The Resourceful Reporter, Part 11: Contractor Appraisals

Contractor appraisals assess the performance of a hired contractor or vendor to help a business decide whether to continue a relationship with the product or service provider.

• Overview – Products or services vendor provides to business, duration of service, relevant contractor data (e.g., number of employees, physical locations, annual sales, market reach).
• Scope – Framing of appraisal in terms of contractor-business relationship (e.g., geographical or practical areas, offered services, delivery). 
• Standards – Criteria for measuring contractor (e.g., quality, communication, delivery). 
• Performance – Contractor's achievement level in each category.
• Evaluation – Qualitative (e.g., satisfactory) or quantitative (e.g., 4 of 5) assessment for each category and summary assessment.
• Recommendation – Decision of whether to continue, terminate, or modify business relationship with contractor.

Other reports in this series are:

1. Meeting Reports
2. Incident Reports
3. Investigation Reports
4. Inspection Reports
5. Procedural Reports
6. Scopes of Work
7. Test Reports
8. Course Reviews
9. Conference Reviews

The Resourceful Reporter, Part 10: Conference Reviews

Conference reviews are similar to course or seminar reviews since they concern reporting on the value of a learning experience to business's operations. Therefore, you can use the course review template as a rough outline for a conference review. Just keep in mind at least five notable exceptions:

Purposefulness. Courses aim to target specific learners' needs; therefore, learner participation is not only encouraged by required. The trainer should focus not only on learners' knowledge but on their behavioral change, for instance, to present better executive briefings or to increase their number of deal closings. On the other hand, conferences generally have set agendas, compelling attendees to come prepared with their own business aims for appearing at the conference. 

Decorum. Courses tend toward informality and stress comfort level to maximize participation. But every conference detail from the registration process to the individual events to the luncheon to the post-attendee survey has a greater level of formality than the course or seminar.

Depth. While a course review covers one specific training event offered to an organization, a conference review may cover multiple talks, symposia, panels, workshops, and clinics, all of reportable value.

Variety. The topics course will be limited to a specific topic, whereas a conference may cover a broad range of topics of industry interest, ranging from the employee to equipment to materials to products and services to vendors to clients to the environment to regulator factors and so on.

Participation. Course attendees participate in discussions and assignments, and they are often evaluated based on their performance. Conference attendees are less active in their participation. They act mostly as knowledge receptacles for the conference speakers.

Other descriptive reports in this series are:

1. Meeting Reports
2. Incident Reports
3. Investigation Reports
4. Inspection Reports
5. Procedural Reports
6. Scopes of Work
7. Test Reports
8. Course Reviews

The Thousandth Post: WORDS ON THE LINE

I started WORDS ON THE LINE nearly 17years ago, on January 4, 2005, when my plan for it was to write casually about my passion for writing and to help people write better.

A thousand posts later, my passion and objective have not changed. The content in this blog will keep you learning tips for writing at work, school, and home. I will follow this post with part 10 of a 25-part series on The Resourceful Reporter. Other topical series in this blog, in chronological order, include:

• The Employment Application Process (2005, 5 parts)
• Summarizing Successfully (2006, 8 parts)
• Logical Fallacies (2006, 20 parts)
• Constructive Criticism (2007, 6 parts)
• Tips for Better Email (2007, 20 parts)
• Grammatical Guidelines (2007-2008, 7 parts)
• Breaking Writer's Block (2009, 12 parts)
• The Virtues of Reading Your Writing Aloud (2010, 5 parts)
• An ESL Guide (2010, 7 parts)
• Voice (2010, 11 parts)
• Getting Creative (2010, 7 parts)
• Staying Creative (2011, 7 parts)
• 120 Influences (2011, 14 parts)
• Why and How I Teach Writing (2011, 12 parts)
• Finding Inspiration (2012, 5 parts)
• Punctuation Pointers (2012, 4 parts) 
• Five Things I Learned from Teaching in China (2012, 5 parts)
• Style Standards (2013, 4 parts)
• The Reading-Writing Continuum (2014, 11 parts)
• Why We Get Words Wrong (2015, 10 parts)
• Writing in Plain Language (2016, 9 parts)
• Things Writers Do (2016-2017, 21 parts)
• What Writers Say (2017, 25 parts)
• Starting with What Matters (2017-2018, 20 parts)
• Tone Tips (2018, 14 parts)
• Splendid Sentences (2018-2019, 15 parts)
• Do You Know How to Argue? (2019, 3 parts)
• On Taking Notes (2019, 8 parts)
• On Writing for the Web (2020, 4 parts)
• Improving Style Through Syntax (2020, 20 parts)
• Improving Style Through Diction (2020, 20 parts)
• Using the Writing Process Effectively (2020, 4 parts)
• Surprising Sentences (2021, 18 parts)
• The Art of Writing (2021, 6 parts)

And many more standalone pieces in this blog will surprise, stimulate, and inspire you to becoming a better writer. Happy reading—and learning!

The Resourceful Writer, Part 9: Course Reviews

The course review is a descriptive report that a company may request of a staffer to see whether a course, workshop, seminar, or webinar offered to its employees delivers its promised objectives, among other reasons. The more writers understand management's concerns about a course, the better chance they have of crafting a valid and reliable review. 

Course reviewers would do well to work from a checklist of details. Below are some of them.

