Use Your Words!

When children cry without explanation, parents typically say, "Use your words." It's a good reminder to all of us when writing business email or instant messages. Below are three common examples of using our words to say what we really mean.

This first example written by an information technology analyst to an end user replaces two words too general in the context with more specific ones:

• Vague: You must do several things before starting the engine.
• Specific: You must take three security precautions before starting the engine.

This second example written by a project manager to a department chief shows how two specific project-related terms replace a crude, virtually meaningless word:

• Vague: We will talk about project stuff during the meeting.
• Specific: We will talk about project deliverables and contingencies during the meeting.

This third example written by an engineer to all levels of the organization interested only in operations minimizes the value of two other business aspects because they do not relate to engineering. The second draft clarifies that oversight. 

• Vague: This engineering report divides the business issues into operations and miscellaneous.
• Specific: This engineering report divides the business issues into operations, administration, and management.

The problem with being specific is that we sometimes do not come up with the best words in first draft, so we should allow editing time if we want to use our words.

 

Pandemic Practices

I know the last thing you want to hear about is the pandemic. But I've learned a lot more than the value of getting vaccinated, washing my hands, masking up, and meeting others sparingly during those two-plus years that we were in pandemic mode, although I am grateful for those lessons. Sure, I lost a lot of business, but as the saying goes, money ain't everything, especially when considering those who lost their lives to covid. I mentioned in previous posts the pleasures of reading, writing, listening, and seeing more intently (and intensely) during those "lost years," but I believe I have gained so much by slowing down my commercial treadmill from March 2020 to June 2022. Here is how.  

I found unprecedented time to read many of the books on my bucket list, but I still have many more to read. Some recent worthwhile reads have been Joseph Henrich's The WEIRDEST People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous, Geert Hofstede's Culture's Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions and Organizations, Walter Isaacson's Leonardo da Vinci, and Steven Johnson's Where Good Ideas Come From: A Natural History of Innovation.

I have subscribed to YouTube channels that never cease to put a smile on my face, including those of pianists Rossano Sportiello, Stephanie Trick & Paolo Alderighi. Or I could just listen a thousand times to pianist Michel Camilo play From Within, tenor saxophonist John Coltrane play The Night Has a Thousand Eyes, alto saxophonist Paul Desmond play Emily, pianist-singer Eliane Elias play Samba Triste, or pianist Ahmad Jamal play Poinciana. Those five videos alone could take and make an entire day for me.

All of these activities have inspired and continue to shape me, proof that we never stop learning.  

Advice for All Writers from Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) offers eight tips for fiction writers in his introduction to Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction (2000), but three of them, tips 1, 5, and 8, apply to business and technical writers as well. 

Tip 1: Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted. We need to heed this advice when writing anything at work, from an audit or an investigation report to a procedure or a proposal. Readers do not need to know all the who, what, where, when, why, and how—only as needed. Consider the business purpose related to your audience. It's not what you know that matters; it's what your readers need to know.

Tip 5: Start as close as to the end as possible. Fiction writers can take this tip to mean that they should reveal or foreshadow the climax or even the resolution early in the story. On-the-job writers use another term: executive summary. Ask for what you want right up front. In an incident report, you will want to note the human and property damage of an accident immediately. For a proposal, you want to put the ask right away.

Tip 8: Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such a complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should the cockroaches eat the last few pages. Well, Vonnegut said it all with this piece of guidance, didn't he? Place the request before the reason, the solution before the problem, and the result before the process.

Thank you, Kurt Vonnegut.

I Did Not Say That, Part 12: Oxford Comma

I conclude this series on misinterpretations of my teaching with the Oxford comma, or serial comma, a punctuation mark I invariably use but do not insist that others do. I could have ended the post with that single sentence, but, hey, I'm a writer.

Notice the comma, known as the Oxford comma, before and in the following sentences:

Thanksgiving has passed, Christmas is coming, and New Year's Day will soon follow.

Billie Holiday, Charles Mingus, and Duke Ellington were born in April. 

Rita Dove has written poetry, fiction, drama, and essays. 

