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Three reader-centric academic writing principles

July 9, 2025

You're four pages into a research paper when you realize you have no idea what the author is trying to tell you. You flip back to the beginning, wondering if you missed a clue. The grammar is fine, but you just can’t find the message.

Sound familiar?

In a crowded academic landscape, clarity is currency. Papers that have impact are not the most complex, but those with the most compelling arguments. You might have heard the cliche, “If you didn't write it down, it didn't happen.” A less snappy but more accurate version is, “If you didn’t write it clearly, it didn’t happen because nobody will read it.” But how to write clearly? The trick is to shift from an author-centric perspective (“let me tell you all about my journey”) to a reader-centric view (“here is the key insight”). The following three principles can make that shift tangible.

1) Organize by conclusion, not chronology

Your research likely unfolded as an iterative sequence of activities. You tried an experiment, learned from it, tried again, and so on until reaching your final results. So your default mental model when writing is to describe this process: “We first tested Method A, which showed inconsistent results. We then tried Method B, which had technical limitations. Finally, we developed Method C, which revealed that temperature variations cause structural failures.” But your reader wants to understand your results, not a story about your journey.

Instead, write by working backward: write your key conclusions first: “Temperature variations cause structural failures in composite materials." Then provide details to support the conclusions "We demonstrate this through Method C, a novel testing approach that overcomes the limitations of traditional methods." If some of your earlier research detours provide valuable insights for the reader, you are welcome to comment on them later. But make sure that they don’t obscure your primary results.

2) Lead with your proposal, not alternatives

When presenting a decision or interpretation, describe your recommendation first so the reader knows your perspective. You can then follow, if needed, with explanations of why competing approaches or interpretations are inferior. This principle is also core to effective journalism, where the 'lede' is presented first to deliver the message even if the reader stops after the first paragraph.

It may seem more even-handed to first lay out the pros and cons for all possible ideas, leading to the natural conclusion that your recommendation is best. However, this approach unnecessarily increases the reader's cognitive load, forcing them to process and hold information that you will soon ask them to discard. The alternatives-first approach also buries your proposal behind a list of ideas you aren’t advocating for and forces the reader to pick through everything to find it.

For example, the following text comes after presenting a proposed analysis approach. It addresses alternative ideas, but it is clear to the reader that these are alternatives rather than the main idea. The author has not hidden the alternatives but rather just waited for the appropriate point in the paper to discuss them.

Alternative approaches could also be considered, some of which may produce more efficient estimates than those discussed above. Examples include using different numbers of ground motions at each intensity level, or using a hunt-and-seek approach. Effective strategies must be optimal from a statistical inference perspective, but also practical for an engineer to implement. For example, it is practically easier to select all ground motions prior to beginning structural analysis, which is more difficult when intensity levels are adaptively updated. A similar implementation issue arises with incremental dynamic analysis; while the efficient hunt-and-seek strategy was proposed many years ago, most analysts use the simpler but more expensive approach of scaling ground motions up by a fixed intensity increment until collapse is observed. The approach proposed above thus offers a balance of statistical performance and practicality.

3) Open each paragraph with a topic sentence

Your paragraphs are individual small stories, and the first sentence of each should state its topic or hypothesis. Topic sentences are invaluable guideposts for your reader. You are telling them what to focus on, and helping them skim forward if that topic is not of interest. Writing topic sentences also forces you to think and organize. What idea is presented in each paragraph? If you can’t identify an idea, delete the paragraph. If there is text in the paragraph unrelated to the topic sentence, move it elsewhere. Your revised writing will be better structured and more reader friendly.

For example, consider the following paragraph. What is its key message?

A study of survey responses from over 11,000 displaced American households found that homeowners were significantly more likely to return to their homes than renters. Households with incomes of less than $20,000 per household member were more likely to experience prolonged displacement or permanent relocation. Households with children in school exhibited different return patterns than those without. The type of disaster also influenced outcomes. Understanding post-disaster displacement requires examining the complex interplay of physical, social, and economic factors that influence whether families can or will return home.

As a reader, you are presented with a list of facts but given no framework to interpret them. A final synthesizing sentence helps a little, but its location forces a decision as to whether to go back and reread for further analysis. A simple topic sentence solves this:

Factors beyond building damage influence households’ decisions to relocate and return after disasters. A study of survey responses from over 11,000 displaced American households found that homeowners were significantly more likely to return to their homes than renters. Households with incomes of less than $20,000 per household member were more likely to experience prolonged displacement or permanent relocation. Households with children in school exhibited different return patterns than those without. The type of disaster also influenced outcomes. Understanding post-disaster displacement requires examining the complex interplay of physical, social, and economic factors that influence whether families can or will return home.

The opening now provides a structure and filter for the reader to use when considering the subsequent evidence.

The next time you finish a draft, check for violations of these principles. Did you default into chronological storytelling? Did you “bury the lede”? And can you follow the general structure of the paper by reading only the first sentence of each paragraph? If you find any of these problems, you now have a clear framework to help you trim and reorganize for maximum impact. Ultimately, these principles are about taking a new perspective: stop focusing on your research journey and start architecting your reader's understanding.