Manage Your Writing

This week: Translate into English

Winston Churchill once wrote, in a sentence made up entirely of one-syllable, English-origin words, "Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all."

Churchill's great friend and ally, Franklin D. Roosevelt, also was a master of "translating into English." A speech writer once wrote for him, "We are endeavoring to construct a more inclusive society." Roosevelt revised it to "We're going to make a country in which no one is left out."

This week, as you revise your drafts, look for ways to change longer words into shorter ones.

This week: Read and listen more broadly

This week, make it a point to read or listen to at least one piece of communication from a culture other than your own. Pick up an issue of an unfamiliar magazine. Spend a few minutes with a cable channel from another culture or subculture.

With each exposure, you'll expand your repertoire of communication techniques. Not only will you be a better writer for broader audiences, you'll be a better writer, period.

This week: Don't throw good money after bad

In poker, I'm told, it's important not to think of any of the money in the pot as your money. If you put $10 in the pot before the draw, you just have to forget that fact. If, after the draw, you keep thinking of that $10, you'll be betting to protect your investment. And you'll make bad decisions. There's even a common phrase expressing that advice: "Don't throw good money after bad."

In writing, the principle is the same. If you think of the time and effort you've invested in a piece of writing, you're bound to be reluctant to change anything. To be an effective business writer, however, you simply have to lose that reluctance. As poet John Berryman said, "One must be ruthless with one's own writing or someone else will be."