Rev.Confirming Pages C H A P T E R 7 Planning, Composing, and Revising Chapter Outline The Ways Good Writers Write Activities in the Composing Process Using Your Time Effectively Brainstorming, Planning, and Organizing Business Documents Writing Good Business and Administrative Documents Half-Truths about Style Half-Truth 1: \"Write as You Talk.\" Half-Truth 2: \"Never Use I.\" Half-Truth 3: \"Never Use You.\" Half-Truth 4: \"Never Begin a Sentence with And or But.\" Half-Truth 5: \"Never End a Sentence with a Preposition.\" Half-Truth 6: \"Big Words Impress People.\" loc77805_ch07_178-215.indd 178 Ten Ways to Make Your Writing Easier to Read As You Choose Words As You Write and Revise Sentences As You Write and Revise Paragraphs Organizational Preferences for Style Revising, Editing, and Proofreading What to Look for When You Revise What to Look for When You Edit How to Catch Typos Getting and Using Feedback Using Boilerplate Readability Formulas Summary of Key Points 8/19/09 9:40:21 AM Rev.Confirming Pages IN THE NEWS I Think I'm Musing My Mind , Roger Ebert s Journal, October 24, 2008 B lind people develop a more acute sense of In May, I began to sense a change going on. At hearing. Deaf people can better notice events first it was subjective. This autumn it has become on the periphery, and comprehend the quick undeniable. My writing has improved. movements of lips and sign language. What about By that I don't mean it's objectively better from the people who lose the ability to speak? We expand other reader's point of view. I mean it has expanded within ways of communicating. . . . my mind, reaches deeper, There is one thing I can do emerges more clearly, is more \"The Muse visits during the process as well as ever. I can write. satisfactory. . . . of creation, not before.\" When I am writing my probI take dictation from that lems become invisible and I place within my mind that am the same person I always knows what to say. I think was. All is well. I am as I should be. most good writers do. There is no such thing as After my first stretch in the Rehabilitation Insti- waiting for inspiration. The idea of 'diagramming' tute of Chicago, I began to write again, a little. After an essay in advance, as we are taught in school, may my second, I returned to a nearly normal schedule. be useful to students but is foolishness for any pracThis spring during my third rehab, I was able to log ticing writer. The Muse visits during the process of onto a wi-fi network and begin writing much more. creation, not before. . . . This year, which has included two major surgeries, By losing the ability to speak, I have increased I have so far written 170 reviews, 22 Answer Man my ability to communicate. I am content. columns, 28 Great Movie essays (not all yet published), and 37 blog entries. Quoted from Roger Ebert, \"I Think I'm Musing My Mind,\" in Chicago Sun-Times: Blogs: Roger Ebert's Journal: October 2008 Archives, http://blogs.suntimes.com/ ebert/2008/10/i_think_im_musing_my_mind.html (accessed March 1, 2009). Reprinted with permission of Roger Ebert. loc77805_ch07_178-215.indd 179 8/25/09 4:54:04 PM Rev.Confirming Pages 180 Part 2 The Communication Process Learning Objectives After studying this chapter, you will know: 1 New information about the activities involved in the composing process, and how to use these activities to your advantage. 2 New guidelines for effective word choice, sentence construction, and paragraph organization. 3 New techniques to revise, edit, and proofread your communications. Ethics and the Writing Process Skilled performances look easy and effortless. In reality, as every dancer, musician, and athlete knows, they're the products of hard work, hours of practice, attention to detail, and intense concentration. Like skilled performances in other arts, writing rests on a base of work. As you plan a message, Be sure you have identified the real audiences and purposes of the message. In difficult situations, seek allies in your organization and discuss your options with them. As you compose, Provide accurate and complete information. Use reliable sources of material. Document when necessary. Warn your readers of limits or dangers in your information. Promise only what you can deliver. As you revise, Check to see that your language does not use words that show bias. Use feedback to revise text and visuals that your audience may misunderstand. Check your sources. Assume that no document is confidential. E-mail documents and IMs (instant messages) can be forwarded and printed without your knowledge; both electronic and paper documents, including drafts, can be subpoenaed for court cases. loc77805_ch07_178-215.indd 180 The Ways Good Writers Write No single writing process works for all writers all of the time. However, good writers and poor writers seem to use different processes.1 Good writers are more likely to Realize that the first draft can be revised. Write regularly. Break big jobs into small chunks. Have clear goals focusing on purpose and audience. Have several different strategies to choose from. Use rules flexibly. Wait to edit until after the draft is complete. The research also shows that good writers differ from poor writers in identifying and analyzing the initial problem more effectively, understanding the task more broadly and deeply, drawing from a wider repertoire of strategies, and seeing patterns more clearly. Good writers also are better at evaluating their own work. Thinking about the writing process and consciously adopting the processes of good writers will help you become a better writer. Activities in the Composing Process Composing can include many activities: planning, brainstorming, gathering, organizing, writing, evaluating, getting feedback, revising, editing, and proofreading. The activities do not have to come in this order. Not every task demands all activities. Planning Analyzing the problem, defining your purposes, and analyzing the audience. Brainstorming information to include in the document. Gathering the information you needfrom the message you're answering, a person, printed sources, or the Web. 8/19/09 9:40:31 AM Rev.Confirming Pages Planning, Composing, and Revising 181 Selecting the points you want to make, and the examples, data, and arguments to support them. Choosing a pattern of organization, making an outline, creating a list. A Professional Writer at Work Chapter 7 