"Bad Language"
A column about writing in business
Seven Types of Bad Writing
Everyone can write. But not everyone can write well.
We all learn to write at school but then society makes a distinction between 'writers' and 'the rest of us.' A writer sits in a garret and writes poetry. The rest of us write memos. It's a false division.
Because everyone can write, people underestimate its importance and overestimate their own ability. Because they think that writers are creative weirdos they rarely think about hiring a specialist when they have something important to say.
I'm not talking about advertising copywriting. This is an art form at its best -- business haikus. I'm talking about brochures, websites, case studies, press releases, reports, letters and the humdrum daily word torrent.
What comes out of most companies is bad. In my experience, there are seven types of bad business writing:
- Thinks too much of itself. The UK satirical magazine, Private Eye runs a regular column lampooning the abuse of the word 'solution.' For example, Dow Corning's "Innovative solutions for wound management," which means "bandages." This kind of word inflation devalues meaning and arouses the scepticism of readers.
- Is too clever by half. For some reason, people are afraid to write how they speak. They want to sound big, grown-up and clever. So they use big words and long sentences. For example, I was presented with this beauty at a school board meeting once: "the Governing Body are agreeing this budget as the financial mechanism to support the education priorities of the school as identified in the School Development Plan and will adhere to the best value principles in spending its school funding allocation." It meant, "We approve the budget."
- Gets hyped up. Press releases often include "frankenquotes." These made-up quotations bear no resemblance to normal speech. For example, "Nortel has established a legacy in innovation and will continue to push the envelope..." Try saying that in a pub to your friends. See if they still listen to you afterwards. Or trust you.
- Tells lies. In the UK, journalists score low in public trust. Somewhere near politicians and spin-doctors. However, good journalists are obsessive about research, accuracy, good reporting, details and, yes, truth. What works for newspaper stories also works for business communication. Truthfulness in writing is as much about research as it is about intent.
- Ignores the reader. As a writer, the greatest skill is to think about what the reader needs to hear, not what you need to say. It takes an imaginative leap. For example, Google says "Please read this carefully, it's not the usual yada, yada." Microsoft says "This software is licensed under the agreement below." Which one are you more likely to read?
- Needs to go on a diet. Most writing can be improved by liposuction. Consider the Gettysburg Address -- short but strong. Antoine de Saint-Exupery said it best: "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." This is especially true when writing for the web, when you need to cut the word count by about 50 percent.
- Has no direction. My favourite tutor at Oxford told me that I had to take my essays and drive them like Ayrton Senna (a famous racing driver). Good writing has purpose and direction. Bad writing has neither.
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Comments from our users:
The writing is all over the map. Much of what is written by amateurs or ineffective writers is simply too scattered as far as organization and thoughtful construction. Pick a direction and go there, with some kind of plan for all the stops in between start and finish. Let the reader enjoy the journey, not experience vertigo from all the twists and turns.
Thanks
Thank you for sharing!
Thanks to Matthew stibbe!
We found a treasure trove of great journalistic writing when my mother thought about pulling up an old canvas floor cover in her family home. There were newspapers spread around neatly under it dating from the mid 1940's.
We very much enjoyed reading the old articles and noticed a big difference from the news writings of today.
They were beatifully written, detailed, told the stories and answered the readers questions quickly, and they were ...shorter.
Now that that I have them remembered, I think I'll go find out if she still has them. I'd like to share this treasure with my teenage children. I think they would be very good examples of how we all should write for the public.
I now prefer old books written around that time. It seems the differences remain throughout all different types of writing. I have become an explorer of the good ol' days of literature.
Try it!
What is a canvas floor?
The stuff seems to be an early form of linoleum. It was made from a substance like thick pressed tar paper. It is printed in tapestry designs and has definite borders. You would buy a canvas floor as you would an area rug, by size. There is no cutting-to-fit or the design would be ruined.
The newspapers, we are left to suppose, either served as insulation or, more likely, to prevent the floor from sticking and becoming irremoveable.
There was nothing wrong with my mother's canvas floor. It has proven to be very durable. These floors are very valuable for their designs, and will crack from age when lifted up.
In the end she replaced the papers with new, and only carpeted over it until she could arrange a buyer to come and remove it properly someday.