The Sense of Style

Just as Chapter 4 detailed how words become sentences, Chapter 5 explains how “arcs of coherence” link meaning from sentence to sentence, and paragraph to paragraph, allowing the reader to continually understand the connections between each piece of information. Clear syntax, Pinker observes, can only take a writer so far; even beautiful sentences need coherent, overarching connections to create a meaningful passage.

Textual organization can take many forms. Many writers first create an outline on a piece of paper, using dashes to order their notes. Other writers prefer to order information using index cards, which can be moved around and joined depending on the connections between the subtopics. Whatever the strategy, Pinker insists that all writing must be organized somehow, ideally by laying an “intuitive trail” through the subject matter (143).

To write coherently, writers must first clearly announce their topic. Pinker refers to a study that showed that readers understood and remembered texts that had clearly stated topics near the beginning, but struggled to recall information if there was no topic sentence included, or if it came afterward. Soon after announcing their topic, writers should also explicitly state the point of their work, telling the reader whether they are explaining the subject generally or making a particular argument about it.