Am I Supposed to Know What That Means?

A little bit of thoughtfulness goes a long way for business and technical writers. Are you unsure of what some of these terms mean?

• adze (from carpentry)
• anaphylaxis (from medicine)
• capias mittimus (from law)
• consist (from railroad)
• critical path method (from project management)
• metacognition (from education)
• phenotype (from biology)
• recidivism (from corrections)

If you don't know them all, and even if you do, remember to define your technical terms for unfamiliar readers the next time you write.

Question What You Read—and Write

We have to read in a state of wide-awakeness, to use a term popularized by educational philosopher Maxine Greene. By wide-awakeness she means personal reflection, judging carefully and not accepting premises, methods, and results at face value. This idea so also applies to writing, which isn’t only about sentence fluency and grammatical correctness. It’s more importantly about objective analysis and sound thinking, and some of the most respected publications make serious blunders in these areas.

Case in point: The New York Times on January 23, 2014, printed an article about JPMorgan Chase Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon getting a raise. Two flaws immediately surface in the article. Before mentioning them, I want to make clear that I am not taking sides with the man or the company. I am interested only in an equitable handling of facts regardless of the subject.  

The first occurs in the title: "Fined Billions, JPMorgan Chase Will Give Dimon a Raise." The article presumes to be a hard news story, which calls for an objective style. Yet it spews its opinion before the first sentence. Most semiconscious readers will have already formed an opinion of the company and its leader just from that headline. Even though the fines did occur under Mr. Dimon's watch, this rhetorical strategy is unfair. It is also true that the company's stock rose 22% in the past 12 months, so why didn't the headline read "A Year after Excellent Returns, JPMorgan Chase Will Give Dimon a Raise"? The answer must be that the newspaper has an ax to grind against the company and its leader. So much for objective analysis. An unbiased headline would have dropped the first two words. 

The second error arises toward the end of the article, which describes confrontational meetings pitting a minority of board members against giving Dimon the raise with a majority of board members in favor. The authors write, "During the meetings, some board members left the conference room to pace up and down the 50th floor corridor." Where's the sound reasoning here? Was the urge to pace the reason that they left the meeting? Did they simply want to vent? Were they satisfying a desire to get some exercise? Or were they pacing while talking to strategists on their mobile devices? Or trying to broker a deal with their adversaries? Instead of asserting that the board members had the intention of merely pacing a corridor, perhaps the reporters could have written, "During the meetings, some board members left the conference room, pacing up and down the 50th floor corridor, as they tried to reach an agreement." Better yet, the entire sentence could have been deleted.

So if we have to read in a state of wide-awakeness, how much more so when we write.

Unlink That Noun Chain!

Noun chains (i.e., a succession of nouns in a sentence) create confusion even for the most informed of readers. Nearly every technical field is guilty of perpetuating noun chains. Three examples from different fields appear below. Notice how the second drafts of each improve the original by either (1) deleting unnecessary words or (2) adding clarifying phrases.


FROM BANKING
Confusing: The Firm has instituted a customer service department monitoring initiative pilot project.
Clearer: The Firm has instituted a pilot project for the monitoring initiative created by the customer service department.


FROM ENGINEERING
Confusing: This is the Quality Assurance asbestos exposure risk analysis completion report.
Clearer: The Quality Assurance group presents this risk analysis completion report on asbestos exposure.


FROM LAW
Confusing: Judge Judy recommended that we provide a public service community information dissemination program.
Clearer: Judge Judy recommended that we provide a public service by establishing a program to disseminate community information.


To purchase your copy of The Art of On-the-Job Writing by Philip Vassallo, click here: http://firstbooks.com/shop/shopexd.asp?id=144

Don't Dis That!

Occasionally, I have heard people say that you can always remove the pronoun that from a sentence.

Not true.

I’d grant you that that can safely be removed from the following sentences:

She said that the client will be here at noon.
The report that you wrote was not mailed.