1. Purpose. Why did the company make the course available to employees? Do not stop with a personal reason; extend the purpose to a business aim. For example, instead of writing just to improve the presentation skills of business analysts, write for business analysts to summarize industry trends and forecasts to executives with greater authority, clarity, and conciseness, enabling faster, accurate responses in the marketplace.

2. Context. Was the course a part of a series? A segment of a course certificate program? A pilot project? One of several seminars in an industrywide conference? Does the course provide professional credits? 

3. Logistics. When was the course delivered? What was its duration? Where was it delivered? Who offered it? Was it offered live or recorded? In person or online?

4. Administration. How easy was the registration process? Was support offered by the service provider before, during, and after the course?

5. Accommodations. How was the facility? Refreshments? Rooming if in a location remote from the employees' workplace?

6. Attendees. How many people attended the course? What were their professional titles, education, experience, and training needs?

7. Facilitators. What were the credentials and experience of the facilitators? How was their teaching style? Were the responsive to learners' questions about the content?   

8. Objectives. What were the goals of the course? Were the goals affective (e.g., appreciate the challenges of presentation skills), behavioral (deliver an executive summary of a business case in 3 minutes), or cognitive (e.g., identify five vocal and five body traits)?

9. Content. What topics, principles, and maxims did the course cover? Did they enable learners to achieve the course objectives. 

10. Activities. What discussions, exercises, tests, audio-visual learning experiences, etc. were assigned?

11. Applicability. Are the learned skills transferrable to the employee's job?

12. Recommendations. Should other people in the organization attend the course?

Many businesses spend huge amounts for staff education and training. The course review is a critical part of validating this investment. 

Other descriptive reports in this series are:

1. Meeting Reports
2. Incident Reports
3. Investigation Reports
4. Inspection Reports
5. Procedural Reports
6. Scopes of Work
7. Test Reports

The Resourceful Reporter, Part 8: Test Reports

The test report is the seventh of nine descriptive reports in this series on report writing. We may be tempted to consider test reports analytical in nature because they require an in-depth review of the test results. But the elements and style of the test report are so prescribed, and the standards so strict, that the report itself seems definitely descriptive. We expect test reports to yield observable, verifiable results. Nothing is left to opinion.

Test reports are indispensable to any business. They prove the reliability of the products we habitually use and ingest. The taste of a peanut butter cup never changes and a ball point pen releases ink with the same the color and thickness thanks to test reports. We start our car and walk onto a plane or train only after engineering teams have delivered numerous test reports on them. Construction crews break ground for buildings in areas whose soil was assessed in test reports. We can safely say that efficacious test reports feed, employ, and house us.  

A test report requires several elements. Below are 11 of them: 

• Purpose – Why was the test necessary? How did it apply to the business or related project?  
• Objective – What outcome did the test aim to achieve? 
• Testers – Who were the assigned testing staff?
• Scope – What part of the material, equipment, facility, environment, or project did the test cover? 
• Standards – By what criteria was the test to be conducted and its results to be measured? 
• Metrics – What were the sequential and final passing and failing measures and adjustments? 
• Methods – What were the procedures, including contingencies, of the test?
• Inputs – What tools, equipment, materials, specimens, or other inputs did the test require? 
• Results – What outcomes did the test produce? 
• Judgment – Did the test meet the standards? Did it pass or fail?
• Follow-up – What consequential next steps were necessary? 

Other descriptive reports in this series are:

1. Meeting Reports
2. Incident Reports
3. Investigation Reports
4. Inspection Reports
5. Procedural Reports
6. Scopes of Work

The Resourceful Reporter, Part 7: Scopes of Work

In covering at descriptive reports, WORDS ON THE LINE has looked at meeting reviews, incident reports, investigation reports, inspection reports, and procedures. The scope of work is the sixth descriptive report in this series.

The scope of work (SOW) is also known as a work scope or statement of work. The SOW is the project management team's go-to document throughout a project. It describes the project requirements, activities, and milestones, legally obliging the signers to fulfill the terms it describes. The SOW can cover a task as simple as an hourlong paint job or a single pothole resurfacing; it can also cover an enterprise as massive as the rehabilitation of a thousand miles of railroad track or the construction of thousand-unit, square-mile housing development.   

SOWs typically have in common at least these eight parts:

1. Purpose – The reason for undertaking the project (e.g., offer greater capacity).
2. Scope – The work to be performed (e.g., expand the cafeteria by 5,000 square feet).
3. Site – The location of the work (e.g., the north side of the cafeteria).
4. Timeframe – The beginning and end dates of the work (e.g., commencing January 3, 2022 and concluding February 25, 2022). 
5. Deliverables – The tasks required of each craft, including acceptable materials and performance standards (e.g., concrete, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, carpentry, painting, masonry, roofing).
6. Milestones – Due dates for each task (e.g., utilities connected by January 5, foundation laid by January 7). 
7. Costs – The compensation schedule for performing the work (e.g., 25% of the payment due upon substantial completion of Phase 1). 
8. Contingencies – Remedial actions available to the client for service provider's non-performance (e.g., deductions from invoices for substandard work), or disclaimers for catastrophic events (e.g., earthquakes, hurricanes). 

The legal department or chief contracting officer usually reviews all SOWs for compliance with required standards.

The Resourceful Reporter, Part 6: Procedural Reports

Procedural reporting can fall into two non-mutually exclusive categories: how something happens (process) and how to do something (procedure).

