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ABC-Proof Your Writing

Written by: Eric Garner

Article Overview: The written word is the most impressionable form of communication there is. Learn how to master it with these 3 key principles.

ABC-Proof Your Writing

The written word says more about you than the spoken word. If you want to leave people with a clear message that can’t be misunderstood, or you want to leave them with a clear impression of you, then you must learn the ABC of the written word.

1. A for Accuracy. The A for Accuracy check is the check you run to see that what you have written is factually true, grammatically correct, well-spelt and has a logical flow.

One way to do this is to read your piece from your reader’s point of view and to ask yourself: could it be misinterpreted? If your writing reads differently out of context or from a different angle, then re-write it. Remember, the 500 most common words in the English language have 16,000 different meanings!

Another way to check the accuracy of a piece is to eliminate anything that is vague and unclear.
· if you can say “5% rate of interest”, don’t say “moderate rate of growth”.
· if you can say “20ft by 40ft”, don’t say “big”.
· if you can say “your report of 16th December”, don’t say “your recent communication”.

To be accurate, you also need to know the basics of grammar.
An English professor wrote the following words on a blackboard, “A woman without her man is nothing” and asked the class to punctuate it. All the males in the class wrote: “A woman, without her man, is nothing.” All the females wrote, “A woman, without her, man is nothing.” Two opposite meanings!

As well as being grammatically correct, a good piece of writing also needs to be well-spelt. The best way to improve your spelling is to do lots more reading. You can also use a spell-checker on a computer, but do so with caution. This is what Janet Minor found…

"I have a spelling checker
It came with my PC;
It plainly marks four my revue
Mistakes I cannot sea.
I've run this poem threw it,
I'm sure you're pleased too no,
Its letter perfect in its weigh,
My checker tolled me sew."

2. B for Brevity. In our days of short attention spans and busy lives, most people want their communication to be short. We simply don’t have time to read long pieces of writing. That’s why your second writing check needs to be for Brevity.

Of course, there is nothing new about keeping your writing brief. It has been the mark of great communication down the years. Look at the length of the following pieces of writing:
Pythagoras’s theory = 24
The Lord’s Prayer = 66
Archimedes Principle = 67
The Ten Commandments = 179
The Gettysburg Address = 286
The Declaration of Independence = 1300

On the other hand, the US Government’s Regulations on the Sale of Cabbage run to 26,911 words!

One way to check whether your piece of writing is excessively long or not is to run it through the Fog Index. This is a formula developed by Robert Gunning of the Clear Writing Institute of Santa Barbara. You simply take a piece of writing, and calculate the average number of words per sentence. Count the number of words with more than three syllables, halve the number and add these to your figure. The total is the fog index for the piece. Many of the communications that come out of official organizations run to a high fog index of over 50 whereas in conversation most people use a fog index of 30. In tabloid newspapers, the fog index runs to a worthy 12 to 15.

If you find your fog index is large, simply practise pruning. You can prune all of the following:
· words: Anglo-Saxon words are better than Latinised words, eg "help" is better than "assist”
· phrases: avoid padding out phrases, eg instead of "along the lines of" use "like" and instead of "due to the fact that..." use "because"
· sentences: aim for sentences of between 12 and 15 words each
· paragraphs: stick to one idea in each paragraph and keep them to under 15 lines of typing
· pages: aim to summarise on just one page; if your communication is longer, use an appendix.

3. C for Clarity. Written communication, whether memos, emails, or official announcements, are a form of 1-way communication. There isn’t the immediate chance to check that what you are saying is being understood by the people on the receiving end. That’s why you have to be crystal clear when you write. Hence, your third check, for Clarity.

Unfortunately, our fondness for jargon, cliché, and buzz-words in business often gets in the way of clarity. Here’s a tongue-in-cheek example of muddle from Philip Duggan: "Sciolist Ltd announce that they have been awarded exclusive rights to develop an Extended Range of Acronyms (ERA) programme. MD, Nigel Ian Turner (NIT) stresses that Multi-User Groups (MUGs) will benefit immensely by using the company's High Yield Product Efficiency (HYPE) system in conjunction with their existing Computer Oriented Network (CON). Customers subscribing to HYPE and CON are guaranteed a Maxi Usable Double Data Link Entry (MUDDLE)."

If you want your communication to be clear as a bell, you have to write “7th Grade, 9th Month” Communications. This is the level that someone in the 7th grade, 9th month of school (ie a 12 year old) could understand. And don’t worry. This won’t offend someone with a higher education, because they’ll understand it too.

When you’re tempted to complicate things, remember…
· there are only 3 pure colours but look at what Michelangelo did with them.
· there are only 7 musical notes but look at what Mozart managed to produce.
· there are only 3 monosyllabic words in “God is love” and 80% of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is composed of single-syllable words.

Despite the modern revolution in communications, the written word still remains the most powerful tool for expressing the nuances of our views, ideas and feelings. We write to confirm spoken agreements. We write to make ourselves clear. We write to clarify our thoughts. Effective writing means writing that is accurate, brief and clear.

Related Articles
  100 Ways to Succeed #52
  Brevity and Clarity
  How to Develop the Writing Habit-Even if You Don’t Have Time to Write
  Writing Articles Is A Simple But Lucrative Work From Home Career
  You Have To Write

Article Tags: ABC, accuracy, brevity, clarity



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