Using the Writing Process Effectively, Part 3: Planning with Idea Maps

The idea map is another useful planning technique for writers wishing to work offline. Similar to mind mapping and concept mapping, the idea map helps writers to lay out ideas before drafting. 

The illustration shows a completed idea map created by a scientist proposing the hiring of two researchers for his lab. During the brainstorming phase, he grabs a sheet of blank paper and a bunch of varied color makers. First, he draws a circle in the middle of a sheet with his topic: "need two researchers." Next, he draws spokes from the circle, one color per spoke, to highlight the supporting points: benefits, problem, causes, recommendations, plan. Then come more sub-points and sub-sub-points within those supporting ones.

For the organizing phase, he structures the points as they will appear in his draft, starting with the ask (1. need two researchers), following the listed numerical and alphabetical order. You can imagine what this writer will be discussing in his proposal by reading the idea map he has created.

Using the Writing Process Effectively, Part 2: Planning with Idea Tags

Many techniques are available for the planning step of the writing process. I focus on three of them in this and the next two posts: idea tags, idea maps, and idea lists. All of them are indispensable in breaking writer's block and generating talking points for your document.

Idea Tags, Step 1: Brainstorming

Idea tagging is an off-screen planning method for those who like to work off the computer or cannot access one. It involves using self-stick notes, one per idea. I strongly recommend using stickies measuring 2" X 1 1/2" (roughly 5.1 cm X 3.8 cm) because as many as 24 can fit on a standard 8 1/2" X 11" (21.6 cm X 27.9 cm) sheet of paper, and many more on a cleared table or desk. This technique is a lot like storyboarding, the old-time Hollywood method of outlining a story in development. While my illustration uses words, you can draw pictures to represent ideas (e.g., a stick figure to signify staff, a house for facility, and a money bag for budget).

In the image above, I am dropping ideas for a report on a seminar I attended. Notice the randomness of the thoughts. I am simply brainstorming without attention to structure or quality. This is the creative step of idea tagging. 

Idea Tags, Step 2: Organizing

Next comes the organizing step, when I get MAD (Move, Add, Delete) about my idea tags. In the next illustration, I have moved the stickies into separate rows, each row representing a paragraph. I have also added ideas, in red ink as I moved the stickies around. And at the bottom, I have deleted ideas that have no place in the report by tearing them up. This is the analytical step of idea tagging.

I may not have every idea in front of me (I've left out cost, location, accommodations, and more), but at least I can start drafting my report based on the plan I've created with these idea tags.

Using the Writing Process Effectively, Part 1: Knowing When to Plan

Challenging work-related writing requires three steps:

• Step 1: Planning – brainstorming and organizing ideas. In this step, you are listing thoughts from your notes research, or off the top of your head, on or offscreen, that need to appear in your draft. 
• Step 2: Drafting – writing a rough copy. When drafting, you are prizing volume of content over quality of expression because you'll have time to make necessary changes in the third step.
• Step 3: Quality Controlling – revising, editing, proofreading. In this three-part step, you protect your REP (Revise, Edit, Proofread): revise by moving, adding, and deleting ideas; edit for tone, clarity, conciseness, and correctness of grammar, diction, punctuation, and mechanics; and proofreading for overlooked errors. 

If you can skip planning and start drafting, go right ahead. Why waste your time planning if you know what to write? 

But you'll know you need to plan—to generate and structure ideas for the first draft—in any of the following situations:

• Writer's Block – You get stuck, your eyes fixated on the blinking cursor, your fingers paralyzed, your mind locked on the last idea.
• Premature Perfectionism – You spend more time revising, editing, and proofreading one idea than you do moving ahead to the second, third, and fourth ones.
• Procrastination – You find yourself wanting to do anything other than finish that darn draft.
• Stress – You feel the whole writing experience is too painful, either mental exhausting or emotionally taxing.

The beauty of the planning step is its low expectations of perfectionists. By definition, you are not experiencing writer's block or stress in the planning step because you are just dropping on a page or the screen ideas as they pop in your head. You'll write single words, short phrases, or even as pictures to represent those ideas with no attention to quality language. In fact, you don't even need to use English. I often encourage nonnative speakers to use their first language in the planning step if it helps them. 

So how do we plan a draft? Stay tuned for the next post.

Improving Your Style Through Diction, Part 20: Ambiguity

Writers in technical professions, such as scientists, engineers, accountants, and auditors, will warn colleagues, clients, and vendors against using ambiguous language. Precision is an apparent hallmark of business and technical writing. By definition, precise diction would exclude most interpretative language like excellent business (instead of $43 million business), remarkable recovery (instead of 16% recovery), and poor packaging (instead of 2 of 10 packages were mislabeled).

If you think critically, however, you'll notice that even the parenthetical language above is laden with subjectivity. A $43 million business is not excellent compared to Amazon if you're measuring revenue, a 16% recovery is not so remarkable if the business lost 23%, and 2 of 10 mislabeled packages do not constitute poor performance if Quality Control detected the errors before shipping.  

