How Not to Start a Book

Introduction

Let’s say that you’re at a bookstore or downloading a Kindle sample. You start reading a book with this Introduction:

Building on the arguments of our previous foray into this topic, this book envisions the emergence of the Fifth Wave in American higher education—a league of colleges and universities, spearheaded initially by a subset of large-scale public research universities, unified in their re­solve to accelerate positive social outcomes through the seamless integration of world-class knowledge production with cutting-edge technological innovation and institutional cultures dedicated to the advancement of accessibility to the broadest possible demographic representative of the socioeconomic and intellectual diversity of our nation. The Fifth Wave primarily augments and complements the set of American research universities, which, for reasons that will readily become apparent, we term the Fourth Wave, but will also comprise networks of heterogeneous colleges and universities whose frameworks are underpinned by discov­ery and knowledge production, and institutional actors from business and industry, government agencies and laborator­ies, and organizations in civil society.

I. Am. Not. Making. This. Up.

The first sentence clocks in at 85 words. The second is only a smidge shorter at 61. Try to read either sentence in one breath. I couldn’t do it.

The words stilted and impenetrable come to mind, but what does the data say?

Copy the text above and paste it in one popular readability tool. The results confirm that the text doesn’t exactly scream readable.

I’m not going to name the book from which this excerpt comes but it’s easy enough to figure out.

Simon Says

If you want to demonstrate to the world that you know plenty of 50-cent words, then write like this. If, however, you want others to actually understand your prose and, you know, read on, then use the text above as an example of what not to do.

Your sentences never need to be this long. If however, one is anywhere near this long, then for God’s sake follow it up with a shorter one.

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