A writer who has spent a lot of time thinking about correlations will have mentally bubble-wrapped each of the two variables... A reader can figure this out, but it’s hard work, like hacking through a blister pack to get at the product.
Bad: There is a significant positive correlation between measures of food intake and body mass index AND Body mass index is an increasing function of food intake AND Food intake predicts body mass index according to a monotonically increasing relation Good: The more you eat, the fatter you get. Use “for example” and “because” often
Readers will also thank a writer for the copious use of for example, as in, and such as, because an explanation without an example is little better than no explanation at all. For example: Here’s an explanation of the rhetorical term syllepsis: “the use of a word that relates to, qualifies, or governs two or more other words but has a different meaning in relation to each.” Got that? Now let’s say I continue with “. . . such as when Benjamin Franklin said, ‘We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.’” - Steven Pinker