According to McCloskey in his article “Economical Writing: An Executive Summary” Economists do not have enough time to read books in general. All their life, they have only read some economic books, that too of very small sizes. It is the reason that economic writing is of such bad quality. Their bookshelves are empty. They are not even familiar with the greatest authors of the world like Adam Smith, Jane Austen, Thomas Schelling, or George Orwell. Only if they had read them or any good books outside the economics world, their writing would not be this bad.
The real problem is that economists are not familiar with the rules of good writing. The problem is not unsolvable. With little effort and knowledge, it can be resolved. With an endeavor to overcome this problem, any one of us economists can become like Hirschman, Allchin or Yeager, who are three of the only few known economists of the world that possess good writing skills.
According to the author, the rules for good writing are simple and easy to learn. An economist should focus on one type of audience while writing the content. Changing your audience in the middle of your writng ruins the essence of it. There is no need to include such stuff in your writing that is already available on the internet or other textbooks. For example, including a formula from some theory or copying content from some textbook will not make quite an impact on the readers. Economists have gotten into this habit of writing theories and explaining to them while using variables which makes it very complicated for a normal person to understand. A good writer would explain his point using real-world examples. The fourth rule is to write things to the point. Do not over exaggerate. People mostly skim through the contents until they find what was desired. There is no point of creating a roadmap to the actual substance that you want to deliver.
An economist should make use of tables in his writing as much as possible. They are easy to understand and to deliver economic terms to the readers. The headings of the tables must be clear and understandable. Acronyms should not be used as headings because they require further translations. A good writer would make himself clear to the audience in the first attempt. Use small sentences.
Do not overload them. Be aware of what you want to say and stop instantly at the point where it has been delivered. The paragraphs might be interconnected with each other, but the words should not be repeated. However, different versions of the same words might be used again. There is no point of using different terms for the same word in the paper. For example, industrialization and economic growth mean the same but it only confuses the reader.
The author has described that the difference between colon and semi-colon must be remembered. Colon is used to be particular about something while semi-color is used to define things further. Avoid using a lot of commas in the paper. It does not make a very nice impression. Most of the commas before ‘the’ need be removed, slightly depends on the context, as ‘the’ represents the start of the new phrase. It’s a good habit to rephrase your sentences in your head and then copy the best one in the paper. The thing which you want to emphasize must come at the end of the sentence as it is the part of it which rings in the ears of the reader. You should make less use of words like ‘this’ and ‘these’ in your writing. Nobody likes to look back and check what they are referring to. Also, avoid using bad words like ‘via’ and ‘respectively’ (McCloskey, 1999).
References
McCloskey, D. (1999). Economical Writing: An Executive Summary. Eastern Economic Journal, 25(2), 239-242.
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