There are a couple of rules of thumb that I particularly like, as they provide an easy, almost mechanical, way of getting the text easier to read.
- All paragraphs should have a single topic. They can have multiple arguments for and against this topic, but it should always be possible to write a single word or two saying what the paragraph is about. Some texts almost write themselves if you start by listing the topics you want to include, order them around to make a good story, and then flesh each one out into sentences. If each paragraph then starts with a sentence clearly stating the topic, it makes it easy for the reader to know whether the rest of the paragraph is worth reading.
- All sentences should have old material before new. A fun exercise is to rewrite a paragraph or two, both with “old before new”, and then with “new before old”. The mental load required for reading the latter, is often clearly higher than for the former.
- Be generous with hedging. The phrase “to the best of our knowledge” is a classic for a reason. The problem when avoiding this, is that your categorical statement may be wrong, and that could invalidate the entire paper.
- Write citations so the “[x]” part can be removed from the text, without affecting it. So, use “X [x] presents A”, not “[x] presents A”.
- Use impersonal citations in the Introduction, “consider A [x]”, and personal and praising citations, “X [x] presents an inspiring solution to problem A” in Related Work.