Name your
reference.
By Adam Frick · Illustrated draftWhat exactly worried the editor?
The team delayed publication and revised the figures. Which change worried the editor? A vague pointer in the next sentence can leave you choosing between those two explanations. I want the writer to make that choice before asking me to follow the argument. Adding a noun looks like a small edit, but the noun commits you to a particular meaning.
See the supporting references.Follow the editor’s concern.
Give the pointer a noun.
Constructed teaching exampleThe pilot missed the deadline. This disrupted the schedule.
The pilot missed the deadline. This delay disrupted the schedule.
Choose which change matters.
Constructed teaching exampleThe team delayed publication and revised the figures. This worried the editor.
The team delayed publication and revised the figures. The revised figures worried the editor.
Do not smuggle in a conclusion.
Constructed teaching exampleOnly twelve participants returned. This result needs explanation.
Only twelve participants returned. This failure needs explanation.
A useful noun can also be an unfair verdict.
I favour a named reference when the reader could reasonably pick up the wrong idea. In the third example, calling the result a failure goes beyond identifying the result and starts judging the outcome. That judgement needs support of its own. A reference that already has one unmistakable meaning may need no expansion; extra words should earn their place.
References and evidence
Read the evidence and its limits.
Hans-Jörg Schmid examines how abstract nouns package complex information in English Abstract Nouns as Conceptual Shells: From Corpus to Cognition[1] (2000). A shell noun gives earlier information a useful name. A shell noun can gather a whole clause or several sentences into a precise reference through a word such as “change”, “finding”, “assumption”, “limitation” or “comparison”.
The revised reference identifies the sample size as the limitation. The noun phrase also shows how the writer interprets the observation. The work of Rahime Nur Aktas and Viviana Cortes examines these nouns as cohesive devices in published research and international graduate students’ writing in their 2008 corpus study[2]. The study investigates actual noun use. My recommendation to follow a pointer with a named reference is an editorial application of that cohesive function.