The title gives you little doubt on what this book is about. If you picked it up, you already know what you are looking for and what you might expect from reading it. However, this is not exactly a manual on how to do it. It’s more of a survey of what others have done (or are doing) as a way to entice you to break from the oftentimes dogmatic pressure to keep in line with the untold stylistic rules of academic production that seem to govern your discipline.

Helen Sword does a great job in covering the many aspects of academic text production with insightful comments and very enlightening examples. Every bit of text quoted here serves exactly the function it purports to do, i.e., to back up what is being proposed, or criticized, with what is being practiced by the many academic authors in the different fields surveyed in this study of hers.

It’s also important to point out that Helen Sword doesn’t just limit this work to a theoretical critique of the many academic stylistic writing practices, good or bad, but also offers good advice on how to achieve better results with one’s own academic written production. On the second part of this book, aptly titled The Elements of Stylishness, Sword finishes all the chapters with an interesting practical section of Things to Try. Here you’ll find all sorts of good ideas on what you can do try out and achieve the same good stylistic results analyzed on the chapter that you have just read. This is immensely useful if you really need to break from all the old habits that prevent you to get the best results with your academic writing.

From all that has been said above, and given that this is a very targeted book (its readers have a clear idea of what to expect), to recommend it is a futile exercise: If you need it, you know you should read it. Your skills as a more versatile, enticing, and clear academic writer will definitely improve.