Writing Putting words on paper or a screen. Writing can be lists, possible headings, fragmentary notes, stream-of-consciousness writing, incomplete drafts, and ultimately a formal draft. Revising Evaluating your work and measuring it against your goals and the requirements of the situation and audience. The best evaluation results from re-seeing your draft as if someone else had written it. Will your audience understand it? Is it complete? Convincing? Friendly? Getting feedback from someone else. Is all the necessary information there? Is there too much information? Is your pattern of organization appropriate? Does a revision solve an earlier problem? Are there obvious mistakes? Adding, deleting, substituting, or rearranging. Revision can be changes in single words or in large sections of a document. Editing Checking the draft to see that it satisfies the requirements of standard English. Here you'd correct spelling and mechanical errors and check word choice and format. Unlike revision, which can produce major changes in meaning, editing focuses on the surface of writing. Proofreading the final copy to see that it's free from typographical errors. When Communication Specialist Roxanne Clemens was asked by a professor to edit an article about meat packing for the World Book Encyclopedia (WBE), she readily agreed to help. As a professional writer, Roxanne saw the project as an opportunity to make technical text accessible to a nontechnical audience. The author did not supply any style guidelines, so Roxanne researched similar articles in the WBE and created her own style guide for the article. Here's how Roxanne describes to the professor her edits to the article: You may look at this and think, \"this is not what I wrote.\" As you know, the challenge lies in explaining such complex concepts at a 6th-grade level. . . . I based most changes on the examples of WBE entries found on the Internet. Major style choices are the following: WBE uses short, concise sentences (almost what we would consider choppy). They use very few compound sentences, so I have broken up compound sentences where I thought the meaning would not be lost. Instead of using \"however,\" WBE tends to use two sentences and to start the second sentence with \"but.\" WBE uses a terminal comma in a series (e.g. red, white, and blue). Note the following points about these activities: The activities do not have to come in this order. Some people may gather data after writing a draft when they see that they need more specifics to achieve their purposes. You do not have to finish one activity to start another. Some writers plan a short section and write it, plan the next short section and write it, and so on through the document. Evaluating what is already written may cause a writer to do more planning or to change the original plan. Most writers do not use all activities for all the documents they write. You'll use more activities when you write more complex or difficult documents about new subjects or to audiences that are new to you. Research about what writers really do has destroyed some of the stereotypes we used to have about the writing process. Consider planning. Traditional advice stressed the importance of planning and sometimes advised writers to make formal outlines for everything they wrote. But we know now that not all good documents are based on outlines. For many workplace writers, pre-writing is not a warm-up activity to get ready to write the \"real\" document. It's really a series of activities designed to gather and organize information, take notes, brainstorm with colleagues, and plan a document before writing a complete draft. And for many people, these activities do not include outlining. Traditional outlining may lull writers into a false sense of confidence about their material and organization, making it difficult for them to revise their content and structure if they deviate from the outline developed early in the process.2 loc77805_ch07_178-215.indd 181 I did some reorganizing at the sentence level. [I also moved] livestock marketing ahead of meat because that's the way the heading reads and it also follows the process of turning animals into meat. Let me know if you want me to do more or something different to the text. Adapted and quoted from Roxanne Clemens, e-mail to Donna Kienzler, August 30, 2006. 8/19/09 9:40:32 AM Rev.Confirming Pages 182 Part 2 The Communication Process Overcoming Writer's Block According to psychologist Robert Boice, who has made a career study of writer's block, these actions help overcome writer's block: 1. Prepare for writing. Collect and arrange material. Talk to people; interact with some of your audiences. The more you learn about the company, its culture, and its context, the easier it will be to writeand the better your writing will be. 2. Practice writing regularly and in moderation. Try to write almost daily. Keep sessions to a moderate length; Boice suggests an hour to an hour and a half. 3. Talk positively to yourself: \"I can do this.\" \"If I keep working, ideas will come.\" \"It doesn't have to be perfect; I can make it better later.\" 4. Talk to other people about writing. Value the feedback you get from them. Talking to other people expands your repertoire of strategies and helps you understand your writing community. Adapted from Robert Boice, Advice for New Faculty Members: Nihil Nimus (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2000), 11112. Not all writing has to be completed in office settings. Some people work better outside, in coffee shops, or from home. Using Your Time Effectively To get the best results from the time you have, spend only one-third of your time actually \"writing.