What’s the Point of Having a Point?

If you have read previous postings on WORDS ON THE LINE, you would know how big I am on placing an explicit purpose statement in business messages. Sentences such as “I propose that we purchase PDAs for the six staff researchers in our Cincinnati office” or “This root-cause analysis reports on the equipment failure in our Tacoma facility on June 3” keep the writer focused while composing the message. They also immediately ground the reader in the writer’s reason for transmitting the message; in effect, they instantly put the reader to work. Therefore, we should be sure to place a purpose statement early in our documents. My book The Art of On-the Job Writing discusses in detail the power of a purpose statement, so I stand behind this principle whenever I lead a corporate writing class.

Sometimes, however, a clearly established relationship with another reader may preclude the need for writing a purpose statement in an informal e-mail. This point was cleverly illustrated by Jong Chan, a Supervising Specialist for the New York State Insurance Department and a participant in one of my recent courses. I assigned to the participants a writing situation in which a trade show produced disappointing results for their company. I assumed that they would write to Larry, the trade show representative, a message in which they either notify him of their intention of no longer participating in his future trade fairs, or asking him for concessions and improvements to guarantee their future attendance.

Mr. Chan, an experienced manager who supervises high-level employees in his organization, chose a different approach, one he called “neutral.” Here it is:

Larry,

The Chicago Trade Show raised concerns about the cost-benefit results for our company. We believe that it was too expensive and that your advertising underrepresented us.

Jong

Notice that he did not write a purpose statement, such as, “We will not attend future trade shows for the following reasons” or “We request a plan of action from you to ensure better results for our next appearance at your trade show.” Nevertheless, I know that I would have responded to the e-mail if I were Larry. After Mr. Chan read his message to the other participants, an audience of 20 professionals representing a broad range of business responsibilities and industries, I asked what they would do if they were Larry and they had received this message. Nearly all agreed that they would call Mr. Chan to see what they could do to keep him as a customer—precisely the result that Mr. Chan expected.

I congratulated Mr. Chan for achieving this interesting trick: being purposeful without writing a purpose. He proved that sometimes we do not need to write a purpose—as long as our readers can read our minds! But even Mr. Chan would agree that for most readers, we should play it safely and assert our purpose.

Watch Those Modifiers!

Someone who felt that men were treated unfairly in his department complained to me about his dilemma, but I could not help laughing when I read what he had written:

Where I work more men lift cartons than women.

What a strange place to work. I wonder if deciding which men get to lift the women is based on seniority. Surely, the complainant meant to write:

Where I work more men than women lift cartons.

Just by changing the position of the phrase than women, he would have achieved clarity. This error, known as a misplaced modifier, is easy to make--especially when writing quickly and not taking the time to edit.

Here is an example of a dangling modifier, a word or phrase attached to a sentence without connecting logically to it:

After raining for five minutes, I decided to leave the park.

This sounds like he had a drippy bladder. He could get arrested for doing that in public! Solution:

After it rained for five minutes, I decided to leave the park.

Editing takes time--but it's time well spent. Keep words and phrases as close as possible to the words they describe. We all want our readers to focus on our meaning, not to chuckle at our blunders.

Another Excellent Web Sighting

If you are looking for another useful writer's resource and have not checked out The Guide to Grammar and Writing by the Capital Community College Foundation, then you should. Developed by Professor Charles Darling of Capital Community College in Hartford, the website offers the following features:

• a reader-friendly layout for efficient access to the site
• an in-depth review of grammar and usage
• a discussion of the principles of composition on the word, sentence, paragraph, and document levels
• easy-to-follow PowerPoint presentations on various writing topics
• more than a hundred interactive quizzes on sentence structure, word usage, punctuation, and other grammatical issues
• excellent aphorisms on writing by famous authors

By the way, the Foundation exists on contributions and would welcome your donation. Here is the link: http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar.

