researchers have discovered that priming is a form of implicit learning. By merely exposing experimental subjects to lists of random words, researchers discovered the earlier exposure triggered accurate recall a day later—even though the subjects were unaware they would be tested later on the list.
When you tell readers your purpose in the first sentences of a memo, email, or proposal, you bolster their ease of comprehension and increase their recall of content later.
2. USE ‘RECENCY’ TO YOUR ADVANTAGE
The last item in the “Tell them” triad refers to what psychologists call recency effects, which influence our ability to remember the last items we read. Recency effects extend to both short-term and long-term memory. Readers remember final sentences in paragraphs, items in lists, and paragraphs in documents more clearly than anything else they read.
3. DISAPPOINT WITHOUT DESTROYING GOOD WILL
You can benefit from the strength of priming and recency effects when you have to tell a client you’re unable to meet a deadline or inform an employee she’s not getting the position she applied for. How? Priming and recency effects create a “dead zone” in the middles of lists, sentences, paragraphs, and entire documents.
4. BURY BAD NEWS
You can prime the reader with a neutral opening paragraph, one with content that’s neither misleadingly encouraging or straight-to-the-point bad news. Clinical studies attest to the impact of negative news in a first paragraph creating resistance and hostility to the rest of the message.
Open your second paragraph with a rationale for the unwelcome part of your message—the cause for the effect you’re going to explore. Then embed the most lethal content in a minor clause in the dead center of the paragraph. Close that paragraph with a neutral sentence, mentioning whatever benefits you can conjure to offer your reader.
Then craft a short, positive paragraph as your closing that’s forward-looking, maintaining your readers’ goodwill by using the document’s recency position. Your reader will get the message without getting hostile toward you.
5. HARNESS CAUSE AND EFFECT
From an evolutionary perspective, our tendency to see cause and effect everywhere is essential to our survival. When you place the rationale for a negative decision before you tell your reader the decision itself, you leverage the power of causation. When you turn sentences into micro-narratives of cause and effect, you make your writing easier to read and recall.
6. DON’T LET PASSIVE VOICE DRAG YOU DOWN
You’ve probably already heard about the evils of passive construction: placing an outcome at the beginning of your sentence, in the grammatical subject, using a non-action verb, and generally burying the actor responsible. But English is a subject-verb-object language, and readers also expect language to obey what linguists call the iconicity assumption.
In other words, we expect the order of items in a sentence to reflect the order in which they occurred in the world. When you use passive construction, readers’ brains have to work harder—and reading speed slows down, no matter how simple your content.
You can check out Douglas’ book on Amazon.
I love starting sentences with ‘And.’ I do it quite often, actually 🙂 This is all great stuff, very interesting to read and think about. I know when I’ve had to write letters for clients, especially those with bad news in them, that item 3 is invaluable.
Yes, it can be tricky being the bearer of bad news… 🙂
Great stuff. Everything I learned in psychology classes was validated by this post…now, if I can just get them wholly integrated into my writing. 🙂
Lol – yes, that’s the challenge, isn’t it? 😀
F.a.s.c.i.n.a.t.i.n.g. 😉
Thank you 🙂
Great information Nicholas…as always 🙂 Hope you’re having a Happy Holiday Season and a Merry Christmas! Next year this time…there will be a new face at the table 🙂
Actually, if you read my next post, you’ll see there’s already one, starting yesterday 🙂
Carrot, stick, carrot, eh? 🙂 … I’ve always liked starting sentences with ‘and’.
Same here. Good to know we can now justify it 😀
Also, certain words illicit different reactions. For instance, your sign up bar at the top. Rather than the way it is try: FREE copy….. In the sign up box, write “Count me in” or “Yes” or “Send my book.” By using words that reflect an emotion you’re more likely to get people to click.
This is an excellent post, Nicholas. The more I learn about this business, the more I realize psychology and neuroscience plays a major role. Congrats again on your new addition.
Great idea! I’ve now made the change. Thanks for the suggestion 🙂
Reblogging on American Writers Exposed. Great info!
I feel like I should admit that I read this twice and still don’t quite get it. Maybe I work too much on instinct or I didn’t get enough sleep. At least I agree with above and I no longer feel bad about starting a sentence with ‘And’. What about ‘But’?
Go for it 🙂
Well, no. Not really. NLP suggests avoiding it, as it puts people in a defensive mood. That’s the beauty of “and” – it lowers people’s defenses, as they feel like you’re agreeing with them.
One thing I’ve always wondered is if the rules are more flexible for dialogue. It’s always strange to see fictional characters speak with better grammar than a real person. Almost unbelievable at times. Funny how we hear things that are grammatically off and never blink an eye, but seeing them on a page is cause for a complaint.
People looking to complain will no doubt find a way 🙂
That they do. 🙂
Or, as the Bard put it, haters gonna hate. What do you mean, that wasn’t the Bard?
Think we just call that one ‘a bard’. At least if you played enough D&D.
It could be because this piece seems to be directed at writing for the purpose of communicating facts, rather than what’s called “creative writing.” I think it would need some adaptation to be relevant to fiction writing. (When do novelists ever have to “bury” bad news?)
True. Publishers, on the other hand…
The only answer I have to that last question is if you’re writing the biography of a politician or celebrity.
😀
Although there are so many nuggets of communication in the article. And even though they are so well laid out and presented. I must still admit, I was the over showering joy for me in this who piece was that I finally have validation for starting sentences with AND. You have made my week with this one!
Ha ha – you are welcome 😀
More good ideas and useful tips, Nicholas. I spent most of my life avoiding using ‘And’ or ‘Because’ at the start of sentences, And now I do it all the time. Because I can.
Best wishes, Pete.
Ha ha – a wise man 😀
There is a kind of cynical manipulation to burying bad news, or obscuring it consciously. I take the practical wisdom of this analysis, but not with total ease!
Think of the benefits. Specifically, how it can take the sting out of critiques.
Great article!
Thanks! Glad you thought so 🙂
This could not have come at a better time in my life. I am a Registered Nurse, and I am in the midst of preparing a presentation that I will deliver to colleagues and medical professionals in an upcoming conference. I am preparing an article on educating patient populations living with chronic disease and how with connection and patient centred care, we can educate with a more primary proactive approach. The information you have provided makes sense not only with writing in general, but also on how to prepare written information for patients to understand, pay attention to and educate themselves.
Thank you for all of your incredibly hard work helping other writers in this blog.
That is amazing! I’m so glad I could help in some small way with such a wonderful project 🙂