\" Spend at least another one-third of your time analyzing the situation and your audience, gathering information, and organizing what you have to say. Spend the final third evaluating what you've said, revising the draft(s) to meet your purposes and the needs of the audience and the organization, editing a late draft to remove any errors in grammar and mechanics, and proofreading the final copy. Do realize, however, that different writers, documents, and situations may need different time divisions to produce quality communications, especially if documents are produced by teams. Geographic distance will add even more time to the process. Brainstorming, Planning, and Organizing Business Documents Spend significant time planning and organizing before you begin to write. The better your ideas are when you start, the fewer drafts you'll need to produce a good document. Start by using the analysis questions from Chapter 1 to identify purpose and audience. Use the strategies described in Chapter 2 to analyze audience and identify benefits. Gather information you can use for your document. Select the points you want to makeand the examples and data to support them. Sometimes your content will be determined by the situation. Sometimes, even when it's up to you to think of information to include in a report, you'll find it easy to think of ideas. If ideas won't come, try the following techniques: loc77805_ch07_178-215.indd 182 Brainstorming. Think of all the ideas you can, without judging them. Consciously try to get at least a dozen different ideas before you stop. Good brainstorming depends on generating many ideas. Freewriting.3 Make yourself write, without stopping, for 10 minutes or so, even if you must write \"I will think of something soon.\" At the end of 10 minutes, read what you've written, identify the best point in the draft, then set it aside, and write for another 10 uninterrupted minutes. Read this draft, marking anything that's good and should be kept, and then 8/19/09 9:40:32 AM Rev.Confirming Pages Chapter 7 Planning, Composing, and Revising write again for another 10 minutes. By the third session, you will probably produce several sections that are worth keepingmaybe even a complete draft that's ready to be revised. Clustering.4 Write your topic in the middle of the page and circle it. Write down the ideas the topic suggests, circling them, too. (The circles are designed to tap into the nonlinear half of your brain.) When you've filled the page, look for patterns or repeated ideas. Use different colored pens to group related ideas. Then use these ideas to develop your content. Talk to your audiences. As research shows, talking to internal and external audiences helps writers to involve readers in the planning process and to understand the social and political relationships among readers. This preliminary work helps reduce the number of revisions needed before documents are approved.5 Thinking about the content, layout, or structure of your document can also give you ideas. For long documents, write out the headings you'll use. For short documents, jot down key pointsinformation to include, objections to answer, benefits to develop. For an oral presentation, a meeting, or a document with lots of visuals, try creating a storyboard, with a rectangle representing each page or unit. Draw a box with a visual for each main point. Below the box, write a short caption or label. Writing Good Business and Administrative Documents 183 Writing with Information Good writers write with information. Michelle Russo writes reports appraising how much a hotel is worth. Gathering information is a big part of her composing process. She visits the site. She talks to the general manager. She gets occupancy rates, financial statements, and tax forms. She talks to the tax assessor and all the managers of competing hotels. If it's a convention hotel, she talks to the convention bureau and gets the airlines' passenger traffic counts. Gathering all this information takes about four days. When she gets back to the office, she uses databases for even more information. Adapted from Michelle S. Russo, telephone conversation with Kitty Locker, December 8, 1993. Good business and administrative writing is closer to conversation and less formal than the style of writing that has traditionally earned high marks in college essays and term papers. (See Figure 7.1.) Figure 7.1 Different Levels of Style Feature Conversational style Good business style Traditional term paper style Formality Highly informal Conversational; sounds like a real person talking More formal than conversation would be, but retains a human voice Use of contractions Many contractions OK to use occasional contractions Few contractions, if any Pronouns Uses first- and secondperson pronouns Uses first- and secondperson pronouns First- and second-person pronouns kept to a minimum Level of friendliness Friendly Friendly No effort to make style friendly How personal Personal; refers to specific circumstances of conversation Personal; may refer to reader by name; refers to specific circumstances of audiences Impersonal; may generally refer to readers but does not name them or refer to their circumstances Word choice Short, simple words; slang Short, simple words but avoids slang Many abstract words; scholarly, technical terms Sentence and paragraph length Incomplete sentences; no paragraphs Short sentences and paragraphs Longer sentences and paragraphs Grammar Can be ungrammatical Uses standard English Uses more formal standard English Visual impact Not applicable Attention to visual impact of document No particular attention to visual impact loc77805_ch07_178-215.indd 183 8/19/09 9:40:51 AM Rev.Confirming Pages 184 Part 2 Selling Success in Plain English If you've opened a mutual fund lately, you might notice something different in the disclosure documents: there's less to read. Several leading Wall Street financial service firms are simplifying their documentation. James Gorman, retail-brokerage chief at Morgan Stanley, described the reason why his firm reduced the documentation from 136 pages in 14 documents to a single 48-page booklet. He noted that he did not understand all of the longer documentation, and the average person does not need that amount of information. Other financial services companies are also streamlining their documents. Smith Barney, for instance, now offers clients a customized welcome package that includes a table of contents, instruction pages, and only the disclosure information that is relevant to their funds. Banc of America Investment Services and Wachovia Securities also rewrote their disclosure statements to reduce the amount of legalese and make the documents easier to understand. The purpose of the streamlining is to encourage clients to read the information. In the past, some clients were reluctant to invest because they didn't understand the information or were simply overwhelmed with paperwork, including prospectuses. Bill Lutz, a consultant on plain English, also suggests that clearer language can help protect the firms from liability by reducing the