Classic style is not the only way to write

When a reader is forced to work through one stale idiom after another, she stops converting the language into mental images and slips back into just mouthing the words.

Examples:

Bread and butter

Coasting on its laurels

Renaissance man

...

For example:

It began as a movement led by a few “young turks” against an “old guard” who dominated the profession.

Classic style is confident about its own voice. If you’re not comfortable using an expression without apologetic quotation marks, you probably shouldn’t be usin...

Metaconcepts are ineffective because they are abstractions, which cannot be seen with the naked eye.

Could you recognize a “level” or a “perspective” if you met one on the street? Could you point it out to someone else? What about an approach, an assumption, a concept, a condition, a contex...

I have serious doubts that trying to amend the Constitution would work on an actual level. On the aspirational level, however, a constitutional amendment strategy may be more valuable.

vs.

I doubt that trying to amend the Constitution would actually succeed, but it may ...

What are the prospects for reconciling a prejudice reduction model of change, designed to get people to like one another more, with a collective action model of change, designed to ignite struggles to achieve intergroup equality?

vs.

Should we try to change society by r...

Nominalization: turning a verb into a lifeless noun, by adding a suffix, e.g. –ance, –ment, –ation, or –ing.

Example:

Prevention of neurogenesis diminished social avoidance.

vs.

When we prevented neurogenesis, the mice no longer avoided ot...

These are nouns and adjectives that lumber across the scene without a conscious agent directing their motion.

This refers to the use of words such as:

virtually, almost, apparently, comparatively, fairly, in part, nearly, partially, predominantly, presumably, rather, relatively, seemingly, so to speak, somewhat, sort of, to a certain degree, to some extent, I would argue

Writers acqu...

This refers to the habit of saying what you’re going to say, saying it, and then saying what you’ve said.

One way to introduce a topic without signposting is to open with a question. Observe the following example:

This chapter discusses the factors that cause names to rise and fal...

The passive voice, when misused, can read like an evasive maneuver, take away urgency, or draw attention away from the subject.

Examples:

Extreme Exposure to CO may rapidly be fatal without producing significant warning symptoms.

vs.

Generator exhaust contains...

Turning verbs into adjectives

Example:

It may be that some missing genes are more contributive to the spatial deficit.

vs.

Perhaps some missing genes contribute to the spatial deficit.