<This blog post will take 10.9 minutes to read>
SUMMARY
ZERO CONTENT should be the goal of all practical writing.
This concept is most succinctly expressed in the following mathematical statement: zC = RQ - WA, where zC=ZERO CONTENT; RQ = Reader’s Questions; WA = Writer’s Answers.
If you teach (practical) writing at any level (in this swatch I include professional writing of any kind and college writing, as well as its antecedents from first grade onward), I think you should SPOTLIGHT (floodlight) the critically important writing skills for generating useful content for an interested reader.
Useful content should always be the practical writer’s JOB #1. (Only if there’s useful content—for an interested reader—do all the “presentation” skills of writing make sense.)
Let me explain this essential equation for determining when a document has reached ZERO CONTENT….
LOOK…
I understand that writers already know how to write and teachers of writing already know how to teach writing. The problem is, the workplace is complaining, bewailing the fact that employees, especially those freshly minted college and grad school graduates, CAN’T WRITE.
They are very correct, but also importantly wrong.
What the workplace cries out about, bemoans, is a lack of consistent surface correctness and a lack of clarity often described (incorrectly) as too much passive voice. They see ineffective writing. They see mechanical errors. They put one and one together and imagine the defect lies in a lack of grammatical and punctuational and syntactical acumen. Wrong diagnosis though.
The big problem is that the writing fails to deliver content customers (readers/users) will find USEFUL AND NECESSARY. Furthermore, the content that is provided is not helpfully presented, lost in a bramble of insubstantial document design and opaque styles that bury the lede, present forbidding slabs of text, and give the reader little help in discovering the important information buried in the heap of words…and, yes, mechanical errors.
So…the way we’re teaching writing (from first grade through grad school) isn’t working so well. Something must be done.
My hope is that writers and teachers of writing (who know almost everything about writing) will heed John Wooden’s admonition: IT’S WHAT YOU LEARN AFTER YOU KNOW IT ALL THAT COUNTS!
LISTEN…
I’m not offering réchauffé here. I seriously want writers and teachers of writing to consider carefully what ZERO CONTENT means and implies. So here it is.
To begin, acknowledge that “writing” stretches across a vast spectrum, from writing to inform at one end to writing to entertain at the far end. I’m talking about only the first square, the first step in “writing to inform,” which I call PRACTICAL WRITING. It is the writing done, for the most part, in any workplace. It is the writing any business (thought of very broadly) does for any customer (thought of very broadly).
Okay, the main purpose, the only purpose, of practical writing is to provide the reader (user) with USEFUL information (this business model derives from Seth Godin’s concept of THE CONNECTION ECONOMY—https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5SXEWSCU6I). Once the writer has generated the useful information, the job of writing turns to presentation. That information must be organized, the document must be designed, the style must be crafted to help the reader get the information as easily and as quickly as possible. The reader is literally shopping for useful products, information they can USE. If the store isn’t easy to shop—NO SALE!
ZERO CONTENT expresses an equilibrium in which the content provided in the document matches the reader’s need for information.
This is a radically reader-focused approach to “writing.” But it’s really just good business practice. What business is not radically customer-focused? The answer is those businesses that have gone or will soon go out of business. If a writer doesn’t want their writing to go out of business, they will adopt the radically reader-focused approach I’m advocating and describing.
zC = RQ - WA is my way of articulating what effective practical writing should be, effective in the sense that it satisfies the reader’s need for information. This equation says ZERO CONTENT (which literally means not too much and not too little information for the reader) equals the READER’S QUESTIONS minus the WRITER’S ANSWERS.
To understand this concept, simply think of writing as two spheres: one visible, one not visible.
You might think of this as the visible universe and the dark matter.
“Dark matter is composed of particles that do not absorb, reflect, or emit light, so they cannot be detected by observing electromagnetic radiation. Dark matter is material that cannot be seen directly. ... Scientists believe that dark matter may account for the unexplained motions of stars within galaxies.”
The visible sphere is the writing that the reader can read in any document…the words/pictures on the page/screen. The invisible sphere is the reader’s questions about the issue in question (what the writer is writing about). “Writing” has visible and not-visible components. Both must be managed.
Useful content is content that the reader wants, needs, and seeks. That content DOES NOT come from everything the writer could say, everything the writer knows, or from the writer’s experiences and expertise. It comes from the reader’s questions.
QUESTIONS ARE THE MANIFESTATION OF OUR INTEREST.
For practical writing to succeed, it must know the reader’s questions about the issue in question (often referenced, unfortunately, as THE TOPIC—a very writer-centric concept, btw) and answer them fully, clearly, succinctly.
LEARN…
…to think of practical writing as the visible shadow cast by the reader’s invisible questions (the dark matter that should account for the motion of the writer’s words—stars—within documents—galaxies).
To measure the match between what the writer says in a document and what the reader needs the document to say, you apply the concept of ZERO CONTENT (not too much/not too little). You learn to read documents as clusters of answers to reader questions about the issue/topic in question. Each word is a tiny answer-cluster; each sentence is a larger answer-cluster; each paragraph is a larger answer-cluster; each section is a larger answer-cluster; a whole document is a storehouse of answers. If a document addresses the reader’s questions, it has reached ZERO CONTENT. (It might help to think of ZERO as a verb…as in, zeroing-in on something—in this case, it’s the reader’s questions, a.k.a., need for useful information.)
So, to find how near a document is to ZERO CONTENT, you simply factor the issue in question into all the reader’s appropriate questions about the issue and subtract that from all the writer’s answers. The difference should always be ZERO…not too much information (answering questions the reader DOES NOT have) and not too little (failing to answer questions the reader does have).
Come on now…
You have to admit, what matters to you when YOU read any practical writing is finding USEFUL INFORMATION. So let’s write in this radically reader-focused manner. Let’s teach students that the first and foremost part of writing (practical writing) is generating USEFUL CONTENT for the real reader who really needs information about the issue in question.
Let’s teach writers that useful content does not come from everything they can say on the subject. It comes from figuring out the reader’s questions, then doing the research required to answer them, then presenting the answers…fully, clearly succinctly. Okay?
Use the HOCs and LOCs Systems Approach to Practical Writing
Practical writing, at the beginning and end of the day, is a matter of USEFUL CONTENT and HELPFUL PRESENTATION. To accomplish this, practical writing must succeed through the HIGHER ORDER CONCERNS (HOCs) and the LOWER ORDER CONCERNS (LOCs)—often thought of as “style."
Just to review, the HOCs are as follows:
CONTENT
ORGANIZATION
DOCUMENT DESIGN
And the LOCs are
Paragraphs
Sentences
Word Choices
Mechanics
All seven systems must be working for a document to succeed well. Just as the body needs all its separate, interconnected systems to function properly, to live.
SALESPITCH/WHERE CAN YOU FIND MORE INFO ON THE HOCs & LOCs APPROACH?
For an entertaining, MINDFUL romp through these seven systems and this radically reader-focused approach to practical writing, you can download (for $9.97) my 200-page ebook (half pictures), MINDFUL WRITING @ WORK.
For a more full-bodied (and more expensive—$70) discussion of the HOCs & LOCs, you can buy from AMAZON my workplace-writing textbook, MASTERING WORKPLACE WRITING—now in its 2nd edition: (https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Workplace-Writing-Second-critical-thinking/dp/0998498203)
Get info on both publications on my QCG website: QCGwrite.COM.
Email me at Harvey@QCGwrite.com to ask questions or to comment. I need your feedback.
Join the <<CONTENT REVOLUTION>> zC = RQ - WA