number of clients who claim that they didn't understand what they were signing. Adapted from Jaime Levy Pessin, \"Wall Street Aims to Simplify Disclosures for Clients,\" Wall Street Journal, October 31, 2006, D2. The Communication Process Most people have several styles of talking, which they vary instinctively depending on the audience. Good writers have several styles, too. An e-mail to your boss complaining about the delays from a supplier will be informal, perhaps even chatty; a letter to the supplier demanding better service will be more formal. Reports tend to be more formal than letters and memos, since they may be read many years in the future by audiences the writer can barely imagine. Reports tend to avoid contractions, personal pronouns, and second person (since so many people read reports, you doesn't have much meaning). See Chapter 19 for more about report style. Keep the following points in mind as you choose a level of formality for a specific document: Use a friendly, informal style to someone you've talked with. Avoid contractions, slang, and even minor grammatical lapses in paper documents to people you don't know. Abbreviations are OK in e-mail messages if they're part of the group's culture. Pay particular attention to your style when you write to people you fear or when you must give bad news. Research shows our style changes in stressful contexts. We tend to rely on nouns rather than on verbs and deaden our style when we are under stress or feel insecure.6 Confident people are more direct. Edit your writing so that you sound confident, whether you feel that way or not. More and more organizations are trying to simplify their communications. Alan Greenspan, former chair of the Federal Reserve, was infamously known for his lack of clarity in communications, but his successor is striving to bring about new clarity in the board's communications (see sidebar on 186). In the financial world, the US Securities and Exchange Commissions's A Plain English Handbook: How to Create Clear SEC Disclosure Documents asks for short sentences, everyday words, and active voice. It cautions against legal and highly technical terms.7 Of course, the news is full of examples where these efforts have failed. The same negative examples, however, also show the great need for clear, simple style. A major factor in the subprime mortgage disaster was documents written in prose so complex that even experts couldn't understand it. Many homeowners who signed adjustable rate mortgages and subsequently lost their homes claim they did not understand all the consequences of what they were signing. Experts outside the mortgage business agree with the homeowners that the language was too complex for most people to understand.8 Communication consultants like Gerard Braud urge clients to simplify their prose. He distinguishes between keeping communication easy to understand and \"dumbing it down.\" Braud warns, \"All communication affects [the] bottom line. . . . When a reader, listener, viewer or member of a live audience has to take even a nanosecond to decipher what you are saying because you are making it more complicated than it needs to be, you may lose that person.\"9 Good business style allows for individual variation. Figure 7.2 shows the opening paragraphs from Warren Buffet's letter to shareholders in Berkshire Hathaway's 2008 annual report. Buffett's direct, colorful style suggests integrity and clarity. Half-Truths about Style Many generalizations about style are half-truths and must be applied selectively, if at all. loc77805_ch07_178-215.indd 184 8/19/09 9:40:51 AM Rev.Confirming Pages Chapter 7 Figure 7.2 Planning, Composing, and Revising 185 Warren Buffett's Letter to Shareholders BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC. To the Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.: h1 grap Para tandard s uses ss style e busin Our decrease in net worth during 2008 was $11.5 billion, which reduced the per-share book value of both our Class A and Class B stock by 9.6%. Over the last 44 years (that is, since present management took over) book value has grown from $19 to $70,530, a rate of 20.3% compounded annually.* rful Colo hor etap lizes m idua indiv yle. st The table on the preceding page, recording both the 44-year performance of Berkshire's book value and the S&P 500 index, shows that 2008 was the worst year for each. The period was devastating as well for corporate and municipal bonds, real estate and commodities. By yearend investors of all stripes were bloodied and confused, much as if they were small birds that had strayed into a badminton game. As the year progressed, a series of life-threatening problems within many of the world's great nancial institutions was unveiled. This led to a dysfunctional credit market that in important respects soon turned non-functional. The watchword throughout the country became the creed I saw on restaurant walls when I was young: \"In God we trust: all others pay cash.\" om ple fr Exam th ou his y By the fourth quarter, the credit crisis, coupled with tumbling home and stock prices, had produced a paralyzing fear that engulfed the country. A freefall in business activity ensued, accelerating at a pace that I have never before witnessed. The U.S.and much of the worldbecame trapped in a vicious negative-feedback cycle. Fear led to business contraction, and that in turn led to even greater fear. e, dicin r, me Poke rsing u and n hors etap m This debilitating spiral has spurred our government to take massive action. In poker terms, the Treasury and the Fed have gone \"all in.