[READING TIME: 5-6 minutes. This post talks about three elements a company should establish to improve staff writing: 1) a helpful process—from inception to publication, 2) a systems approach, and 3) objective standards for evaluating content/organization/design/style.]
For over three decades now I’ve been a writing consultant. My clients are very big and very small companies and government agencies…from NASA to new engineering firms, from the Government Accountability Office to a group of local accountants, from the Department of Justice to a department of Catholic Charities in my town.
I’m contacted by offices across the country who believe their employees need to become better writers.
Very often, I’m contacted by top supervisors in these organizations, who explain to me that “writing” is a too-painful process in their organization. They ask me, knowing I’m also a college writing professor, “Don’t you people teach effective writing anymore???” (I explain that we college professors blame the high school curriculum. And high school teachers blame the current culture...kidding.)
Seriously though, I often tell these top supervisors that the blame should fall where it really belongs...probably on them!
If they don’t hang up, and if they’re willing to listen to me for a minute, I explain that the writing process itself in any office is largely responsible for the products that are produced. In other words, every office is set up to produce the quality of writing it actually produces! If you want better sausage, change the sausage-making process.
I keep getting consulting jobs because my interventions, according to feedback I’m given, do, in fact, improve writing within these organizations. But what really changes within an organization after my writing consulting sessions? Not just individual writing skills. In concert with these individual gains, what changes after my consulting is the whole office writing culture.
That’s what it takes to make writing better on the job.
Writing is very much like building a house. First, you need a systematic approach. Second, you need clear, objective standards that define a successful build.
Many offices I visit spend insufficient and ineffective time planning a document.
Instead, there’s a job to be done (write the report, or whatever); there’s a small team to be tasked with this work; then there’s the review of the drafts and, finally, the stamp of approval to send the report out into the world.
Imagine a home builder taking this approach. I ask them to build me a house. They gather a team and build a house. Then I come by and say, “Yeah, I don’t like that house.” They say, “No problem, we can build you a different one...until you finally end up liking it.”
In the context of home building, such an approach would be grossly absurd. But when it comes to writing an important document (report or other writing that carries some “risk” for the organization—the loss of business, legal issues, etc.), this approach is common.
Little do most supervisors know that the research plan/complete outline of any document = the first draft.
Design is destiny. (As my friends at the DoD say: Piss Poor Planning Produces Piss Poor Performance—their 7Ps).
Useful planning activities should culminate in a blueprint, which can be scrupulously reviewed and changed as needed...before any actual drafting is done. Skip this vital step, and you’ll just build a house you hope the customer will like. Good luck with that approach. (Check my blog post on what it means to PLAN writing: https://harvey-lillywhite.squarespace.com/blog/2022/3/29/design-is-destiny-what-is-a-1stnbspdraft )
After developing a robust planning process that ends in “message agreement” among all internal stakeholders, organizations need to understand how to build and review documents effectively.
First, everyone must appreciate that writing is not merely a matter of transmitting information. Human communication must activate the dynamics inherent in any conversation.
Information isn’t simply transmitted. There’s an exchange of information between writer and reader. At its most basic, a conversation—the exchange of information between two or more people—grows from a loose string of questions and answers. Questions are the manifestation of interest. They call out for answers.
The writing we see on any screen or paper is just one side of that conversation—the answers.
Every document is a big answer to a big question. Each section of the document is a smaller answer to a smaller questions. Subsections are the same. The paragraphs that make the subsections are smaller answers to smaller questions still. And every sentence is, in fact, the answer to an even smaller question.
It’s crucial to begin building documents from a clear set of questions to which the reader(s) needs answers (the words that eventually fill up the page). It’s efficient to write from an outline that’s been fully vetted within the organization (and outside as required). That outline, however, must be directly and specifically linked to all the relevant questions the reader has about whatever ISSUE is in question. (I use the word ISSUE to mean the confluence of why the writer is writing and why the reader is reading.)
Therefore, “writing” a document is about generating the questions that need to be answered, doing whatever exploration is needed to find the answers, and fixing the answers in accurate, clear, and helpful language.
It’s important to develop a systems approach to writing.
