This is a transcript of one of the videos in a unit of the plain language training course Writing well at work. There are references to slides and visual material that are only available by viewing the video.
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A perspective I’ve found really helpful is to consider a document as a conversation. And in many ways, it is a conversation.
Document = conversation
What we’re trying to do when we write a document is we’re trying to transfer ideas from one person to another person. Well, that’s often what goes on in a conversation. Now, I know a document is pretty much a one way conversation. It’s not a discussion, but it does have many of the features of a conversation. It’s about talking to somebody else and imparting some ideas to them.
Transforming your approach to writing
Just taking on that attitude that a document is a conversation will change the way you approach the writing task. It is no longer you on the keyboard, it’s actually you and another person. And that is a really helpful perspective to have.
Let me say that I think most of the time our documents do work reasonably well as conversation. I can understand what other people think and what they want me to do just by reading the words they’ve put on a page or on a screen.
Ambiguity and confusion
But sometimes the conversation doesn’t work so well.
Have a look at this piece of communication. How’s that working as conversation? It is a document because it’s a bunch of words that happen to be printed on a piece of metal and stuck up on a pole.
Look, I don’t think that works real well as conversation. Sure, if you read it a couple of times, you might get a little bit of a sense of what it’s trying to say. And maybe if you have your jet ski licence, you know what irregular driving is.
But also think about the context in which you’re wanting to have this conversation. I’ve got the jet ski on the trailer in the back of the car. I’m trying to get it down the boat ramp and the trailer is going this way and then it’s gone that way. And you want to have this conversation with me? I don’t think that’s working so well.
What about this one here? I’m not sure that I want to go to a church like this one. OK, another example of a failure in the conversation. What the writer wanted to say, and what the reader is picking up is something different. There’s a bit of ambiguity going on.
What about this one here? That might make you feel sorry for all the dogs in Randwick Council, doesn’t it? OK. Again, a failure in the conversation. What the writer wanted to say, what the reader is picking up again some ambiguity. There could be some confusion there.
And this one might be my favourite. Makes you wonder about their staff turnover rate, doesn’t it? OK. Again, another example of a failure in the conversation. What the writer wanted to say and what the reader is picking up. Yeah, there’s something different.
Now look, we can have a giggle at these sorts of examples where the conversation has not worked so well. Where there is ambiguity or confusion, or it’s just not effective in some way.
Ambiguity and confusion can be deadly
But when the conversation fails in business and government documents, the consequences aren’t so funny. One example that’s been examined in great detail is the space Challenger disaster way back in the 1980s. What happened was this spacecraft broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, resulting in the death of seven crew members.
What had happened was the o-ring around the rocket booster failed at liftoff, and it allowed hot gases to escape and reach the fuel tank.
But what was particularly tragic about this incident was the risk to the o-ring was known to the engineers, but the communication process through to the decision makers failed, failed. They didn’t understand the significance or what was going on and they ended up, let’s say, making a suboptimal decision.
Knowledge needs to move around the organisation
So here’s a situation where there is actually some really good knowledge inside the organisation. The engineers have done some research, some testing, some analysis. They actually knew some stuff, but as that knowledge moved from one part of the organisation over to another part of the organisation, the part that needed to use that information or something went wrong with the conversation. And they did make a sub optimal decision, let’s say.
It’s a bit of a guess, but I wonder whether that same sort of thing can happen inside your organisation. Where yes, there is some good knowledge there. Some people have done some research, some testing, some thinking, some analysis. Yeah, we actually know some stuff.
But as that knowledge moves from one part of the organisation to another part of the organisation, the part that needs to use that knowledge. Well, something goes wrong with the conversation and things don’t work out as well as they could. We don’t make the best decisions that we could and we don’t implement appropriate courses of action.
You’re probably able to recognise incidents where that sort of thing happened inside your organisation. I think it happens in all organisations.
Poor conversation in documents a community problem
In fact, I think it’s broader than an organisational problem. I think it’s actually a community problem.
Now I’m not sure if you’re familiar with this organisation. The March for science. This is from their website from a few years ago, but what they were highlighting is how there is often a disconnect between the things we know as a community, the things that we’ve discovered and researched and the way that knowledge is used in decision making and forming policy. Now I know in this case there is a huge political overlay on top of all of this, but at least part of the problem is a communication problem.
Good structure can help
Quickly coming back to the NASA example. Let me show you one of the slides that the contractors used to explain to NASA that there was a problem. I’ll just give you a minute to have a read of that.
Well, now let me ask you the question. Where do they talk about the problem? I think they talk about the problem at the second last bullet point where it says bench testing showed the o-ring was not capable of maintaining contact with metal parts gap operating to MEOP which is maximum expected operating pressure.
This is where they talk about the problem. I know they do use words like ‘concern’ at the top of the slide but some of that content is a little bit confusing. I mean, we’ve got a high probability of reliable secondary seal. When I read that my mind’s primed to think that everything is OK, especially if I’m of the mindset that we really do need to go ahead with this launch. And this really critical piece of information was missed.
Now when this incident happened, there was a huge investigation. The investigating committee looked at a whole bunch of different things and part of what they looked at was the communication processes. They pulled out this slide as an example and they were saying when you communicate information using this type of organisation, this structure when you communicate critical content in this way, you are effectively burying really important information.
Now, perhaps not doing that deliberately, but you are effectively burying really important information when it’s structured in this way. You see, it’s all the way down towards the bottom of the slide and it was effectively missed by the people who really did need to understand it.
The importance of ‘so what’?
The other thing with this slide. What’s missing? It’s really hard to find what’s not there. But have a go. I think what’s missing is any, ‘so what’ information? There is no information there about the consequences of this problem that they’ve identified.
I think you’ll find in most business and government documents the idea of ‘so what’ is really important.
Now you may be saying, well, look, that’s very interesting, but 1986? I wasn’t even born then. Why are you still talking about it? Well, I’m still talking about it for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s really difficult to find other examples of communication processes that have been examined as thoroughly as this one. But the other reason I use it is because I still see information organised and structured in much the same way today.
Perhaps the only improvement I’ve seen in what is nearly 40 years now is that we no longer write everything in uppercase. Yeah, we shouldn’t do that. It makes it really hard to read.
I don’t want to dwell on this example, but I use it to make this point.
Communicate – don’t just be complete and accurate
It is not enough to be complete and accurate. What we need to do when we craft a document is to communicate.
Now, we could argue that the slide I showed you was complete and accurate. All the information was there, but clearly it didn’t communicate and we know it didn’t communicate because they went ahead with the launch.
Now, I’m not suggesting that you can go soft on being complete and accurate. You can’t. You do need to be complete and accurate, but that is not our goal.
Our goal is to communicate, to make sure that we get a message across. That is the most important thing to focus on whenever we are writing any type of document.
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