I have evidence of using this comma when I was a college student in the 1970s. I have no logical reason for using it; it is just a preference. I have seen many examples from teachers trying to prove that using the Oxford comma adds clarity to a sentence, but all those examples would be better rephrased with or without the Oxford comma for clarity. I tell my students that they may use it if they wish and I will not correct them if they do not, but I do suggest that they do or do not use it consistently. When my editorial clients ask me why I use it, I say it's just a choice. Then some will tell me to drop it, and most will tell me to keep it and adopt it themselves. I do what my clients say on this matter. They are the ones who pay the invoice.

Consistently use the Oxford comma if you like, but I did not say you must.

I Did Not Say That, Part 11: Mr. and Ms. or Nothing?

The gender identification movement has something to say about how we address each other in writing. Finding gender-neutral ways of referring to people is taking hold across many major segments of society, particularly the workplace. Referring to an individual with the traditionally standard plural they regardless of their sex or sexual has becoming the not-so new standard. 

In formal writing, do we then eliminate Mr. or Ms. altogether and address people by their given name and surname, as in Dear Jia Liu or Dear Avinash Patel? I ask this at a time when I still meet people who insist on using Miss and Mrs. when referring to women; they have been out of touch with prevailing standards for a half-century! And what if people want to be referred to as she/her or even Mrs., just as others want to be referred to as they? I noted in a post earlier this year that these issues are evolving, so I continue to tell writers to stop looking for certainty in this area. Just be mindful and, above all, respectful of your readers.

I do not believe the matter is completely settled to the extent that subject-verb agreement remains a grammatical standard. But those who believe that proponents of gender identity merely compose a fringe group are wrong. If we do  not want misgender our readers, keep reading up on the issue in countless online resources, and think before you address.

I Did Not Say That, Part 10: Formal Style

"I write like I talk, so I want to improve my writing style."

Whenever I hear someone making this comment, I respond, "Why change? You speak respectfully, clearly, and concisely. I understand you perfectly." Wow, does that comment stun them.

What's so bad about writing like you talk?

Assuming you are articulate and speaking at your professional best, as you would during a public course in which you are a participant, then you should strive to write with a similar style. When hanging out with old friends at a bar, you might say, "Yo, man, like I ain't feeling it when I'm rapping, and my scribing is all jive." But among professional peers, you would likely to say something like, "I tend to take a long time to get to the point when I'm speaking, and my writing is even worse." That's formal enough in our world today.

Do you always want a formal style?

You might say, "I need to write more formally." Fair enough. But if you ever open an email with "Hello Hal," "Hi Hilda," "Good day Gloria," or "Dear Dan," you are not writing formally. In fact, I hesitate to say, "Dear Dr. Davis" or "Dear Ms. Miller" is appropriately formal today because of preferred pronouns emerging from the gender identification movement. These days, a more gender-neutral "Dear David Davis" or "Dear Millie Miller" seems more the fashion. Even dropping Dear seems a better fit. (Sorry, old timers: things change.) 

So if you see me hedging when you say, "I always want to write formally," it's because I'm trying to find a nice way to say, "No, you don't."

I Did Not Say That, Part 9: Avoiding "I Can't"

Most of my clients are in the service business. Serving others concerns what you can do, not what you cannot do. For this obvious reason, I admonish people to avoid defaulting to expressions such as I cannot, We are unable to, My team finds it impossible to, and Our company is not in a position to—all meaning just about the same thing: we are recalcitrant, indolent, and intractable.

So how do we get around saying and writing I can't, especially to the people we owe our living to? By saying its opposite: I can:

• Instead of writing the repellent "I can't help you next week," write "I can help you today." 
• Avoid saying the negative "We are unable to complete this project without additional staff and funding," by saying "We are able to complete this project with additional staff and funding." 
• Rather than communicate "My team finds it impossible to complete this proposal on time," prefer "My team needs another day to complete this proposal." 
• Drop "Our company is not in a position to provide guidance in this area" in favor of "Our company recommends expert consultant Paul Jefferson for guidance in this area."

I am not saying we should never use expressions like I can't, but I am saying that we should default to positives. If your clients insist you help them next week after you've written, "I can help you today," then explain: "I'll be on my honeymoon next week" or whatever your reason. If they still insist, then they're not getting the message, although reasonable people will. They have given you no choice but to write the negative "I am unavailable next week." But remember to make the positive I can your default.