When I was younger I'd have said that how you write and what you say were as independent as shape and color. But that's not true.
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In college, I had a prof tell me to write like an academic. Emulate the style of course material. Applying that elsewhere works too.
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I did that without anyone telling me to, and the results were not good.
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Simplified: everything has a language and voice. Academics, business, whatever. Learn to write in it.
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might help that I wasn't a CE major
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as a result, civil engineers sound a lot like a mashup of building codes and matlab
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not only styles, language too. I don't think the same way in English and in French. Languages and styles create structure.
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you should have a look at ‘sense of style’ by
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I would strongly urge imitating Bertrand Russell. Graceful, intelligent, direct. http://bit.ly/1SGgTd0 / http://bit.ly/2etCTuO
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George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" examines (very cogently & elegantly) the moral consequences of style in writing.
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Or languages? I've long felt that some thoughts are more easily articulated in English than in French (and vice versa)
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ah, but if they simultaneously make you less persuasive and popular, what then?
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Then the two criteria form a Pareto front of optimal choices for different occasions.
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Oh, this is interesting. Is anyone aware if people have looked at what impact changing one's style might have?
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@seb_ruder@paulg the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in linguistics is about this. Eg https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-strongest-evidence-for-and-against-the-Sapir-Whorf-hypothesis/answer/Chrys-Jordan?srid=k … -
Good point. I've always thought of Sapir-Whorf as only concerning language; SW pertains to thought -- is writing different?
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this is why companies & orgs should try to get off of internal email comms ASAP: no one needs to be uber formal when working together
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extremes only exist because the dark side of supposed "GOOD" never caught light!
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Check out “Clear and Simple as the Truth” about what the authors call classic style. https://www.amazon.com/Clear-Simple-Truth-Writing-Classic/dp/0691147434 …
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