ABSTRACT
Drawing on the sketch of the poetics of clarity unfolded at the conceptual level in the previous chapter, this chapter focusses on the formation of sentences. The formation of sentences is analysed through a back-and-forth movement between poetic ideals expressed in authorial guidelines and manuals of style and research article examples from natural science, social science, and the humanities. Three dimensions of sentence formation is analysed: first concerning sentence structures and types; second, word choice; and third, poetic language use, especially metaphors. First, the natural science texts consist of the simplest and most uniform sentence structures, while the texts from the humanities consist of a higher degree of sentence complexity and larger variations of sentence types. Second, the disciplines differ between an extensive use of technical terms in the natural science texts and an extensive use of common words in the texts from social science and the humanities. Third, across the disciplines, poetic devices are rarely used in the texts nor mentioned in the guidelines. Consequently, the contours of a commonly shared yet tacit poetic ideal of banishing poetic devices appears in the poetics of clarity.
