Manage Your Writing

A thank-you to legal blogs

In the United States, it's Election Day, a day to celebrate the rule of law and the law-governed transfer of power. So it's a fitting day for me to thank the legal bloggers (not as opposed to illegal bloggers) who kindly link to Manage Your Writing:

• The California Blog of Appeal 
• The Party of the First Part
• Ross-Blakley Law Library Blog 
• Set in Style
• and especially, Ray Ward's The (New) Legal Writer  

I apologize to any I've overlooked.

I've enjoyed very much the coaching and training I've done for pre-law students, law students, law firms, and individual lawyers. Despite stereotypes, the legal profession does care about good writing!

Software for the mind

Roy Jacobsen, at Writing, Clear and Simple, has posted a lovely meditation on David McNally's comment that "Language is software for the mind."

The whole posting is well worth reading; I'll quote only its last two paragraphs:

The words you use, either written or spoken, can have powerful effects on your audience—if you use them carefully and skillfully. Whether your goal is to inform, to persuade, to call for action, or to entertain, your words and your stories can be powerful. They can be powerful, because language is software for the mind.

Learning how to write that software well is well worth the effort.

When writers strike

I'm sad about the US TV and film writers' strike, both for altruistic reasons (strikes are always hard on somebody) and for selfish reasons (I miss my daily fix of Jon Stewart).

But the strike reminds us how important writing is.

It's important for us and our businesses too. Today I'm going to try to notice what would happen to my business, and my clients' businesses, without writing. Care to join me?

The revolution is being written down

The students and faculty of the Digital Ethnography program at Kansas State University have produced another great video, on what they call the Information R/evolution.

Like other videos from the program, this one quite appropriately uses writing to tell its story. The information revolution is not just being televised; it is being written down.

Writing to yourself

This blog is usually about using writing to communicate with others. But writing has another use: communicating with ourselves.

Henrik, at the Positivity Blog, has posted an short article that has reminded me "Why You Should Write Things Down." Here's an excerpt:

You can use paper or your screensaver or another program to give yourself reminders. Often we get caught up in our everyday business and lose track of what is most important. To keep yourself on track--instead of just keeping yourself busy with low-priority tasks--simply write down a reminder that can stop your thoughts when you see it and guide you back on track again. I like the reminder: is this useful? Then put that reminder where you can't avoid seeing throughout your day.

(Thanks to Lifehacker for the link.)

Tell the truth

This blog is usually about the "how" of business writing, not the "what." But this morning there's a great post on the Fast Company site about the importance of telling the truth. Here's a taste of it:

When the truth is missing, people feel demoralized, less confident, and ultimately are less loyal. Research overwhelmingly supports the notion that engaged employees are "in the know." They want to be trusted with the truth about the business, including its challenges and downturns.

Good writing creates more tactical options

Ray, at The (New) Legal Writer, has posted a great quotation, from Kenneth F. Oettle:

Good writing ... is a useful tool. Or to use a metaphor more in keeping with the litigator’s image, it is a useful weapon. The more powerful the weapon, the more formidable the advocate who commands it. A litigation team with a good writer has more tactical options because maneuvers that depend on clear, forceful writing have a greater chance of success....

Delete the word litigation in that last sentence, and you have advice that applies to all of us.

Writing as theatre

University of Missouri law professor Douglas E. Abrams writes:

Trial lawyers are not the only members of our profession who perform on stage before a theater audience. Lawyers also appear on stage whenever we pick up a pen or turn on the computer to write something we hope other people will read.

Abrams's article, titled "The Writer's Theatre," is itself a model of clear, concise writing.

(Thanks to Set in Style for the link.)

New teeth for plain-language rules

Since 1996, federal agencies have been required to use plain language when they communicate with small businesses. But a new law gives that requirement new force.

According to the Kiplinger Business Resource Center,

Small firms won't have to hire lawyers as often to translate federal regulations that govern what businesses can and can't do. A new law adds teeth to Clinton-era legislation requiring federal regulatory agencies to publish compliance guides for all new rules having a significant economic impact on small firms. Lawmakers acted because they believe too many agencies were ignoring their obligations to small businesses.

One aspect of the new law designed to help business owners say agencies must explain their rules "using sufficiently plain language likely to be understood by affected small entities." In plain English that means they must use plain English so firms won't have to decipher the gibberish, gobbledygook and bureaucratic legalese that many agencies routinely rely on.

The new law requires agencies to defend to Congress every year their compliance with plain-language rules.

(Thanks to Deborah Bosley of The Bosley Group for the link.)

 

Writing is how business gets done

Steve Rubel, at Micro Persuasion, writes that the "digital age has dramatically upped the ante [for] one skill above all - good writing." He continues:

Almost every white-collar job today requires good communication skills. There's nothing new to report there. However, what is new is that much of the way we communicate today in business is in writing through email. So even if you're not a scribe by trade, you're a still a writer by default.Writing not your forte? That was just fine 10 years ago, but not anymore. Writing is how business gets done.

That's another good way of saying what this blog says in the upper left corner of every page:

In this knowledge economy, writing is the chief value-producing activity.