\" Economic medicine that was previously meted out by the cupful has recently been dispensed by the barrel. These once-unthinkable dosages will almost certainly bring on unwelcome aftereffects. Their precise nature is anyone's guess, though one likely consequence is an onslaught of ination. Moreover, major industries have become dependent on Federal assistance, and they will be followed by cities and states bearing mind-boggling requests. Weaning these entities from the public teat will be a political challenge. They won't leave willingly. Whatever the downsides may be, strong and immediate action by government was essential last year if the nancial system was to avoid a total breakdown. Had that occurred, the consequences for every area of our economy would have been cataclysmic. Like it or not, the inhabitants of Wall Street, Main Street and the various Side Streets of America were all in the same boat. rical Histo ces n refere Amid this bad news, however, never forget that our country has faced far worse travails in the past. In the 20th century alone, we dealt with two great wars (one of which we initially appeared to be losing); a dozen or so panics and recessions; virulent ination that led to a 21% prime rate in 1980; and the Great Depression of the 1930s, when unemployment ranged between 15% and 25% for many years. America has had no shortage of challenges. Without fail, however, we've overcome them. In the face of those obstaclesand many othersthe real standard of living for Americans improved nearly seven-fold during the 1900s, while the Dow Jones Industrials rose from 66 to 11,497. Compare the record of this period with the dozens of centuries during which humans secured only tiny gains, if any, in how they lived. Though the path has not been smooth, our economic system has worked extraordinarily well over time. It has unleashed human potential as no other system has, and it will continue to do so. America's best days lie ahead. * All per-share gures used in this report apply to Berkshire's A shares. Figures for the B share are 1/30th of those shown for A. Waren Buffet's letter uses a standard business style personalized with many colorful metaphors. Source: Berkshire Hathaway, \"Warren Buffett's Letter to Berkshire Shareholders,\" Annual Report 2003, at www.berkshirehathaway.com/. Reproduced from copyrighted material with the permission of the author. loc77805_ch07_178-215.indd 185 8/19/09 9:40:53 AM Rev.Confirming Pages 186 Part 2 To Clarify or Not to Clarify Former Federal Board Chair Alan Greenspan was known for his lack of clarity. After one speech, a headline in the Washington Post read \"Greenspan Hints Fed May Cut Interest Rates,\" while the corresponding headline in the New York Times read \"Doubt Voiced by Greenspan on a Rate Cut.\" Even his wife joked that he had to propose twice before she understood what he was saying. His replacement, Ben Bernanke, has a different style. As he aims for more transparent communications, he is trying to make the Fed clearer about goals for economic growth. Adapted from Greg Ip, \"'Transparent' Vision: New Fed Chairman Hopes to Downplay Impact of His Words,\" Wall Street Journal, September 6, 2006, A1; and Daniel Kadlec, \"5 Ways the New Fed Chairman Will Be Different,\" Time, November 7, 2005, 49-50. Evaluating \"Rules\" about Writing Some \"rules\" are grammatical conventions. For example, standard edited English requires that each sentence have a subject and verb, and that the subject and verb agree. Business writing normally demands standard grammar, but exceptions exist. Promotional materials such as brochures, advertisements, and sales letters may use sentence fragments to mimic the effect of speech. Other \"rules\" may be conventions adopted by an organization so that its documents will be consistent. For example, a company might decide to capitalize job titles (e.g., Production Manager) even though grammar doesn't require the capitals. Still other \"rules\" are attempts to codify \"what sounds good.\" \"Never use I\" and \"use big words\" are examples of this kind of \"rule.\" To evaluate these \"rules,\" you must consider your audience, purposes, and situation. If you want the effect produced by an impersonal style and polysyllabic words, use them. But use them only when you want the distancing they produce. loc77805_ch07_178-215.indd 186 The Communication Process Half-Truth 1: \"Write as You Talk.\" Most of us use a coloquial, conversational style in speech that is too informal for writing. We use slang, incomplete sentences, and even grammatical errors. Unless our speech is exceptionally fluent, \"writing as we talk\" can create awkward, repetitive, and badly organized prose. It's OK to write as you talk to produce your first draft, but edit to create a good written style. Half-Truth 2: \"Never Use I.\" Using I too often can make your writing sound self-centered; using it unnecessarily will make your ideas seem tentative. However, when you write about things you've done or said or seen, using I is both appropriate and smoother than resorting to awkward passives or phrases like this writer. Half-Truth 3: \"Never Use You.\" Certainly writers should not use you in formal reports, as well as other situations where the audience is not known or you may sound too informal. But you is widely used in situations such as writing to familiar audiences like our office mates, describing audience benefits, and writing sales text. Half-Truth 4: \"Never Begin a Sentence with And or But.\" Beginning a sentence with and or also makes the idea that follows seem like an afterthought. That's OK when you want the effect of spontaneous speech in a written document, as you may in a sales letter. If you want to sound as though you have thought about what you are saying, put the also in the middle of the sentence or use another transition: moreover, furthermore. But tells the reader that you are shifting gears and that the point which follows not only contrasts with but also is more important than the preceding ideas. Presenting such verbal signposts to your reader is important. Beginning a sentence with but is fine if doing so makes your paragraph read smoothly. Half-Truth 5: \"Never End a Sentence with a Preposition.\" Prepositions are those useful little words that indicate relationships: with, in, under, to, at. The prohibition against ending sentences with them is probably based on two facts: (1) The end of a sentence (like the beginning) is a position of emphasis. A preposition may not be worth emphasizing. (2) When readers see a preposition, they expect something to follow it. At the end of a sentence, nothing does. In job application letters, reports, and important presentations, avoid ending sentences with prepositions. Most other messages are less formal; it's OK to end an occasional sentence with a preposition. Noting exceptions to the rule, Sir Winston Churchill famously scolded an editor who had presumptuously corrected a sentence ending with a preposition, \"This is the kind of impertinence up with which I will not put.\"10 Analyze your audience and the situation, and use the language that you think will get the best results. Half-Truth 6: \"Big Words Impress People.