The first category—how something happens—describes processes purely for informational purposes. Readers may not necessarily need to complete the process themselves. Examples include how an information technology department conducts disaster recovery operations, or how a firefighting team deploys to combat a forest fire, or how a district attorney’s office determines a criminal investigation has obtained sufficient evidence to warrant an indictment. In each of these cases, you do not need to be a chief information officer or a firefighter or a prosecuting lawyer to read such a document. In fact, you might be a CEO interested in comparing your disaster recovery operations to those of another company. Or you might be a safety investigator who wants to ensure that all protocols were followed during a fire resulting in several firefighter fatalities. Or you might be a judge who wants to see whether the evidence of a criminal trial was collected within the limits of the law.

The second category—how to do something—is of interest primarily to technicians or end users who need to complete a task. Let’s say a building contractor may need step-by-step instructions for how to apply for a building permit in a town unfamiliar to her, or a junior scientist may need a troubleshooting sheet to learn how to report aberrant test results, or a business associate may need instructions for syncing information from an office desktop to a company phone.

In some situations, these categories may blend. For instance, while an author may read about how an earthquake occurs to realistically depict such a scenario in a novel (process), a rescue team may read the same scenario for its sequence to choose the most effective step-by-step deployment during its occurrence in a high-risk area (procedure). On the other hand, only someone interested in changing the oil of their 2022 Honda Accord would likely read about how to do so efficiently (procedure). An investigator of a fatality follows a process of her own when examining whether the medical response team followed proper procedure in aiding a victim during the moments before his death.

It always comes down to the reader’s concerns. For this reason, procedures are more useful when they provide background information, such as:

• purpose of the procedure
• law or policy requiring the procedure
• required qualifications of the user
• time and place for performing the procedure
• consequences of not following the procedure
• acceptable equipment and materials for performing the procedure
• sources for reference about the procedure

Focused procedure writers remain true to these five principles when detailing sequential tasks for users:

1. Use action verbs instead of being verbs. Rather than Be aware of the safety protocol, write the more precise Use the safety protocol.

2. Use tactile verbs instead of checking verbs. Avoid the ambiguous Ensure that all toxic chemicals are properly stored in favor of the more specific Store all toxic chemicals properly.

3. Use Actor/Action approach for multiple performers. When more than one person or job title has to perform a step on an action list, start with the actor. Example:

1. System Administrator sends e-request for data to Team Leader.

2. Team Leader submits requested data to Risk Management.

3. Risk Management confirms receipt to Team Leader, System Administrator, and Legal.

4. Risk Management reviews case for accuracy and completeness.

5. Risk Management confirms accuracy and completeness of case with Legal.

6. Legal reviews case for compliance.

7. Legal approves e-request in System Administrator.

8. System Administrator notifies Team Leander and Risk Management of completed case.

4. Use Do/See tables to show outcomes. This practice separates results from required actions for greater clarity and conciseness. Example:

  

Action	Result
1. Go to www.helpmenow.com	The landing page appears.
2. Enter your username and password.	The request screen appears.
3. Check the appropriate box for your request.	The live Help Desk greets you.
4. Write your request or question in the field How Can I help you?	Await a response.

 In place of a results column, you can use precise screenshots as illustrations.

5. Use If/Then charts to show contingencies. This technique will simplify instructions. Example:

The Resourceful Reporter, Part 5: Inspection Reports

The fourth descriptive report in this series is the inspection report. While inspection reports are similar to investigation reports and incident reports in that they are based on verifiable evidence (pardon the necessary redundancy), they differ in two critical ways: their findings and their consequences. 

Findings. Inspection reports document inspectors' examinations of materials, equipment, grounds, or structures based on indisputable standards. For examples, an inspection report may state that 7% of 100,000 pairs of latex gloves in a shipment have perforations, or a compressor in an enclosed packaging facility runs at 125 dB, or refuse from two overturned trashcans were strewn across a lawn of a corporate park, or the foundation at the northwest corner of an office building has spalling running 2 meters long by 12 millimeters wide.

On the other hand, investigation reports and incident reports may cover human conduct that is subject to dispute by opposing parties. An investigation of sexual harassment may have only two witnesses to the allegation: the complainant and the accused, both of whom offer different accounts of what occurred. The same holds true for an incident report of a hallway fire, as two witnesses may claim it started at different times, resulted from different causes, and reached different levels of severity.  

Consequences. Inspection reports require responsible parties to correct noncompliant conditions and to maintain compliant conditions. The manufacturer of those perforated gloves may be contractually required to replace them, the engineering department may need to create a sound buffer for that noisy compressor, the grounds crew may need to secure those trashcans that spilled refuse, and the building owner may need to solve the spalling problem.

In contrast, investigation and incident reports are after-the-fact historical records of events that may or not require remediation. In the case of an investigation report on a physical assault resulting in permanent bodily injury, the assailant may be incarcerated and the victim may be financially compensated, but these actions will not reverse the physical damage done. Likewise, an incident report on a fire that destroyed a packaging facility may reach a root cause but not undo the devastation.  

Two Tips on Inspection Reports: Content and Structure

In terms of content, inspection reports should include the standard (e.g., any observed spalling requires remediation within 30 days of the report date), the source (e.g., Local Building Code 388.8), the finding (e.g., the foundation at the northwest corner of an office building has spalling running 2 meters long by 12 millimeters wide), and corrective action (e.g., repair spalling with Code-approved materials by December 1), and the follow-up (e.g., the inspector will reinspect for compliance within one month). 

