I write much better than I talk. My high school English teacher would probably cry if she heard the way I butcher the language. It is pure laziness on my part that I talk that way. I try not to come across as a total hick when I post something here.
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How much do you care about how correctly you write?
- Thread starter Gorn
- Start date
It can be a double-edged sword.
For a while, I was making some pretty decent money as an online vendor. It helped that I was writing thank-you notes with every order and replying to all inquiries in long form. Eventually I think that buried me. I got burned out on having to spend 20 minutes typing a long, thoughtful reply every time someone had a little question for me. I either had to get more gruff and impersonal, farm out some of the customer service work, or quit.
For a while, I was making some pretty decent money as an online vendor. It helped that I was writing thank-you notes with every order and replying to all inquiries in long form. Eventually I think that buried me. I got burned out on having to spend 20 minutes typing a long, thoughtful reply every time someone had a little question for me. I either had to get more gruff and impersonal, farm out some of the customer service work, or quit.
Communication is always a two-way street, and it is always dependent on the ability of both parties to do their part.
Back when I worked to coordinate various projects for a living, I had to write many emails that were intended to organize groups of people who were involved in projects and tasks. I found that the amount of precise detail I included in each email was unimportant. These were all highly educated people, but they never read anything other than the first few sentences. Auxiliary detail and second paragraphs simply did not exist for them. Everything was skimmed quickly, and important details went unseen and were the subject of many follow-up questions, even though the information had been provided.
So, in order to effectively organize, I got into the habit of starting my emails with one sentence, stating the point of the email, like this:
This worked. If I needed to relay additional information to the group that did not pertain to this very specific topic (organizing the conference call), I would write a separate email, rather than stuff the info into a final paragraph. It may well pertain to the same conference call (i.e. "action items for next call") but it needed to be in a new email with a different subject line, easily searchable.
The point here is that the assumption that providing a lot of detail is the same as providing clarity is not accurate. People will skim whatever you write, and confirmation bias will assure that they take away what they want to take away, accurate or not. Providing too much detail gives them more to misunderstand.
Being good at creative writing has little to do with communicating effectively unless you are writing a story or novel. Being good at understanding the limitations of your likely audience is more important.
As noted, these were highly educated people. They were professors of medicine and science, and their limitations were not comprehensive. The limitation for these folks was time, and I would venture to guess that's true in most business communications.
Back when I worked to coordinate various projects for a living, I had to write many emails that were intended to organize groups of people who were involved in projects and tasks. I found that the amount of precise detail I included in each email was unimportant. These were all highly educated people, but they never read anything other than the first few sentences. Auxiliary detail and second paragraphs simply did not exist for them. Everything was skimmed quickly, and important details went unseen and were the subject of many follow-up questions, even though the information had been provided.
So, in order to effectively organize, I got into the habit of starting my emails with one sentence, stating the point of the email, like this:
"We need to organize a conference call for next week to finalize <blah blah whatever it is we've been working on>."
Then I'd set parameters and bullet point everything in a short list of what I needed from the participants.
Please provide the following to me by 4:00pm on Tuesday (I want it by 5:00 but I know that to get it by then I have to say that I need it earlier):
- documentation needed
- availability
- (anything else that is pertinent)
And again I would remind them of when I needed this information.- documentation needed
- availability
- (anything else that is pertinent)
This worked. If I needed to relay additional information to the group that did not pertain to this very specific topic (organizing the conference call), I would write a separate email, rather than stuff the info into a final paragraph. It may well pertain to the same conference call (i.e. "action items for next call") but it needed to be in a new email with a different subject line, easily searchable.
The point here is that the assumption that providing a lot of detail is the same as providing clarity is not accurate. People will skim whatever you write, and confirmation bias will assure that they take away what they want to take away, accurate or not. Providing too much detail gives them more to misunderstand.
Being good at creative writing has little to do with communicating effectively unless you are writing a story or novel. Being good at understanding the limitations of your likely audience is more important.
As noted, these were highly educated people. They were professors of medicine and science, and their limitations were not comprehensive. The limitation for these folks was time, and I would venture to guess that's true in most business communications.