\" Learning an academic discipline requires that you master its vocabulary. After you get out of school, however, no one will ask you to write just to prove that you understand something. Instead, you'll be asked to write or speak to people who need the information you have. Sometimes you may want the sense of formality or technical expertise that big words create. But much of the time, big words just distance you from your audience and increase the risk of miscommunication. If you feel you need to 8/19/09 9:40:53 AM Rev.Confirming Pages Chapter 7 Planning, Composing, and Revising 187 use big words, make sure you use them correctly. When people misuse big words, they look foolish. Building a Better Style Ten Ways to Make Your Writing Easier to Read To improve your style, As You Choose Words Try telling someone what you really mean. Then write the words. Try reading your draft out loud to someone sitting about three feet awayabout as far away as you'd sit in casual conversation. If the words sound awkward, they'll seem awkward to a reader, too. Direct, simple writing is easier to read. One study tested two versions of a memo report. The \"high-impact\" version had the \"bottom line\" (the purpose of the report) in the first paragraph, simple sentences in normal word order, active verbs, concrete language, short paragraphs, headings and lists, and firstand second-person pronouns. The high-impact version took 22% less time to read. Readers said they understood the report better, and tests showed that they really did understand it better.11 Another study showed that high-impact instructions were more likely to be followed.12 Ask someone else to read your draft out loud. Readers stumble because the words on the page aren't what they expect to see. The places where that person stumbles are places where your writing can be better. Read widely and write a lot. Use the 10 techniques starting on this page to polish your style. The best word depends on context: the situation, your purposes, your audience, the words you have already used. 1. Use words that are accurate, appropriate, and familiar. Accurate words mean what you want to say. Appropriate words convey the attitudes you want and fit well with the other words in your document. Familiar words are easy to read and understand. Sometimes choosing the accurate word is hard. Most of us have word pairs that confuse us. Grammarian Richard Lederer tells Toastmasters that these 10 pairs are the ones you are most likely to see or hear confused.13 Affect/Effect Among/Between Amount/Number Compose/Comprise Different from/Different than Disinterested/Uninterested Farther/Further Fewer/Less Imply/Infer Lay/Lie For help using the pairs correctly, see Appendix B. Some meanings are negotiated as we interact one-on-one with another person, attempting to communicate. Individuals are likely to have different ideas about value-laden words like fair or empowerment. The Wall Street Journal notes that the Securities and Exchange Commission has upped the ante on the definition of \"rich\" as it regulates the net worth requirement for those eligible to invest in hedge funds. That definition is important because it often becomes the government's definition of 'rich': The SEC . . . says investors need to have investible assets of at least $2.5 million, excluding equity in any homes or businesses, to be eligible to sign on a hedge fund's dotted line. That's a huge jump from the current requirement, which says individuals have to have a net worth of at least $1 million, including the value of primary residences, or an annual income of $200,000 for the previous two years for individuals or $300,000 for couples.\"14 Some word choices have legal implications. Confusion about the definition of \"wetlands\" has reduced these natural resources by more than half.15 Some employees, such as assistant managers in small franchises, are working to be reclassified as nonprofessionals. The word choice affects the workers' paychecks, because under labor laws employers are exempt from paying extra when professionals and administrators work overtime.16 Medicare dropped its opposition to defining obesity as an illness, thus allowing Medicare to cover the payment for some treatments.17 loc77805_ch07_178-215.indd 187 What's in a Name (1): Name that Bandit For years, the FBI has named serial bank robbers with colorful names. The Time Bandit has everyone in the bank count to 300 before making a move. The Paint-by-Numbers Bandit wears paint-spattered clothes. The names help characterize robbers and attract media attention, thus resulting in more tips from the public and more arrests. Some experts, however, warn that the names humanize, even glorify, dangerous criminals while downplaying the threat they pose. How dangerous can the Dr. Seuss Banditnamed after Cat-in-the-Hat headwearreally be? Well, he is a bank robber, and he has robbed 20 banks. The Clearasil Bandit, named for his severe acne, tried unsuccessfully to sue the FBI for his moniker, which led to severe teasing in prison. Adapted from Gerry Smith, \"Name that Bank Robber: It Takes a Catchy Nickname to Catch a Bandit, FBI Says,\" Chicago Tribune, December 30, 2007, A1. 8/19/09 9:40:53 AM Rev.Confirming Pages 188 Part 2 What's in a Name (2): Quirky Job Titles Have you noticed the fun job titles at some companies lately? A mortgage company with a Wealth Creation Specialist, a chamber of commerce with a Director of First Impressions (receptionist)? McLellan Marketing Group headed by Top Dog, of course has a Duchess of Details (project manager) and a Warden (accountant). The Top Dog says the titles give customers an immediate impression of the company so they can judge compatibility. Even national companies have joined in the retitling craze. Best Buy's computer-help Geek Squad employs Special Agents, Field Marshals, and Mission Controllers. Build-a-Bear (stores where you choose, stuff, and dress your own teddy bear) has its Chief Executive Bear and Database Adminbearstrator. Experts say the new titles work when they fit the corporate culture and company clients. Adapted from Patt Johnson, \"Quirky Names Try to Better Match What People Do,\" Des Moines Register, March 10, 2008, 1D. The Communication Process As the last example indicates, some word choices have major health repercussions. Smokers have sued tobacco companies for duping them into believing that \"light\" cigarettes were less harmful. \"Recall,\" when used in warnings about defective pacemakers and defibrillators, causes patients to ask for replacements, even though the replacement surgery is riskier than the defective device. For this reason, some physician groups prefer \"safety advisory\" or \"safety alert.