As for structure, inspectors should get away from their traditional chronological approach to inspection reports in favor of a hierarchical approach. This practice will immediately focus the reader on the point.

Do not write this:

The December 13 inspection found three safety hazards:

• Flammable paint cans stored on the ground floor hallway.
• A missing doorknob on the third-floor rear emergency exit door.
• A skid of cartons blocking the west walkway.  

The building owner must correct these problems by December 17. 

Instead write this:

As a result of the December 13 inspection, the building owner must correct three safety hazards by December 17:

• Remove flammable paint cans stored on the ground floor hallway.
• Replace the missing doorknob on the third-floor rear emergency exit door.
• Remove the skid of cartons blocking the west walkway.  

The inspector will return on December 17 to ensure the premises are free of safety hazards.

The Resourceful Reporter, Part 4: Investigation Reports

I am grateful for the valuable help I received for this post from two friends: Joe Brooks, a former lieutenant for the New York City Police Department and retired special investigator for Lifespire, and Paul Cassone, former executive director of the Guild for Exceptional Children. 

The third descriptive report in this series is the investigation report. Some businesses see incident reports and investigation reports as synonymous, so I will distinguish between them for this discussion:

• An incident report covers an event that may be accidental (e.g., slip, trip, or fall) or intentional (e.g., physical assault), involving human, business, or property damage, which may or may not have disciplinary or legal consequences. An incident report can be written by a wide range of employees.
• An investigation report covers an event that may be accidental (e.g., train derailment caused by human error) or intentional (e.g., train derailment caused by terrorism), or it examines conduct that may be unethical (e.g., nepotism) or illegal (e.g., embezzlement), involving human, business, or property damage, which likely will have disciplinary or legal consequences. An investigation report should be written by a highly skilled investigator.

In-progress investigations may or may not be sufficiently grave to shut down an entire operation. A suicide on railroad tracks will automatically halt all train movement at the station. An explosion at a chemical facility will cease all production and require staff evacuation. An accusation of sexual harassment may cause the business to separate the accuser and the accused, but it is unlikely to suspend business activity. An allegation of fraud may lead to removing the accused from the workplace without interrupting business the flow.

Investigators may be concerned about the root cause of an event (e.g., an accidental train derailment or a fuel tank explosion), or they may have zero interest in cause (e.g., embezzlement or sexual harassment). I will look at root-cause reports later in this series.

All told, investigators have quite a challenging job. Needless to say, they need good writing skills, but the best of them possess these seven qualities: 

Perceptiveness. Investigators need to be experts in human behavior. They must know the right questions and the right amount of questions without coming up empty or overstepping their bounds. They have to know when an answer to their question is taking them down a dead end, whether purposefully or not. They also have to relentlessly pursue a path they believe will give them the answers they seek.

Patience. As good students of human nature, investigators must understand that interviewees possess contrasting communication abilities. Realizing miscommunication equals mischaracterization, investigators may need to restate questions to accommodate interviewees. Some interviewees may be naturally nervous under questioning. Some may be worried about repercussions of their truthful testimony. Some may be under extraordinary stress because of what they experienced. In any case, investigators must devote the needed time to allow the interviewee to express themselves as best they can. 

Restraint. Investigators walk a fine line in collecting facts that lead to the truth without necessarily asserting what is or what is not true. As Lieutenant Joe Brooks says, "Investigators are not the ones to drop the guillotine." This challenge is a critical one for investigators to meet; otherwise, the investigation will be perceived as biased. 

Objectivity. It would be a fatal mistake to enter an investigation with preconceived ideas about the subjects. This challenge amplifies when investigators have a relationship with a party to a case. "Assume nothing," says Lieutenant Brooks. "Don't even think about what you think." For this reason, investigators also need to know when to recuse themselves from an investigation. 

Fairness. "The more you dig in an investigation, the deeper it goes," says Paul Cassone. "It can go on for a long time." This is why investigators need to know when questions are still relevant or when they are going off course. For instance, if you were an investigator of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of April 20, 2010, asking questions about the environmental conditions, equipment, materials, processes,  workers, management, and even regulators would be fair game. But asking questions about legislation regulating the oil industry may be too far from the root cause because all area oil wells were operating without a serious incident under the same regulations up until the date of the explosion.

Accuracy. The precision of the report language is essential. I am a strong believer in reporting verbatim, no matter how vulgar, abusive, or insensitive the statements are. The investigators are not the ones to judge whether language is appropriate for reporting purposes. Tell it like it was told.

Wisdom. A knowledge of policies and regulations alone won't do; investigators also must know what to do when a law is broken. As Lieutenant Brooks puts it, "If you're at a point when you believe a crime has been committed, you have to immediately refer the case to law enforcement authorities."

In my years of teaching investigation report writing, I have found numerous situations when investigative reports were unintentionally biased. Remember that words are nuanced, so edit carefully.  

The Resourceful Reporter, Part 3: Incident Reports

Incident reports are the second of nine descriptive reports appearing in this series. Employees write incident reports when a "reportable" event occurs. What is reportable depends on the industry and business, but the law greatly influences whether an incident report is necessary. For instance, issues of occupational health and safety (e.g., operator exposure to toxic fumes), environmental safety (e.g., a chemical fire outside the enclosed facility), and human misconduct (e.g., sexual harassment) are not only reportable but required by law. 

Incident reports can cover a wide range of issues, but they generally answer these questions:

• What happened?
• When did it end?
• Where did it happen?
• How did it happen?
• Who was involved?
• Was anyone injured?
• Was any equipment or property damaged? 
• What immediate actions were taken to end or mitigate the event?