Part of my job involves reading medical reports from doctors who get paid thousands of dollars per hour for their time. Sometimes it’s well over ten grand for a five page report. They’ll get the facts right. Dates and numbers and medical terms will be fine but sometimes grammar, punctuation, and spelling just isn’t a concern. The higher ups don’t seem to care. Our customers don’t seem to care. I can’t stand it.
I take my key from Mark Twain. He was a master of writing in the colloquial when it was appropriate, but extremely correct in his other usage. I'll write any slang or jargon, or drop any kind of misuse in, if what I'm writing calls for it; but my default setting is doing it by the rules. Writing off rule is fine if you do it on purpose. If you just can't help it, it makes you look bad.
It's like the difference between playing a riff differently because you decided to be creative with it, and screwing it up because you don't know how to play it. That guy who can't tell the difference between a 5th and a 4th is NOT just "playing it his way".
It's like the difference between playing a riff differently because you decided to be creative with it, and screwing it up because you don't know how to play it. That guy who can't tell the difference between a 5th and a 4th is NOT just "playing it his way".
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I think that is probably true, but I also think that an online community like this one is going to be comprised of people from many walks of life who may have different levels of education, may not be native English speakers, etc. Two of the best musicians I've ever known personally were functionally illiterate, but that didn't make them stupid people. It just meant there were deficits somewhere, perhaps a learning disability or perhaps an educational roadblock of some sort.
This community selects out people like that because they aren't even able to participate, but both of those guys would have something of value to share here if they were able. I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, because we're not all born to the same set of circumstances.
I have covered it elsewhere, but if you want to know how bad things have become, basic literacy isn't even required to work in major-market broadcast media any more:
Print publications used to employ editors at various levels, along with proofreaders. The explosion of online media done on the cheap means that this no longer happens. Even the large, well-regarded publications have scrapped a lot of this expense because autocorrect can do much of what editors and proofreaders used to do. The result is that you end up with "ballet" instead of "ballot." My favorite <sarcasm> is the ubiquitous "breath" in place of "breathe." I don't know why, but even smart people on social media can't seem to add that terminal "e" when required.I have covered it elsewhere, but if you want to know how bad things have become, basic literacy isn't even required to work in major-market broadcast media any more:
View attachment 4178014
I have covered it elsewhere, but if you want to know how bad things have become, basic literacy isn't even required to work in major-market broadcast media any more:
View attachment 4178014
This looks like a job for the Lord of Warp.
"What you talkin' 'bout, Willis?"
I think your post should read more clearly with different punctuation. There was also a place where your pronoun was singular but referred to a plural subject. Additionally, I believe your last sentence is a run-on sentence.
Do you care not at all or a little bit? If English isn’t your first language or you have some sort of cognitive issue then those are different stories. I’m primarily asking native English speakers. Although, I am often impressed by people who speak English as a second or third language well.
I didn't pick the King's English response because I am American and it can be preferable to end some sentences with prepositions.
While it's true that I can read and comprehend what is written here, there are two big problems for me:
(1) It takes a little longer to decipher what's been written, which can add up in the long run, and (2), aesthetically, it's just plain BAD!
Here's an analogy...someone sits down to a piano, and sings and plays "Let It Be." The singing and playing are awful. Now, just because I recognize the song as "Let It Be" doesn't mean it's okay for the singer/player to butcher the performance.
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Yeah, I am not great at punctuation, but certain things should be glaringly obvious.
The things I tend to let go of are things like hyphens. My problems there come from some other jobs I had where I was writing website copy for an editor under AP style, when I was trained in a different method, so the things that needed to be hyphenated and so forth weren't consistent with what I was used to. I also can't let go of double spaces after periods, even though I know that today it's just wrong.
This points up another issue for the true pedants among us, and that is the question of what is actually correct. As far as I know, TalkBass doesn't have a stylebook requirement, so what looks right to me might not be right to someone else. There are high levels of absurdity to be achieved here.
On a side note, I wrote the above post and, not five minutes later, opened another thread here and there it was: the dreaded "breath" instead of "breathe." I promise I was not specifically picking on anyone intentionally when I wrote that!