SEC Handbook Available Online

Nothing is as intimidating to investors as reading and technical guidelines and abstruse disclaimers related to securities trading. In 1998, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission tried to solve this problem by publishing A Plain English Handbook: How to Create Clear SEC Disclosure Documents.

The 77-page handbook presents excellent tips on documenting language and illustrations for maximum clarity and, therefore, reader benefit. Many instructive examples appear in the chapters "Writing in Plain English" and "Designing the Document," which readers from any business will find helpful.

The link to A Plain English Handbook is www.sec.gov/pdf/handbook.pdf.

Tongue and Quill Available Online

The United States Air Force has long relied on The Tongue and Quill, an excellent resource on presenting written and oral information. It covers the steps of the communication process; tips on researching topics, organizing ideas, and writing clearly and concisely; and guidelines for running meetings and speaking and listening effectively. While the writing templates offered are specific to military style and do not necessarily apply to the business world, the book is a readable, understandable, and practical reference for anyone who uses it wisely.

The 373-page August 1, 2004 edition, which supersedes the 1997 version, is available online at the following link: www.e-publishing.af.mil/pubfiles/af/33/afh33-337/afh33-337.pdf

Another Useful Link: The Elements of Style

Most people familiar with the name E.B. White (1899-1985) remember him as a children's book author (Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little, and The Trumpet of the Swan), and some recall White's poems and essays in The New Yorker for more than a half century. But nearly anyone who has entered a college composition classroom has either had to read or at least become aware of his adaptation of the 1918 grammar and style book, The Elements of Style by Cornell University Professor of English William Strunk, Jr. (1869-1946).

Before the book became known as Strunk and White, there was Strunk all by himself. His version of the book, old though it may be, remains useful and, most importantly, available in its entirety on the Intenet. It offers rules for grammar and usage, tips on avoiding commonly misused words and expressions, and standards for excellent composition, among other practical pointers. Here is the link: www.bartleby.com/141.

What's a Run-On? How Do I Stop It From Running On?

A run-on sentence is a grammatical error in which more than one complete thought is joined without an appropriate connecting words or punctuation mark. Here are two tips for avoiding run-on sentences: read the sentences aloud or learn the rules. Let’s take these tips one at a time.


Reading Aloud
Read your sentences aloud to hear how they will sound. Look at this example of a run-on:

I didn’t find the invoice on the photocopier I found it on the shredder.
In speaking the above statement, most of us naturally do one of two things after uttering the word photocopier: pause or change our pitch. The slower speakers actually pause. The faster speakers change pitch, momentarily shifting their intonation. Therefore, some punctuation is necessary.

We have a number of options in correcting this run-on sentence. Here are five:

1. I didn’t find the invoice on the photocopier. I found it on the shredder.
2. I didn’t find the invoice on the photocopier; I found it on the shredder.
3. I didn’t find the invoice on the photocopier, but I found it on the shredder.
4. You said that I found the invoice on the photocopier, but I found it on the shredder.
5. Although I didn’t find the invoice on the photocopier, I did find it on the shredder.

Learning the Rules


Of course, some of us speak so fast that we do not hear a rate or a pitch change. With all due respect to fast talkers (I sometimes wish I had that skill), those people are generally more difficult to understand. They need to learn the rules, so here we go:


A sentence must express a complete thought. It must have a subject and a predicate.

• The subject is the who or what the sentence is about.
• The predicate is what is said about the subject.

Example: Managers train.


Subject? ManagersPredicate? train


A sentence may have also have the following parts:

• object complements to indicate the receiver of the action by the simple predicate
• modifiers to describe the meaning of another word
• connectives, such as prepositions and conjunctions, to join sentence parts
• independent elements, which are expressions that have no grammatical connection with the sentence in which they appear.

Examples (sentence part in italics):


object complements: Managers train staff.

modifiers: The managers often train new staff.

connectives: The managers often train and assign new staff for the factory.

independent elements: The managers, Phil believes, often train and assign new staff for the factory.


Many useful resources are available on this subject. This blog lists a few, so check them out!