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 writer’s job is to make it easy for readers
One of the things that we need to do as writers is to make it easy for our readers.
And let me give you at least a couple of reasons for doing that.
The first one is, just be polite. If a document is a conversation, as I claim it is, then we need to converse politely. So that means I’m not going to use words that people don’t understand, nor am I going to talk about things that they’re not interested in. I wouldn’t do that in a face to face conversation, and I won’t do that in a written conversation.
The second reason for making it easy for your readers is so that your message gets through. If stuff is too hard to read, people won’t read it. I don’t read documents that are too hard to read. Maybe I’ll scan it maybe. But look, if I’ve got a choice, I’m not going to read anything that’s too difficult.
Think about yourself as a reader. You would much prefer to read text that is easy, that communicates the message without a whole lot of effort than you would to do battle with the document.
So it’s really important to make it easy for our readers. Throughout this course we will talk about a number of ideas that do make it easy for the reader.
But one of the key ideas, I think one thing that is most helpful for readers is to write a shorter document rather than a longer document. To take all the information, all the knowledge that you have and to distil it and put it on a single page.
If you can give me the story in 2 pages rather than 20 pages, I will be very grateful to you. We all want that because we’re all so busy at work. We want to get the message, we want to know the important things about the idea without spending a whole lot of effort in doing so.
This diagram that you see on the screen is a very easy thing for me to draw, but it’s a very difficult thing to do because it means you as the writer, you need to do a whole lot of thinking.
Thinking for your reader
You’re actually doing some thinking on behalf of your reader. You’re doing some summarising and condensing. You’re making some decisions about what goes in and what goes out. You’re finding the right structures, the right way of wording things so that you can make it nice and tight and condensed for your reader.
Now, if you were involved in writing ministerial briefing notes, you’ll see that this is precisely what is going on when you write that type of document.
You are doing some thinking on behalf of your reader, but you are well placed to do that because you know the stuff. So it does take a fair bit of effort, but on your part, but it is of immense value to your reader.
I’m not sure if you’ve come across this acronym, TLDR. It stands for too long, didn’t read and that will be the response if you write an excessively long document. Because when you write an excessively long document, you are now imposing yourself on the reader.
Making demands on your reader’s time
You are making some demands for their time. You are saying I need to have this conversation with you and you need to listen to me. You’ve become the bore at the party where you grabbed somebody and stuck them in the the corner and you’re going to talk at them all night.
And some readers will just say, NO, I don’t have time for that. That is too long. I’m not going to read. So it is really important to be able to write concise text that still gets the message across very clearly.
Well, while we’re just talking about that, how about a little bit of silliness from the cat in the hat. It has often been said there’s so much to be read, you can never cram all those words in your head, so the writer who breads more words than he needs is making a chore for the reader who reads. That’s why my belief is the brief for the brief is the greater the sigh of the reader’s relief is, and that’s why your books have such power and strength. We published with short short is better than length.
Maximum meaning, minimum reading
Yes, that’s a little bit of silliness, but it takes me to my very serious motto, which is on the screen now, maximum meaning minimum reading. This is what I want to achieve in all documents, no matter what I’m writing, I want to get the maximum amount of content – well, it’s actually more than content – it’s the maximum amount of meaning in the least amount of reading effort for my reader.
Maximum meaning minimum reading. That’s what I want to achieve.
Now this is not saying that a 500 word document is always better than 1000 words. I mean word count is important, but it’s not the only thing. It is about making sure that we get the meaning across to our readers. And sometimes when we’re dealing with more complex matters, it will require a few more words.
Well, he’s a quote from Mr Pascal. He said if I had more time, I would write a shorter letter. I think Mark Twain said something similar.
And we know that that is true because the easy thing to do is to do the brain dump. There it is. You’ve got it all. Go for your life, reader. I haven’t left anything out.
The hard, difficult thing to do is to do some thinking on behalf of your reader. To make those decisions about what goes in and what goes out, to summarise and condense to find the right structures, to find the right way of wording things.
It does take some effort and time on your part, but it is of immense value to your reader.
The desire for brevity has been around for a while
What you have on your screen now is a memo from Winston Churchill from way back in 1940, right in the middle of World War 2. This is what he says: To do our work we all have to read a mass of papers. Nearly all of them are far too long. This wastes time. While energy has to be spent in looking for the essential points. Now I reckon that’s probably resonating with you already.
He’s got a few ideas there about what he’d like his people to do. Maybe we don’t need a full report. Maybe just a few headings or short paragraphs will do. Hey, look, if you’ve got detailed analysis, please go and put that in the appendix. Don’t clutter up the thinking with that type of detail.
And he goes on to say, phrases such as it’s also of importance to bear in mind the following considerations, or consideration should be given to the possibility of carrying into effect. He describes those types of phrases as woolly phrases that just get in the way.
He concludes by saying reports drawn up on the lines I propose may at first seem rough compared with official’s jargon, but the saving in time will be great, and the discipline of setting out the real points concisely will prove an aid to clearer thinking.
And isn’t that precisely what we want? We want clearer thinking in the documents that we produce. So this desire for brevity has been around for a long while.
Now, just before I leave Winston I want you to have a look at his final sentence. He starts his sentence with the word but. Are you allowed to do that? Here we have Winston Churchill, champion of the English language, starting a sentence with but.
Well, the answer is yes you can. But of course. And you can start a sentence with and. Some of these little rules that we learned when we were in Infant School were probably really helpful as we were starting to figure out how to put our thoughts into words. But they’re not rules for life.
Write with your readers in mind
Let me read this quote to you. Readers must be prepared to do some work from time to time, naturally, but they also have the right to expect that things are not made needlessly difficult for them. No subject is so elusive or challenging that it cannot be rendered reasonably clear and enjoyable for an audience. The failure to do so means only one thing. Ultimately, the writer doesn’t care about the audience. Being enclosed in a mere ego trip.
There are some fairly tough words there from Mr Palmer, but I think he’s correct. I think he is correct when he says that there is no subject that is so tough that you can’t make it reasonably clear for your audience. He goes on to say and enjoyable. Well, there’s a challenge. And he says, look, if you’re not interested in doing that, you’re just on your own ego trip.
And I think he’s got in mind there what I’ve seen with some writers. They seem to have the attitude that they’re pretty awesome. And everything they think is pretty awesome and everything they write is pretty awesome. Of course, you’ll be interested in it. I think that’s what he’s on about when he’s talking about people being on their ego trip.
Now all this takes me to my favourite quote from Captain Obvious. Captain Obvious says to be effective writing must be read. That is an absolutely obvious thing to say, but we so often forget it. We get caught up with ourselves and the keyboard, and we forget that there is somebody else who needs to do something with this document. Who needs to read and understand it.
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