Here's the problem for writers: Nearly all non-mathematical language (and even mathematical language in certain contexts) we hear and read is ambiguous. If you and I decide to share the cost and benefit of buying a dozen eggs for $1.60, we would each pay $0.80 and take six eggs each. Nothing ambiguous about that. But we might inconclusively argue about the "freshness" or "largeness" or the "bargain" of those eggs. You may have more money than I, so the $0.80 investment would be greater for me. And you may not like eggs, causing you to resent sharing the cost of a useless item. 

Truth be told, ambiguity used judiciously is a beautiful thing. William Empson's Seven Types of Ambiguity attests to the value of ambiguity. No short story or novel we have ever read is not rich with ambiguity. Think of how authors describe characters. A "courageous" man might look like Abraham Lincoln to you and like Denzel Washington's character in Courage Under Fire to me; a "smart" woman might sound like Nikki Haley to you and like Susan Rice to me. That's why we love fiction. It sparks our experiential imagination. It allows us to fill in the blanks, to picture what we will. 

The same holds true in business writing when a nonprofit thanks you for your "generous" gift, your company awards you for "exemplary" service, and you write to a service provider about a "satisfying" experience. The trick for writers is to understand the ambiguity of language and to use it to their advantage by qualifying the meaning of their words through descriptive narrative.

Improving Your Style Through Diction, Part 19: Connotation

Do not be surprised when you hear a manager or peer advise you to avoid using a particular word because of what it connotes, meaning the feeling that the word may suggest beyond its dictionary definition, or what the word denotes. 

Three situations come to mind. I one did a consulting job for a major financial advisory firm. When I requested a red marker to highlight a key point on a flipchart, the client told me that red was a banned ink color because it implies "being in the red," a frightening prospect for portfolio managers. Really? Another time I accepted as a compliment an elder telling me I was special to her, yet even an apparently innocent word like special could turn pejorative, as in "He is a special case," which might mean an exception to the preferred standard, or a simply a problem. And sometimes the connotation depends on who is in the communication. The now-dated expression "You go, girl" is always better said by one woman to another than by a man to a woman, as the man may seem sexist or demeaning.

If you're thinking that this is the be-all and end-all of political correctness, remember that we all have language threshold and that language has always been political. For sure, certain choice words directed toward anyone at the wrong time could cause a major meltdown. 

Nevertheless, connotation can add humor, spice, or drama to a written or spoken message, as long as we steer clear of people's age, sex, race, religion, national origin, abilities or disabilities, sexual orientation or identification, economic status, or political persuasion. (Did I cover them all?) 

There's still plenty of room for connotation if you consider how words can take on both positive and negative shades. The word meticulous (denotation: careful, precise), can mean to show due attention to detail, or to judge in a picayune manner. We need to think about the reason and the object of our connation for appropriateness, and then think twice for potential unintended interpretations. 

Improving Your Style Through Diction, Part 18: Periphrasis

I am a big fan of using one word to replace two or more. I would rather write, "Call me to get a parking permit" (7 words) than "Call me in order to get a parking permit" (9 words), or "You have passed the manager's test" (6 words) than "We are informing you that you have passed the manager's test" (11 words), or "I request your help" (4 words) than "I am writing to request your help" (7 words).

At times, however, an extra word can add emphasis to writing. Take the case of periphrasis, the use of multiple words to convey the meaning of a single word, usually in place of a prefix (a meeting before the conference instead of a pre-conference meeting) or a suffix (he is more wise than I thought instead of he is wiser than I thought). 

Here are some examples of when periphrasis might have greater impact than its more concise version:

• Ana did attend all workshop sessions, so she should get a completion certificate. (The words did attend give more emphasis than attended.)
• Beatriz won't admit it, but she did go to Mardi Gras during the pandemic. (In using did go rather than went, the writer applies greater contrast between the claim and the denial.)
• Corazón is the most kind person I met during that difficult time. (Most kind seems even more superlative than kindest because of the otherwise difficult time the writer was having.) 

Needless to say, avoid periphrasis when the extra words are meaningless: Let's meet is better than Let's have a meeting; We need to agree is better than We need to arrive at an agreement; and You must decide is better than You must make a decision.

Improving Your Style Through Diction, Part 17: Idiom

Using idioms is a popular way to put color into your writing. An idiom is an expression that breaks logic semantically (meaning) or syntactically (grammar). Here are examples of each:

Semantic Idioms

If we choose the wrong path, we could get into hot water. (get into trouble)

He always submits his work at the eleventh hour. (at the last minute) 

When it comes to paying the bill, she always says she's broke. (lacking money) 

You need to learn to go with the flow. (be agreeable)

Syntactic Idioms

Not on your life would I run for president. (for no reason)

No way will I donate to such a radical cause! (definitely not) 

What's up, Charlie? (what's new?) 

I have been living from hand to mouth during the pandemic. (survive with hardly the basics) 

Occasionally, nonnative English speakers tell me that they want to master idioms because they will appear more conversant with the language. They are spot on, to use an idiom.