Seven aspects of any writing (document) affect its usefulness and its readability. I think of these seven aspects as systems that work independently but also interdependently with all the other systems to produce meaning for the reader. Here is a list of those seven systems:
HIGHER ORDER CONCERNS
1. Content
2. Logical Organization
3. Visual Organization (a.k.a., document design)
LOWER ORDER CONCERNS (often considered as style)
4. Paragraphs
5. Sentences
6. Word Choices
7. Mechanics
CONTENT comes first because without useful content, nothing else matters. The CONTENT system includes the ISSUE, the best set of questions to probe the ISSUE, the best answers for these questions, and adequate support for each answer. Yes, generating useful content is very much a part of “writing.”
LOGICAL ORGANIZATION comes after CONTENT because it sets up document design and creates order for the reader as they move through the information.
VISUAL ORGANIZATION (document design) makes the logical organization visible and should help the reader easily navigate the multiple shifting crossroads of meaning throughout the document.
STYLE (paragraphs, sentences, words, mechanics) creates the soundtrack that delivers the “story,” which the reader needs to hear, in a way that will be easiest for the reader to understand. Each of the four elements within “style” is also a system with its own working parts.
To become better writers and reviewers, they need to master a toolkit of specific techniques that will allow them to manage each of these seven systems.
And, by the way, any document is only as strong as its weakest system. Although the systems are numbered one through seven, all are vital to the life of a document—which should be a “living” conversation, an exchange of questions and answers—between two or more people (one of whom <<the reader>> is not physically present).
The toolkit of techniques is driven by a set of objective judgmental standards that define “effective” writing for the particular document. We can create a rubric of “shoulds” for each of the seven systems.
For instance, CONTENT should clearly and adequately address all the reader’s relevant questions about the ISSUE in question. As a reviewer, I can read a document first to determine whether the CONTENT (the exchange of questions and answers) is most appropriate. If not, I can make editorial comments that are not based on my personal preferences as an editor/reviewer but on the objective standards established.
I can do the same for LOGICAL ORGANIZATION. I can check what information has been prioritized. I can check the logical path from one part to another. I can see where the main information is provided in relation to the support for that information—has the main point come first, followed by necessary explanation/support? If not, why? I can then make editorial comments about organization that are not based not on my personal preferences as an editor/reviewer but on objective standards established.
I can do the same for the other five systems.
Even within the system of SENTENCES, that most personal mode of expression, I can analyze how the information has been combined and apply OBJECTIVE standards. If the writing doesn’t meet these standards, I can explain why. And I’m not allowed to say, “It would sound better to me if you said it this way....”
The goal is to remove as much personal preference in the writing process as possible.
As a writer, I must know the checklist (rubric) for effective CONTENT/ORGANIZATION/DOCUMENT DESIGN/PARAGRPAHS/SENTENCES/WORD CHOICES/MECHANICS. These elements help me build the house I know my customer is expecting.
As a reviewer/editor, I apply these objective standards (expectations) when I offer comments to the writer for changes—so the writing can conform to the standards. I’m like a fair umpire calling balls and strikes—judgments not based on my preferences but based on the official strikezone all have accepted.
This is the focus of my writing consultation. I help organizations build better processes that will ensure better documents, more efficiently generated, more helpful to the end-user (a.k.a., the reader). I define effective planning and review. I help individual writers and reviewers learn about the seven systems that affect usefulness and readability and the techniques they can use to manage each of the systems.
If this all seems somewhat mechanical, then my work is done. As I said, we should emulate those who build homes when we write. “Writing” is not just the words on the screen (the stage). It’s also everything that goes on behind the scenes (backstage) to ensure a great performance.
Writing is usually risky for any business. Any risk in an organization must be mitigated by a set of effective internal controls. What I’m describing is merely best practices for establishing strong internal controls to mitigate the risk involved in writing (including the high costs of ineffective documents and time spent grinding out the documents themselves).
Better writing saves money—as well as spirit. Make sure YOU, as a supervisor, are part of the writing solution and not part of the writing problem.
1) Create an efficient writing process from start to finish.
2) Use a systems approach that moves from CONTENT to MECHANICS.
3) Develop objective judgmental standards for all systems.
Call on me if you have any questions or need a helping hand: Harvey@QCGwrite.com.