But without that, the syntax would collapse in the following sentences :

A letter that criticizes our firm will be published in The New York Times.
The service that helped us is no longer available.

Here's a quick test of your linguistic competence. From which sentence could you remove that without compromising clarity:

1. I know that Maria will help.
2. I know that she will help.

I would not remove that from Sentence 1 because I do not necessarily know Maria but something about Maria. Maria could be used as both a subject or an object. However, I would not mind removing that from Sentence 2 because I would have written, "I know her" if I know Maria. By reading the subject case, she, and not the object case, her, you are expecting to learn something about Maria.

So think twice before dissing that by removing it from a sentence willy-nilly.

To purchase your copy of The Art of On-the-Job Writing by Philip Vassallo, click here: http://firstbooks.com/shop/shopexd.asp?id=144

Quibbling over And/Or

What does the phrase and/or mean? Once we use or, don’t we nullify and? Jason Paukowits, an analyst for the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, remembers hearing me say in a writing class that or will stand in just fine for and/or, so he e-mailed me: “Can you explain to me the rationale behind using or rather than and/or? I believe that you are right, but I am having trouble convincing others of this.”

OK. Let’s look at this sentence:

Please pay $100 by check and/or money order.

Clearly, we mean, “check or money order.” After all, we wouldn't want some of the payment by check and the balance by money order.

Here’s a trickier example:

The boss said that Jack and/or Jill must attend the meeting.

To the boss, it doesn’t matter if only one attends, so she should have written or. To Jack and Jill, however, both may elect to attend. If they do, they may be wasting company resources because one of them could have stayed back in the office and written reports instead of attending the meeting. Therefore, for clarity the boss should have written, “Jack or Jill must attend the meeting,” because as their boss it really should matter to her that only one attends.

Another example:

If you hold a United States and/or European Union passport, you must pay the value-added tax.

If you hold one passport or the other, then you must comply with the tax law. If you hold one passport, you must pay the tax; if you hold both, you must pay the tax as well. So what’s the difference? A US, an EU, or a US and EU passport holder must pay tax. Therefore, the or is sufficiently clear.

The phrase and/or indicates that any of the possible stated conditions may be true, but so does the word or. Therefore and/or is redundant. Legalistic thinkers, however, argue that and/or removes the possible ambiguity of the following sentences:

• You may write the chief executive officer, chief operating officer, and/or chief financial officer.
• Feel free to phone, fax, and/or e-mail me.

The phrase and/or, lawyers may contend, asserts that your three contact choices are available and combinable. If such were the case, however, then the word and should suffice. The point is that by eliminating and/or, you may find a more clear way of expressing what you need to.


To purchase your copy of The Art of On-the-Job Writing by Philip Vassallo, click here: http://firstbooks.com/shop/shopexd.asp?id=144

This What?

In step with the WORDS ON THE LINE entry of February 11, beware of using the pronoun this. For clarity and impact, follow this with the noun it represents. Below is an example with an improved revision.

Weak: Sales rose by 12 percent last quarter. This proves that our company is on a promising upswing.

Better: Sales rose by 12 percent last quarter. This unprecedented growth proves that our company is on a promising upswing.

Sure, the second draft runs two words longer, but remember that being concise means clarity first and brevity second!


To purchase your copy of The Art of On-the-Job Writing by Philip Vassallo, click here: http://firstbooks.com/shop/shopexd.asp?id=144

The Following What?

The next time you create a bulleted or numbered list, remember to place a key word after the word following in the lead-in sentence. Example:

Please bring to the Revision Committee meeting the following documents:

• Employee Handbook, 2002 edition
• 2005 Annual Report
• 2006 Strategic Plan, Draft 3
• Revision Committee Meeting Minutes, January 3, 2006

The addition of the word documents is not excessive; it keeps the writer’s list organized and focuses the reader on the content.


To purchase your copy of The Art of On-the-Job Writing by Philip Vassallo, click here: http://firstbooks.com/shop/shopexd.asp?id=144