\"18 Accurate denotations To be accurate, a word's denotation must match the meaning the writer wishes to convey. Denotation is a word's literal or dictionary meaning. Most common words in English have more than one denotation. The word pound, for example, means, or denotes, a unit of weight, a place where stray animals are kept, a unit of money in the old British system, and the verb to hit. Coca-Cola spends millions each year to protect its brand names so that Coke will denote only that brand and not just any cola drink. When two people use the same word or phrase to mean, or denote, different things, bypassing occurs. For example, a large mail-order drug company notifies clients by e-mail when their prescription renewals get stopped because the doctor has not verified the prescription. Patients are advised to call their doctors and remind them to verify. However, the company's Web site posts a sentence telling clients that the prescription is being processed. The drug company means the renewal is in the system, waiting for the doctor's verification. The patients believe the doctor has checked in and the renewal is moving forward. The confusion results in extra phone calls to the company's customer service number, delayed prescriptions, and general customer dissatisfaction. Problems also arise when writers misuse words. The western part of Ohio was transferred from Chicago to Cleveland.19 (Ohio did not move. Instead, a company moved responsibility for sales in western Ohio.) Three major associations of property-liability companies are poised to strike out in opposite directions.20 (Three different directions can't be opposite each other.) [Engulf & Devour] has grown dramatically over the past seven years, largely through the purchase of many smaller, desperate companies.21 This quote from a corporate news release probably did not intend to be so frank. More likely, the writer relied on a computer's spell checker, which had no way to know it should replace desperate with disparate, meaning \"fundamentally different from one another.\" Appropriate connotations Words are appropriate when their connotations, that is, their emotional associations or colorings, convey the attitude you want. A great many words carry connotations of approval or disapproval, disgust or delight. Words in the first column below suggest approval; words in the second column suggest criticism. Positive word assume curious cautious firm flexible Negative word guess nosy fearful obstinate wishy-washy A supervisor can \"tell the truth\" about a subordinate's performance and yet write either a positive or a negative performance appraisal, based on the con- loc77805_ch07_178-215.indd 188 8/19/09 9:40:55 AM Rev.Confirming Pages Chapter 7 Planning, Composing, and Revising notations of the words in the appraisal. Consider an employee who pays close attention to details. A positive appraisal might read, \"Terry is a meticulous team member who takes care of details that others sometimes ignore.\" But the same behavior might be described negatively: \"Terry is hung up on trivial details.\" Advertisers carefully choose words with positive connotations. In this youth-conscious society, hearing aids become personal communication assistants.22 A Japanese company producing girdles for men calls its product the \"ex walker\" and insists that it is exercise wear.23 Expensive cars are never used; instead, they're pre-owned, experienced, or even previously adored.24 Insurers emphasize what you want to protect (your home, your car, your life), rather than the losses you are insuring against (fire damage, auto accident, death). Credit card companies tell about what you can do with the card (charge a vacation), not the debt, payments, and fees involved. Words may also connote categories. Some show status. Both salesperson and sales representative are nonsexist job titles. But the first sounds like a clerk in a store; the second suggests someone selling important items to corporate customers. Some words connote age: adorable generally connotes young children, not adults. Other words, such as handsome or pretty, connote gender. Connotations change over time. The word charity had acquired such negative connotations by the 19th century that people began to use the term welfare instead. Now, welfare has acquired negative associations. Most states have public assistance programs instead. Ethical implications of word choice How positively can we present something and still be ethical? Pressure-treated lumber sounds acceptable. But naming the material injected under pressurearsenic-treated lumbermay lead the customer to make a different decision. We have the right to package our ideas attractively, but we have the responsibility to give the public or our superiors all the information they need to make decisions. Word choices have ethical implications in other contexts as well. When scientists refer to 100-year floods, they mean a flood so big that it has a 1% chance of happening in any given year. However, a \"1% annual chance flood\" is awkward and has not become standard usage. On the other hand, many nonscientists believe a 100-year flood will happen only once every hundred years. After a 100-year flood swamped the Midwest in 1993, many people moved back into flood-prone homes; some even dropped their flood insurance. Unfortunately, both actions left them devastated by a second 100-year flood in 2008.25 Perhaps one of the best-known examples of ethical implications deals with the interrogation technique of waterboarding. President Bush's outgoing Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, said waterboarding was not torture; President Obama's Attorney General, Eric Holder, said it was. (Both men agreed that torture is a crime, a distinction that meant people who facilitated torture could be prosecuted.)26 189 Gifts Defined \"[Wal-mart corporate headquarters meeting rooms have] nothing on a wall save a poster labeled 'Gifts and Gratuities.' It reads: It is our policy that associates of the Company, regardless of their capacity, do not accept for their personal benefits, gratuities, tips, cash, samples, etc., from anyone buying from us or selling to us, or in any way serving our company. In case anyone misses the point, the poster goes on to define gifts and gratuities as including: tickets to entertainment events, kickbacks in the form of money or merchandise, special discounts, sample merchandise, Christmas gifts, or meals. There is no 'de minimis' rule; even a cup of coffee is forbidden.