The question of why the event happened may or may not be a reportable factor. For instance, it would make sense to describe why an electrical fire in the office pantry occurred to prevent its recurrence. On the other hand, if an employee punches another employee in the face during an argument, the why is unnecessary, because a physical assault is immediate grounds for termination, even for represented (union) employees, in many cases. 

Here are some pointers based on the most common questions I get about reporting: 

Rely on the conventions of your field. Incident reports vary by business. Police officers' arrest reports follow a different protocol from, say corporate investigators' case reports documenting employee misconduct, or healthcare counselors' incident reports describing accidents of service recipients. Do not reinvent the wheel; use the organizational incident report template.

Advocate for improvements. Just because your company template is standard throughout the organization does not mean it is etched in stone. If you see an opportunity for improvement, think it over. Once you are convinced you have a useful improvement, recommend it to management. Examples include something as small as allow more space on the form to describe the event, or more weighty items, such as separate contributing causes from the root cause or include a recommendation to management section. 

Maintain objectivity. Do not offer your opinion. If the accident was horrible, do not say so; just describe it precisely. Examples include a 5 mm-wide X 20 mm-long cut, not an awful gash; the operator walked away from the area, not the operator was grossly negligent; he gave contradictory statements and describe them, not he lied one way or another). Remember: this is a descriptive report, not an analytical one.

The Resourceful Reporter, Part 2: Meeting Reports

Descriptive reports are a good starting point for reviewing reports, because they are the foundation for the more complex and challenging analytical and persuasive reports. The first of nine descriptive reports for review is the meeting summary, also known as meeting minutes, so dreaded because junior associates are usually responsible for writing about what transpired at a meeting dominated by senior staff. How do they write about a difference of opinion between two executives on a critical project? How should they know what to include and what to delete in a report of a seemingly interminable meeting?

More than five years ago, I included a meeting review template on this blog. It basically includes these points:

• Opening – date, time, site, attendees, manager, and purpose of meeting
• Discussion – for each agenda item: issue discussed, action item, owner, timeline
• Closing – date, site, site, attendees, manager, and purpose of next meeting, invitation to amend meeting review

One more point: use active voice. Instead of writing It was agreed to suspend the program, write Casey and Hunter agreed to suspend the program; instead of Phase 3 of the project was presented, write Charlie presented Phase 3 of the project. After all, meeting reviews are about transparency, as are all reports. 

The Resourceful Reporter, Part 1: The Territory

This post begins a 25-part series on business and technical report writing. Whether for government or nongovernment organizations, nonprofit or for-profit businesses—in fact, for any work-related activity—reports fall into three general types: descriptive, analytical, and persuasive.

Descriptive Reports –  Answers questions like:

• What does it look/sound/smell/taste/feel like?
• How does it work?
• How is it done?
• What happened?
• What did you do about it?
• What is the current condition?

Analytical Reports – Besides answering questions of descriptive reports, it also answers questions like:

• How did you determine the cause and solution?
• Why did it happen?
• How can it be changed/perpetuated/terminated?
• What can we do to prevent/induce its recurrence?
• What resources will be necessary?

Persuasive Reports – Besides answering questions of descriptive and analytical reports, it also answers questions like:

• What are the available options?
• Which is the best option?
• Why is it the best option?
• What are the benefits of pursuing the recommendation?
• What can go wrong in pursuing the recommendation?
• How will we mitigate/prevent problems during implementation?

Some of these questions may overlap, and most reports demand answers to more than these questions, but they are a good start. Throughout the series, I'll be looking at several reports of each type to examine their unique issues. 

BOOK BRIEF: On Self-educating

The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had by Susan Wise Bauer. W. W. Norton, 2003. 432 pages. 

Of course, there are many ways to self-educate. And I am well aware of the widespread academic and political aversion to all things classical. Yet I cannot pick up the writing of Maya Angelou without seeing influences of Walt Whitman, or of James Baldwin without Henry James, or of Toni Morrison without William Faulkner, or of Cornel West without Plato, or of August Wilson without William Shakespeare. Incidentally, I believe that Angelou, Baldwin, Morrison, West, and Wilson too deserve a prominent and secure place in classic literature. Yet I hold this conviction about the value literary ancestry in the same way I remain convinced that rock and roll has its roots in jazz. Reading almost any book is a good thing, but the act itself evolves into a great thing when understanding the relevant works preceding it and the authors who inspired the writer. 

You would agree with this mindset if you read to your benefit Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren's classic How to Read a Book, which I reviewed on this blog nine years ago. As a refresher to this, well, classic, you might also want to read Susan Wise Bauer's The Well-Educated Mind. Bauer affirms Adler's premises about active reading as an indispensable means of self-education, and she extends his assertions by encouraging journaling about your reading experience to uncover authors' ideas and intentions and to document your own emotional and intellectual reactions to them. Her systematic approach to this practice is useful for other activities, such as studying for exams, researching for a book you wish to write, or mastering any intellectual discipline. 

Like Adler, she reserves chapters for studying different genres, including novels, memoir, history, drama, and poetry. After suggesting a practical and challenging reading technique—all worthwhile accomplishments come from diligence—Bauer uses the final three-fourths of the book covering classics through her own journaling experience. Scores of authors from Herodotus to Langston Hughes, and great works from the King James Bible to Seamus Heaney's Opened Ground: Selected Poems, 1966 - 1996, find their way into the discussion. 

