Effective Writing. Elizabeth Manning Murphy
Plain English
Now that we have looked at the principles of communication, we can expand on our description of effective writing. It is writing that uses the right language to get its message across and gets the correct response. To a large extent, your attitude to the task of writing will be determined by how much thought you give to the principles above.
The actual success of your writing will depend, however, on the language you use. Be aware of the principles of writing in plain English. Nobody in business or public administration has time to wade through English that might have been appropriate in an eighteenth-century novel; and nobody in the general public will bother to read even something as short as a pamphlet if the first sentence is less than totally plain.
What is ‘plain’ English? It is standard English that is correct according to present-day standards of grammatical correctness; it is clear, expressing precisely what you mean as concisely as possible; and it is appropriate for the topic and audience concerned – for instance, it would use simpler vocabulary in a document aimed at children than in one for adults.
1.6 Grammar and expression
This book does not go into the fine details of grammar – there are many grammar textbooks and websites for that. Instead, it reviews some of the more basic general principles of grammar that are essential if you want to be understood at all. When people correspond, they first have to use words, sentence structures and punctuation that each understands. They also have to conform to a particular level of English that is the one used for business communication. If a writer uses a form of the language that the reader does not associate with business, there is a breakdown in communication. Business writing is less stilted today than even a few years ago – many informal expressions are acceptable now in even quite formal documents. Writing should be as natural as possible while avoiding substandard expressions such as slang, vulgarisms, pomposity and discriminatory language. Use words you are comfortable with and that you would use in conversation. But make sure they are put together according to the accepted patterns of standard English grammar. Remember that whatever you write may have to be clearly understood several years later – not only today.
1.7 Style
Correct grammar alone will not ensure that a sentence works. Some very long sentences are grammatically correct, but they fail because of their length. Some sentences seem readable until we strike a word or expression that jars or conflicts with the structure of the rest of the sentence. The writer’s aim is to be understood at first reading. It is your responsibility to be clear – not your reader’s task to unscramble your muddled message. Whatever your purpose, to be clear you need to make sure you do not confuse your reader by writing sentences that:
jar because of inconsistent structure (non-parallelism)
could have two meanings (ambiguity)
leave the reader in mid-air (fragments).
There are some extra aspects of writing that you need to be aware of when you write documents that must do a job as quickly and efficiently as possible. These include:
appropriate length of sentences
choice of active or passive verbs
dynamism – action verbs or verbal nouns
suitable words for the occasion and the audience
economy of words
jargon – either avoid or explain it (see Chapter 11, Choosing your words).
1.8 Beyond the writing
Often a document can fail even though it is written in English that is impeccably correct and entirely appropriate stylistically for the purpose and the target audience. Why?
Have you ever opened a pamphlet or a website in search of a quick answer and found yourself ploughing unwillingly through a sea of unrelieved black type? Have you ever tried to read a report with numbered paragraphs and wondered which section this paragraph was the sub-subsection of? Have you ever tried to make sense of a paragraph of confusing statistics that would have been as plain as day in tabular or graphic form?
These, and other similar problems, are the fault of bad design and lack of consideration for the target audience. The way the information is presented to the reader is as much the writer’s responsibility as grammar is.
This does not mean that you have to become an ace designer. It does mean, however, that you have to think of the visual impact of your words and the way they appear on the page. You have to consider such things as:
logical paragraphing
use of white space
use of different typefaces, bold type, italics and so on
signalling new information – for example, by graded headings and numbering
use of graphics to give information – especially statistics.
All the points outlined above, and many more, will be discussed in this book. When you have worked through it, either on your own or in a course, you will be equipped to write effectively. The book does not provide you with magic formulas for writing every document you might ever need to write. Rather, it gives you the basic knowledge you need to write effectively, and some examples of the more common documents – it is up to you to put the principles into practice in every document you write from now on.
So what makes writing ‘correct’? Is correct writing governed by some ‘rules’ that we must follow? Is it the reader’s perception of correctness? Is it gut feeling? Let’s finish this first chapter by having a quick look at correctness in general and some of the terms that we’ll use in the rest of the book.
1.9 Correct writing
Primarily, effective writing is correct writing. How do we know whether our writing is correct? We know when we have followed the conventions for correct writing in the standard form of English. I like to think of writing effectively as following a set of ‘conventions’ – that is, what is currently considered acceptable grammar. The word ‘rule’ is, to me, very strict. Nowadays, as we’ll discover, it is sometimes acceptable to bend or break some of the old rules.
It is difficult to talk about what is or is not correct if we do not know the terms that are used to describe the many areas of writing. You probably learnt some of these terms at school – do noun, verb, phrase, clause, active or passive ring any bells with you? Whether you left school last year or a long time ago, you may have forgotten these terms, so Part A of the book is designed to remind you.
Some participants in courses ask: Why do I have to know these terms? Can’t I just learn to write?
If you learn to be a doctor or a lawyer, a plumber or a salesperson, you learn the terms and formulas that everyone in that profession or trade uses. You have chosen to learn to develop your writing skills, so you need to understand the language of writing, and some of the terms that are used in the writing business.
Writing consists of strings of words, broken up by punctuation marks, and arranged in chunks of several lines each. If you don’t conform to a writing pattern that your readers will understand, you cause confusion. This confusion may take the form of hesitation, a need to re-read a passage, or doubt about the meaning of a group of words. When you write in a confused style, your readers have to ask for clarification; or supervisors tell you to write it again because it ‘doesn’t make sense’.
How