As Stanford professor of organizational behavior, Robert Sutton, says, “The gap between knowing and doing is larger than the gap between ignorance and knowledge.” I’ve felt relatively successful in creating a systematic (systems-based) approach to workplace writing that students find extremely useful and say that they embrace (here’s what they tell me: http://qcgwrite.com/studentgallery). Although they’ve understood the concepts, their first writing efforts don’t always reflect them. They seem “to know,” but they are challenged “to do.”
Here’s how I help them bridge that gap…by reading, a lot, and very analytically.
The college students in my writing classes are, by now, digital natives. Writing, for them, is something done on a phone…or maybe a tablet/laptop. These students clearly don’t know the standard comma rules. The evidence shows that they know what a comma is, and they obviously see them in some of the more officiated writing online. We know they know what a comma is because they usually sprinkle them, sparingly, through the college essays they’re required to write. But they were not taught the standard comma rules, as I was in the second half of the 20th century, and they don’t care. Should they? Should we?
If you learn to punch up your punctuation, proofreading, and paragraphs; spit-shine your sentences; and touch up your typing, you may feel better about your writing, but until you go up in your helicopter and get a panoramic view of what writing really is, your writing may not become much more efficient or effective….
Lots of people think they know all they need to know about writing. But do they really know how to KISS? ....
While auditors and audit teams must always strive to make reports accurate, objective, and timely, audit reports must finally be useful and highly readable. A useful report presents busy decision makers with instrumental knowledge that helps them make important operational decisions....
Writing an audit report is not an art; it is a craft. Audit report writing is not a job for writing savants, people born with some ability to communicate in writing as some people seem born to express themselves musically. Let's say that one more time: audit report writing is a craft; it can be learned and has been learned and learned very well....
I claim that workplace writing is 90% about content and 10% about presentation, in the same way a cargo ship is 90% about the cargo and only 10% about the ship. Of course, if the ship itself (the 10%) sinks, the 90%—that valuable content—is lost. Our conversations, by the way, are also 90% about content.
You should totally be checking your documents for adequate content before you worry too much about the particulars of presentation. So, what criteria/standard should you use to evaluate the adequacy of content in any workplace document?
There is just SO much information/advice out there on writing, by many experts, who mean well and have their own approaches to teaching others to write well, approaches they swear by, approaches backed by rhetorical theory or possibly the latest brain research from neuroscientists.
However, I find myself on an island, all alone, with an idea about writing and teaching writing that's different, perhaps idiosyncratic, and pretty much iconoclastic. Not everything I have to say about writing is new and out of the blue, but my whole approach is certainly unlike the others.
Students tell me they love it. Those in the workplace I've trained over 30+ years tell me they love it. But academics are skeptical and tend to tune me out. So what makes me an expert in writing and teaching writing?