In laying down a reading list for a lifetime, Bauer also offers a practical way to tackle the material: Don't worry about not understanding everything you're reading the first time; serious reading takes multiple passes through the narrative. Ask specific questions while reading, from a basic What does this writer want me to know or believe? to a deeper Have I experienced what the writer wants me to experience? Still more rewarding, share your observations and assessments with a reading partner. 

You'll get the tips you need to start on this worthwhile endeavor of self-education through the classics, which will make you a more critical reader of all topics that fit your fancy. And you'll thank Susan Wise Bauer for the roadmap.

BOOK BRIEF: The Psychology (and Philosophy) of Time Management

The New Science of Time Management: Why Emotional Awareness Matters Most for Control of Your Schedule by Robby Slaughter. Method Press 2019. 225 pages.

You have to be intrigued by a book on time management whose first sentence is "Let's face it: You can't really manage your time." In starting with such an assertion, Robby Slaughter sets a high bar for us to continue reading, as well as for himself to justify his approach to the topic, as he immediately makes clear this book is not the usual rose-colored how-to treatment of our most precious resource: time.   

Like me, you might have read a lot of books on time management, applied their principles, and when eventually reverting to your own habits and rituals, held fast to one, at most two, recommended techniques before they too fade in the turmoil of a pressure-packed period when your time management depended on others who have their own conflicting priorities. How can you manage your own time when running from one emergency to another fraught with unavoidable project-derailing delays, seemingly endless damage control, and distracting political consequences?  

Slaughter unflinchingly and candidly explains it all in The New Science of Time Management. He describes case studies to illustrate universal theories from philosophy, psychology, and business, which he blends into his practical structured suggestions for time mastery. While reading under his spell, you will find yourself saying, "Now I know why I can't tell how long that job will take" (Kappa Effect/Tau Effect), "What's true for here is not necessarily true for there" (Learned Helplessness), "Oh, how I love getting things done" (Mindfulness), "I knew it!" (Social Loafing), "No wonder that happens to me" (Zeigarnik Effect), "That's what happens to my team" (Bystander Effect), and much more. For the deep thinkers, the author provides source material to back up his claims and encourage independent research on the studies and precepts he cites.

If you want a theoretical basis to justify or to discover your time management practices, successes, failures, and lessons learned, read The New Science of Time Management. At once. In spurts. Repeat.

The Art of Writing, Part 6: Logging

You should keep a daily production log, listing the date, time devoted to writing, words produced, daily and hourly averages, and whatever else you think would help in documenting your work. My log looks like this:

Some people might think this log borders on obsession, but it could be worse. I could have included precise to and from times, summaries of the writing done, and reactions to my productivity levels. But you don't have to resort to spreadsheets or soul searching. You can go low tech by simply jotting daily results in your journal.

Keeping such a log brings to writers at least six benefits:

1. Historical perspective. Remembering exactly when you wrote what and how long it took you can offers insights into project duration when discussing future manuscripts with publishers and editors. 

2. Business accounting. You can always refer to the log to see how much time you put into your craft.

3. Business value. If you get paid for your writing, you can estimate what you earn per hour and whether you need to adjust your rates.

4. Developmental progress. You can now start comparing how quickly you wrote Novel A with Novel B, or your 2018 workload with your 2021 workload. This review provides an excellent way to assess your output.

5. Keeping honest. Once you start logging, you can no longer fool others, especially yourself, when you say, "I write every day" if you see a four-day gap in your production log.

6. Feeling accomplished. I've saved the best benefit for last. Logging helps you to get over saying, "I haven't done enough" or asking, "Where has the time gone?" You now have proof that you've done enough, and you know precisely where the time has gone.

No excuses. Start logging.

The Art of Writing, Part 5: Fact-Checking

Whether writing fiction or nonfiction, a play or a poem, you need to check your facts to prove you're reliable source. If you're writing about post-World War II Paris in 1946, you'll want to make sure you capture the Louvre as it looked then, without the I. M. Pei-designed glass pyramid built in 1988. Even if you lived in New York City on September 11, 2001 and are writing a memoir about your experience on that day, you would want to be careful about describing area landmarks, like the Oculus and the Vessel, which did not exist on the day of the terrorist attacks. Your article about Mickey Mantle would lose credibility if it confused his rookie year (1951) with his breakout year (1952). Likewise, a short story set in 1961 Republic of the Congo would irritate informed readers if you mixed up Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba's murderer, Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, and Lumumba's successor, Joseph Iléo. Get your facts right!

One effective fact-checking method is using multiple sources, which is easy enough in these days of pervasive information availability. (If only everyone would employ this technique when reading ridiculous conspiracy theories, such as former US President Barack Obama's citizenship!) While I am a fan of Wikipedia, I would not end my research there. Say you wanted to write a piece about the birther phenomenon surrounding Obama's citizenship. You might want to read the nearly 12,000-word Wikipedia entry on the topic, but you could also refer to several of the sources listed in its 281 footnotes. It would help to read facts and opinions from both liberal and conservative sources, and even extremist ones, to understand the range of ideas on the issue. Then you need to be skilled in separating fact from fantasy.

