The Text Can’t Do Tricks

When I was a kid, my three sisters and I had a household chore rotation. One week out of four, we were each responsible for doing the dishes.

Occasionally, we’d load the dishwasher like morons, positioning dishes in ways that the water could NEVER, EVER reach. Upon inspection, my weary mother would say, “The wah-tuh* can’t do tricks!”

Great story. What does this have to do with research communication?

Stick with me here.

More and more researchers are realizing that, in most use cases, long reports suck. No one is going to read your 150-page behemoth, especially crunched-for-time practitioners and policymakers. If you want people to use your research to do good in the world, you usually have to keep it brief.

Here’s the rub. As I’ve mentioned previously, researchers tend toward over-inclusion. They want to say a lot more than can fit on a single page. And even if the primary author limits themselves, co-authors and reviewers always request more additions than deletions.

Here comes the dishwasher tie-in: The researcher may think that their lengthy text can do tricks:

If the designer adjusts the margins just a hair, and shrinks the fonts just a smidge, and cuts a word here or there, surely they can make three pages of content fit onto a single page.

FRIENDS, THE TEXT CANNOT DO TRICKS!!

Itty bitty, barely noticeable formatting adjustments can help when your text runs over your target length by a few words.

If, instead, you have to fit massive amounts of text in a small space, you have four options (none of which constitute “tricks”).

OPTION 1: Make big, definitely noticeable formatting adjustments.

Here’s an example:

Let’s start with 19 paragraphs, 1,668 words of lorem ipsum pasted into Word using default settings.** You get just a little over 3 pages of readable (but visually anemic) text. The first page looks like this:

If you reduce the font size (to 8pt) and margins (to 0.2″), eliminate the line spacing, and replace the latter with paragraph indents, all of that text fits on one sweet page, and it looks like this:

Gah. Do not do this.

OPTION 2: Make big cuts to your content.

I don’t mean a trim; I mean open-heart surgery. Here are some tips.

I strongly recommend prioritizing cuts to text over cuts to graphical elements, like text boxes and diagrams. You might be tempted to cut the latter because they take up a relatively large amount of space. However, graphics also go a long way toward attracting your audience and helping them understand and remember your content. (That being said, here are some thoughts and more thoughts on determining which visuals are essential vs. expendable.)

OPTION 3: Adjust your target length.

All else being equal, a two-page report with good spacing, font size, and graphics feels much more approachable than a single page that’s packed to the max. If all of your content is truly essential, consider spreading it out.

OPTION 4: Get in your time machine*** and figure out how much text will fit before you start writing it.

It’s a huge waste of time to write pages and pages of text, only to cut two thirds of it once you realize it won’t all fit in your single-page template. Instead, get an initial sense of how much text will fit in your final product. Then, write with that goal in mind.

Where should this target for amount of text come from? My suggestion is to find an existing product with a layout (including margins, font size, and amount of graphics) you love. Copy/paste the text into Word (or manually count the words if you need to) and take a look. How did that product translate into word- and page-counts in Word? THIS is your target amount of text.

If, as you’re writing up your content, you’ve reached your text limit but have only shared 25% of your ideas, then cut your existing text by three quarters and write the remaining text with that new level of brevity.

Need more help figuring out what to keep or cut? Contact us!

*Or, in common parlance, “water.” (My parents grew up in the Bronx.) My 9-year-old Carolina-born son has picked up this phrase, accent included, and it’s hysterical.

**Currently, that’s 11-point Aptos with 1″ margins, 1.08 line spacing, and 8 points separating each paragraph.

***Don’t have a time machine? Then just remember to do this next time.