This post is adapted from a memo I wrote a while back, for people at GovAI. It may, someday, turn out to be the first post in a series on skill-building.
Summary
If you're a researcher, then you should probably try to become very good at writing. Writing well helps you spread your ideas, think clearly, and be taken seriously. Employers also care a lot about writing skills.
Improving your writing is doable: it’s mostly a matter of learning guidelines and practicing. Since hardly anyone consciously works on their writing skills, you can become much better than average just by setting aside time for study and deliberate practice.
Why writing skills matter
Here are three reasons why writing skills matter:
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The main point of writing is to get your ideas into other people’s heads. Far more people will internalize your ideas if you write them up well. Good writing signals a piece is worth reading, reduces the effort needed to process it, guards against misunderstandings, and helps key ideas stick.
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Writing and thinking are intertwined. If you work to improve your writing on some topic, then your thinking on it will normally improve too. Writing concisely forces you to identify your most important points. Writing clearly forces you to be clear about what you believe. And structuring your piece in a logical way forces you to understand how your ideas relate to each other.
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People will judge you on your writing. If you want people to take you seriously, then you should try to write well. Good writing is a signal of clear thinking, conscientiousness, and genuine interest in producing useful work.
For all these reasons, most organizations give a lot of weight to writing skills when they hire researchers. If you ask DC think tank staffers what they look for in candidates, they apparently mention “writing skills” more than anything else. "Writing skills" was also the first item mentioned when I recently asked the same question to someone on a lab policy team. GovAI certainly pays attention to writing when we hire. Even if you just want to impress potential employers, then, you should care a great deal about your own writing.
How to get better at writing
If you want to get better at writing, here are four things you can do:
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Read up on guidelines: There are a lot of pieces on how good writing works. The footnote at the end of this sentence lists some short essays. The best book I know is Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace. It’s an easy-to-read textbook that offers recipe-like guidance. I would recommend this book over anything else.
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Engage with model pieces: You can pick out a handful of well-written pieces and read them with a critical mindset. (See the next footnote for some suggestions.) You might ask: What exactly is good about the pieces? How do they work? Where do they obey or violate the guidelines recommended by others?
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Get feedback: Flaws in your writing—especially flaws that limit comprehension—will normally be more evident to people who are coming in cold. Also, sometimes other people will simply be better than you at diagnosing and correcting certain flaws. Comments and suggest-edits can draw your attention to recurring issues in your writing and offer models for how you can correct them.
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Do focused rewriting: The way you’ll ultimately get better is by doing focused rewriting. Pick some imperfect pieces—ideally, pieces you’re actually working on—and simply try to make them as good as possible. You can consciously draw on writing guidelines, models, and previous feedback to help you diagnose and correct their flaws. The more time you spend rewriting, the better the pieces will become. Crucially, you’ll also start to internalize the techniques you use to improve them. This means that each new piece you write will be better from the start and need less rewriting to become excellent.
Becoming a very good writer is not all that different from becoming a very good cook. Simply cooking a lot won’t make you very good; many people cook every day and don't rise past a low-ish plateau. But if you seek out guidelines, notice what high-skilled people do, receive honest feedback, and consciously work to diagnose and fix issues with the things you make, then you should expect to surpass the vast majority of people.
You don’t need to have a rare gift. You mainly need to set aside time to learn and practice.
A case study
A colleague of mine, Anne, significantly improved her writing over a few months. She did this by reading up on guidelines—in her case, a handful of essays and book summaries—and then dedicating about thirty hours to deliberate practice. She practiced mainly by rewriting e-mails and google docs. During this period, she also paid special attention to well-written pieces she encountered. See her summary here.
Caveat: Language models
As language models get better, writing skills will become less useful. It’s already possible to use language models to improve poorly written pieces or turn rough notes into good prose. Next-generation models will be even better.
However, I wouldn’t count on writing skills becoming obsolete soon. Even if their expected value falls by 20% every year, I think they would still be among the most worthwhile skills a researcher can develop.
To improve writing, I'd also recommend the book 'The sense of style' (2015) by Harvard psycholinguist Steven Pinker -- a real expert on both language research, and on writing clearly in his own books.