So much of writing is very difficult to teach; there’s no formula, no one way to do things. Language, after all, is dependent on both the speaker and the listener, and they may interpret a word a different way.
Found this page on smartwords.org. If you scroll down, you’ll find the third section is entitled A Translation of Common Scientific Research Phrases. (When two people are speaking the same language, translation is a bad thing.) Weak writing frequently involves unnecessary words, or words that put the responsibility on someone other than the writer. It makes the reader immediately suspicious, making it that much more difficult for the writer to convince the reader of a certain point of view.
These are labeled “research phrases” but they’re not found solely in scientific writing. Here, thieved from the website, are some phrases I see students using in English papers:
Phrase Translation
It has long been known… I didn’t look up the original reference.
In my experience… Once.
A definite trend is evident… These data are practically meaningless.
Vagaries such as a long time ago are also subject to translation; a five-year-old believes yesterday to be “a long time ago” whereas those of us in middle age don’t think the late ’70s are all that distant.
We poke fun of advertising which attempts to use language to distract us from the truth (e.g a fast-food restaurant that claims to use only Grade A beef but says nothing about the grade of rat meat which gets mixed in with the beef). Political leaders who dance around an issue, or try to avoid taking responsibility, are videotaped and put up on YouTube for the whole world to see. You can imagine what a reader might think of phrases like careful analysis of obtainable data or it is believed that….
Have a look at the website, watch a couple of ads on television, and then listen to the evening news. After that, make yourself a cup of tea and have a good long look at your writing.
Do you believe what you’ve written?