Manage Your Writing

This week: Turn it around

Novelist Philip Roth once wrote, "I turn sentences around. That's my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and I turn it around again."

He was probably talking about sentences like this:

There are three reasons why you should expand the product line.

There are is an "empty" opening. The two words tell you that something exists, but they don't tell you what it is. If you want to emphasize the three reasons, consider making reasons the subject:

Three reasons why you should expand the product line are . . . .

If you want to emphasize the reader, make you the subject:

You should expand the product line for three reasons.

If you want to emphasize the product line, make line the subject:

The product line should be expanded for three reasons.

This week, as you revise, look for ways you can "turn sentences around." You'll probably end up with more effective writing.

This week: Start with a bang

Mark McCormack, in his book What They Still Don't Teach You in Harvard Business School, listed what he called the eight "toughest" messages to deliver:

(1) This is how you do it. (2) I want to sell you. (3) I goofed. (4) I have some bad news for you. (5) You did a great job. (6) Dear Boss, you're wrong. (7) This is my demand. (8) This is how you rate.

McCormack continued, "I would read a memo that began with any one of these sentences."

This week, as you revise, pay special attention to the first sentences of your messages. Will they make your reader keep reading?

This week: Go for a Pulitzer

Legendary newsman Joseph Pulitzer wrote,

Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided its light.

Not a bad checklist. This week, as you revise, ask yourself if your writing meets Pulitzer's four criteria: is it brief, clear, picturesque, and accurate? When it is, give yourself a personal Pulitzer Prize. 

This week: Look smarter

Cartoonist Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, wrote:

If you want to advance in management, you have to convince other people that you're smart. This is accomplished by substituting incomprehensible jargon for common words. For example a manager would never say, "I used my fork to eat a potato." A manager would say, "I utilized a multitined tool to process a starch resource." The two sentences mean almost the same thing, but the second one is obviously from a smarter person.

In reality, some research shows that when readers and listeners can't understand your sentences, they think of you as less intelligent, not more.

This week, as you revise, look for ways to simplify your language. You'll look smarter.