Greg Mankiw's credentials are impeccable: Former Chairman of the Harvard Economics Department and the President's Council of Economic Advisers. What's even more impressive is his writing. About 4 million copies of his textbooks are in print, and Mankiw is the 22nd most assigned author on college campuses, ranking between Martin Luther King and Virginia Woolf (Shakespeare snagged the top spot).
John Cochrane, a Senior Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, is similarly accomplished. In addition to his popular blog, the Grumpy Economist, he regularly contributes to the Wall Street Journal. What unites Cochrane and Mankiw is their economical approach to writing—stressing clarity and efficiency above all else. While Mankiw's advice is for aspiring textbook authors, and Cochrane's tips are aimed at PhD students, their lessons have universal appeal. Here are 15 of them:
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