HOW TO MAKE POSTS READABLE. A COMMENT ON AN ACADEMIC ARTICLE BY GIMENEZ

Writing well is not an easy task at all. I can read extensive articles, even dealing with specific or technical issues, yet I find it difficult to write a good text. It is common knowledge that a text (posts, e-mails, academic articles etc.) must have an introduction, a well-developed body supporting your ideas and has to round up with an appropriate conclusion. Actually what happens most of the time is that I want to convey so many things that either I get lost or I write pages and pages. In this post I will try to summarize some general opinions about what “readable” means, analysing a scholarly article I found on the Web.

Last week in class we discussed how to make posts readable. We all agreed on the fact that cohesion and coherence are two essential elements. Thanks to a neatly laid out text that avoids redundant repetition and uses synonyms or pronouns when possible, these two goals can be easily achieved. Needless to say, structure and links in the right place are also important. Generally speaking, short sentences are preferable to longer and more complex ones, even if Italians tend to be long-winded. English is widely recognized as a writer-responsible language: this means that the writer has to do their best to make a text logical and easy to follow. Furthermore, one should not forget that font, colour and paragraphs are visual tools that have to be used properly. If the background is black, you cannot write your text in dark grey, for example. Though these might seem just trivial details, it is true that readers can be discouraged to read what you wrote if the font is too small or if there are no paragraphs at all.

“Business e-mail communication: some emerging tendencies in register” (url no longer available) is an article written by Julio C. Gimenez in 2000. Its structure is really very clear since the article follows the hourglass structure. In the introduction, which is divided into three paragraphs, Gimenez explains the aims of his research after having provided a short background on the electronic communication. Of course the article has a logical flow of ideas: first of all the author tells about the origins of e-mail, then he analyses the electronic discourse focussing on register, style and contextual aspects of e-mails. For each aspect he provides statistical data (diagrams, data, and real example taken from a corpus of e-mails). These make the article trustworthy and support Gimenez’s statements. Before concluding the article, Gimenez draws his attention to the main differences between business e-mail and commercial letters and to the implications for teaching. The conclusion sums up the most important evidence and findings of the article and mentions the limitations of his research. The text is undoubtely cohesive thanks to the use of pronouns, repetitions and demonstratives:

• “The present paper attempts to investigate whether the spoken nature of e-mail messages has already started to affect business communication. It looks at... This paper also considers some of the implications...”;
• “The language of e-mail messages, as asserted in Fig1 contains... It also shows a liking for... In the commercial e-mails analysed, this is illustrated by examples, such as...”

The writing is easy to understand: sentences are short (generally no more than three-lines long) and do not have too many subordinates. The terms used are not specialistic, the style is formal but clear. The text’s assumed audience is people interested in linguistic and in this kind of texts. As a matter of fact, Gimenez in the introduction mentions previous research and specialized journals (ESP Journal and English Today). As a consequence, the author takes for granted that the readers already know what register means and do not explain the concept.

In conclusion, writing academic papers does not mean writing complex sentences difficult to understand. Language does not need to be august to be formal and it is better if we keep things simple and straightforward rather than long and obscure. I strongly believe that the pattern introduction- body- conclusion should be respected for every text and that the writer has to be concise, yet exhaustive and accurate. From now on I will try to simplify more and more in order to avoid unnecessary repetitions.