worlddev-writing-style

• SKILL.mdcore · 5,216 bytes

# Writing Style (worlddev-writing-style)

## When to trigger

- The intro opens with a methods or literature gap rather than a development problem
- The prose is dense with one discipline's jargon (econometrics or critical-theory) and shuts out the rest
- The abstract reports techniques but not the "so what for development"
- The discussion stops at "we find X" without saying what it means for policy or practice
- The paper reads as written for the author's subfield, not for WD's global, cross-disciplinary audience

## Writing for the WD reader

WD is read by economists, political scientists, sociologists, geographers, public-health and practice communities, and policymakers across the global South and North. The house voice is **clear, evidence-driven, and accessible across disciplines without being shallow.** Two failure modes bracket it: economics papers that read as technical reports with no human or institutional texture, and critical/qualitative papers that disappear into theoretical vocabulary. The WD register sits between — rigorous, but legible to a reader from the next discipline over and useful to someone who must act on the finding.