The Art of Writing, Part 4: Getting Ideas

As a writer, you can find ideas everywhere, from the sound of garbage trucks that wake you up, the little girl talking to her father in a line at the bank, the sighting of an unusual bird that landed on your window ledge, the little leaguers warming the bench by talking about their Pokémon cards, the pickup basketball game across the street you catch between passing cars and trucks, the tattoo "Regina Only Yesterday" on the arm of the woman who serves you your coffee in a favorite café, a colorful drawing of the solar system by a first grader, the warning labels on a cigarette package, the contrasting backgrounds of Zoom meeting attendees, the sudden wistfulness of a song you're hearing for the first time in years, the tired looks on the faces of train commuters, the dents and scratches on a brand new parked car, the changing color of sand as the day turns to dusk, the lone leaf dancing down the gutter, the homeless woman who refuses your offer of a dollar, the juxtaposition of you eating delicious dinner while watching state-sponsored atrocities on television, a billboard advertising an exotic vacation during a global virus lockdown, the interaction between two dogs meeting each other for the first time, the abundance of ripe lemons falling from their tree in a neighbor's backyard, the radiant colors of profanities spray-painted on a tenement alleyway, a skillful salsa dance between an elderly woman and a teenaged boy, a reckoning about your mother you never had until today, a deaf woman typing her menu choices on a smartphone for a waiter in a restaurant, a furious battle between a mockingbird and squirrel over a nest in a tree hollow, a couple sitting on a park bench in a light September afternoon rain sharing an ice cream cone, the clothing in a children's store window, the connection between a biblical passage and a movie scene, the taste of a favorite food with one intentionally added or missing ingredient, the old man who always occupies the same chair at the public library, a typo on a sign in a restroom, an email from a scammer promising you $137,000, a robocall threatening to shut off your electricity, the letter you receive from a friend you haven't heard from in 30 years telling you she has stage 5 cancer, the worn condition of the only book you've ever read three times, a friend's ostentatious signature, another friend's uncharacteristically shabby appearance, a wedding photograph of your parents, dandelions growing in cracks on the concrete pavement, the hairs sticking out of your boss's nose and ears, the muffled argument you can't make out from the neighbors, the lost sock you found months after you disposed of the other one. 

I'll stop at 40 examples for now (I could have gone until 40,000) in the hope that you get my point about finding ideas anywhere.

The Art of Writing, Part 3: Getting It Done

The last post covered making the time to write. Getting into a writing routine is so important because time is all you have. You might wonder how much time Ayn Rand had on her hands to write her 311,596-word novel The Fountainhead (1943) and her even longer 561,996-word novel Atlas Shrugged (1957). Well, here's the answer: not as much as you think. 

Let's say you write a mere 300 words per day, roughly one double-spaced page of 12-point Times New Roman type. In 17 days (a bit more than half a month), you'd have a 5,000 word short story; in 133 days (not quite four-and-a-half months), a 40,000-word novella; and in 267 days (nearly nine months), an 80,000-word novel. This is not to say that Ayn Rand wrote The Fountainhead in 2 years and 10 months and Atlas Shrugged in 5 years and 2 months; perhaps she needed more time, or maybe she needed less. All I'm saying is that word production accumulates. 

My word counts are terribly low at the beginning of a writing project, maybe no more than 50 words a day, but then I gain momentum, often to well over 1,000 words a day, sometimes 5,000. I compare this buildup to a footrace. Usain Bolt's 100-meter world record of 9.58 seconds averages 0.958 seconds per 10 meters. But he ran about double that time for the first 10 meters, about 1.85 seconds, and progressively faster until he peaked from the 50- to 80-meter marks, averaging about 0.80 seconds per 10 meters. 

Momentum is priceless for writers as well. Once you get into what Mihaly Csikszentmihaly calls flow (I strongly recommend his book on the topic), or others call "being in the zone," you're too busy  creating to realize, or even to care about, how many words you're producing. You're just concentrating on whatever you're writing about and having fun.

The Art of Writing, Part 2: Making the Time

The more I read what writers create, the more I grow amazed by their extraordinary artistry. No wonder so many people think authors have some sort of supernatural talent. But the more I read about how writers work, the more I understand the one factor they all have in common: they regularly make the time to write. Some write in the morning (from what I've read, most do), and others write in the evening. Some write fulltime, and others write before or after their other job, or in between two regular jobs (these groups include stay-at-home parents). Some use all their vacation time to write, and others use their vacation time to mine for ideas they will write about later. Some may write only three hours five days a week, and others may write  twelve hours six to seven days a week. Nevertheless, they all write regularly.

Developing writers (we all are) set a time to write. But they don't freak out if they miss their scheduled time. Let's say you've set a writing schedule of 6:30 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Monday through Saturday, totaling 18 hours a day. All goes well until the third week, when you find your life catches up to you, making Saturday writing impossible. Big deal! Give it up. You're still writing 15 hours a week. Later, you find you miss the Tuesday evening or Thursday morning timeslot. Again, who cares? You'll continue with the next session, or you can find a moment on Wednesday to give it a little more time. The idea is not to let a small failure in time management stop the engine. If the world stopped operating over every time slip, we would not have a single building, bridge, tunnel, or car. Just make the time, any time. 

The Art of Writing, Part 1: The Craft Is All

In some ways, writing is like any craft. Developing in piano-playing, carpentry, pottery, sculpting, and other worthwhile art forms never ends for the creators until they walk away from it for good. Well into his eighties and his seventh decade of performing, jazz saxophone titan Sonny Rollins said, "I'm still learning." To experience the craft is to evolve with it throughout your life. People who do not have that feeling are not craftspeople or artists—they are just someone doing a job, and chances are a bad one. 

The artform you practice becomes integrated in everything you do: your socialization, leisure activities, education, reading, meals, sleep, even your dreams. It demands your total buy-in. Indeed, the art influences your worldview. It becomes the most important thing you do, in fact, the most important thing anyone would want to do, in your opinion. Over the next several posts, I will describe how this influence manifests itself to form a true artist, with a specific focus on my craft—writing. 

What a Word! Part 7: Be

I’m talking about the verb to be in all its forms (be, am, are, is, was, were, being, and been). Action verbs usually offer greater clarity than being verbs. For instance, “She is a manager” makes one wonder whether she manages a corporate department, a studio production company, or a baseball team; using an action verb, as in, “She manages a team of eight systems engineers,” avoids such ambiguity. Here are other examples:

Ambiguous: Ana was an employee in our communications department.

Clearer: Ana wrote press releases and opinion pieces for our communications department.

Ambiguous: Berta is ill.

Clearer: Berta said that she has a cold.

Ambiguous: Carmen will be a college graduate next year.

Clearer: Carmen will graduate with a B.S. in psychology next year.

Of course, the verb to be has its place:

Passive Voice: Daria was paid in full for her work.

Continuous Tense: Emilia was running / is running / will be running.

Dramatic Ambiguity: To be, or not to be, that is the question.

E-Prime proponents, who call for the eradication of to be from the language, are extreme. But they do have a point about the clarity that alternative action verbs usually bring to communication.

What a Word! Part 6: Re-sign

When I saw someone write, I will resign my contract because I received a significant salary increase, I knew it was time to discuss the value of knowing the difference between resign and re-sign.

If you resign a contract, you quit it; if you re-sign a contract, you sign it again. Quite a difference. 

The presence of a hyphen in re-sign gives us plenty to think about. Hyphens are often used for new words. I am not old enough to remember when today was spelled to-day (no one is), but I am old enough to recall when nondisabled and email used hyphens, as in non-disabled and e-mail. They were fledgling words that didn't sound weird but looked it. Then once a word becomes so commonplace that even our grandfather would know it—and I am a grandfather!—we gladly drop the hyphen in favor of a more fluid spelling. Yet the general rule that we don't need a hyphen after re except when the next letter is an e does not always work. In the case of re-sign, we hyphenate it simply to avoid confusing it with resign, which has quite the opposite meaning.  

What a Word! Part 5: Have, Has, Had

Often enough I hear uninformed people tell me that have, has, and had are passive verbs. These forms of the same verb have several meanings, but passive is not one of them. They can have meanings as individual transitive verbs or as an auxiliary verb to indicate the past, present, and future perfect tenses.  

As transitive verbs, have, has, and had can mean, among many other things:

• to possess (I have a laptop.)
• to include (The building has three apartments.)
• to be obligated (She had to go to work.)

As auxiliary verbs, have, has, and had need a past participle form of another verb to make the perfect tense:

• past perfect: I had chosen Virginia as my teammate before you did.
• present perfect: He has bought the sailboat.
• future perfect: By tomorrow, they will have worked on the job for two weeks.

The confusion of these words with passive voice is understandable. Passive voice also needs a past participle, but one that is accompanied by the verb to be (am, are, is, was, were, being, been):

• past: Virginia was chosen as my teammate.
• present: The sailboat is being bought.
• future: By tomorrow, the job will have been worked on for two weeks.

But have, has, and had are not in and of themselves passive!  

What a Word! Part 4: Aggressive

Continuing with the theme of word meaning depends on context, I recall two people in one of my classes, Bob and Eve, getting aggressive over the use of an aggressive tone. Bob said that as a salesperson he never wants to use an aggressive tone, as it would put off his clients. Eve disagreed, saying that as a manager facing multiple deadlines, she needs to write with an aggressive tone at times.  

Seeing the argument at an impasse, I said, "Let's look up aggressive. Maybe you're both right." Using Dictionary.com, I read the first definition: "characterized by or tending toward unprovoked offenses, attacks, invasions, or the like; militantly forward or menacing." So Bob was indisputably correct. Then I read the second definition: "Making an all-out effort to win or succeed; competitive." Now Eve was undeniably on target. 

Be careful when framing the context for using aggressive, as you would not want an aggressive response.

What a Word! Part 3: Lack

The word lack poses problems similar to shall/should. What we mean by lack depends on the context. 

We jokingly may say that someone is lacking social skills because he wipes the food from his mouth onto his shirtsleeve. Here we mean he is deficient in but not devoid of social skills, because if he had no social skills he would be eating shirtless at the dining table. But at least he knew that he had to be dressed to eat with mixed company, so he has some social skills, if not many, and lack means not enough.

When we tell a child that humans lack gills so they can't breathe without assistance underwater like fish do, we mean we have zero gills. In this case lack means not at all.

Let's look at a business example. A supervisor of six operators might email her manager, "I'm lacking staff this morning." The manager would not know whether she is only one staff down (not enough) or six staff down (not at all). The supervisor would do better to write, "I am down two staff."

Finally let's look at the case of receiving a bounced $100 check. The bank might say, "The account lacks funds." In this situation, the check recipient does not if the account has $0.00 or $99.99 because she still gets nothing. The writer of the check would say he had insufficient funds, but the receiver of the check would say she received no funds.

There's a moral here. Don't use lack unless you are sure that your readers would lack a reason to misinterpret your meaning.