\" What do you think of Walmart's definition of \"gifts and gratuities\"? Is the definition too restrictive? What benefits does it offer employees? Quoted from Alan Murray, \"Wal-Mart's Lesson for Wall Street,\" Wall Street Journal, December 13, 2006, A2. Familiar words Use familiar words, words that are in almost everyone's vocabulary. Use the word that most exactly conveys your meaning, but whenever you can choose between two words that mean the same thing, use the shorter, more common one. Try to use specific, concrete words. They're easier to understand and remember.27 A series of long, learned, abstract terms makes writing less interesting, less forceful, and less memorable. When you have something simple to say, use simple words. loc77805_ch07_178-215.indd 189 8/19/09 9:40:57 AM Rev.Confirming Pages 190 Part 2 The Communication Process The following list gives a few examples of short, simple alternatives: DUTA [Don't Use That Acronym] Acronyms can be particularly daunting to readers. Too often, an acronym has a different meaning for different departments even within the same company. To look up the definition of an acronym, try using www. AcronymFinder.com, an acronym dictionary used by businesses, lawyers, translators, students, and savvy writers seeking acronym definitions. In fact, the site has a million visitors a month. In March 2009 it listed 750,000 acronyms, including 87 SAFEs, 139 FASTs, and 188 CATs. No wonder acronyms can be confusing. Formal and stuffy ameliorate commence enumerate finalize prioritize utilize viable option Short and simple improve begin list finish, complete rank use choice There are some exceptions to the general rule that \"shorter is better\": 1. Use a long word if it is the only word that expresses your meaning exactly. 2. Use a long word if it is more familiar than a short word. Send out is better than emit and a word in another language for a geographic place or area is better than exonym because more people know the first item in each pair. 3. Use a long word if its connotations are more appropriate. Exfoliate is better than scrape off dead skin cells. 4. Use a long word if your audience prefers it. 2. Use technical jargon sparingly; eliminate business jargon. There are two kinds of jargon. The first is the specialized terminology of a technical field. Many public figures enjoy mocking jargon. Even the Wall Street Journal does its share, mocking quotes like this one from a computer industry press release announcing a new \"market offering\": [The] offerings are leading-edge service configuration assurance capabilities that will help us to rapidly deploy high-demand IP services, such as level 3 virtual private networks, multi-cast and quality of service over our IP/MPLS network.28 A job application letter is one of the few occasions when it's desirable to use technical jargon: using the technical terminology of the reader's field helps suggest that you're a peer who also is competent in that field. In other kinds of messages, use technical jargon only when the term is essential and known to the reader. If a technical term has a \"plain English\" equivalent, use the simpler term. The second kind of jargon is the businessese that some writers still use: as per your request, enclosed please find, please do not hesitate. None of the words in this second category of jargon are necessary. Indeed, some writers call these terms CORNERED 2007 Mike Baldwin. Reprinted with permission of UNIVERSAL UCLICK. All rights reserved. loc77805_ch07_178-215.indd 190 8/25/09 4:54:13 PM Rev.Confirming Pages Chapter 7 Figure 7.3 Planning, Composing, and Revising 191 Getting Rid of Business Jargon Instead of Use Because At your earliest convenience The date you need a response If you need it by a deadline, say so. It may never be convenient to respond. As per your request; 65 miles per hour As you requested; 65 miles an hour Per is a Latin word for by or for each. Use per only when the meaning is correct; avoid mixing English and Latin. Enclosed please find Enclosed is; Here is An enclosure isn't a treasure hunt. If you put something in the envelope, the reader will find it. Forward same to this office. Return it to this office. Omit legal jargon. Hereto, herewith Omit Omit legal jargon. Please be advised; Please be informed Omitsimply start your response You don't need a preface. Go ahead and start. Please do not hesitate Omit Omit negative words. Pursuant to According to; or omit Pursuant does not mean after. Omit legal jargon in any case. Said order Your order Omit legal jargon. This will acknowledge receipt of your letter. Omitstart your response If you answer a letter, the reader knows you got it. Trusting this is satisfactory, we remain Omit Eliminate -ing endings. When you are through, stop. deadwood, since they are no longer living words. If any of the terms in the first column of Figure 7.3 show up in your writing, replace them with more modern language. As You Write and Revise Sentences At the sentence level, you can do many things to make your writing easy to read. 3. Use active voice most of the time. \"Who does what\" sentences with active voice make your writing more forceful. A verb is in active voice if the grammatical subject of the sentence does the action the verb describes. A verb is in passive voice if the subject is acted upon. Passive voice is usually made up of a form of the verb to be plus a past participle. Passive has nothing to do with past. Passive voice can be past, present, or future: were received is recommended will be implemented (in the past) (in the present) (in the future) To spot a passive voice, find the verb. If the verb describes something that the grammatical subject is doing, the verb is in active voice. If the verb describes something that is being done to the grammatical subject, the verb is in passive voice. Active Voice The customer received 500 widgets. I recommend this method. The state agencies will implement the program. loc77805_ch07_178-215.indd 191 Passive Voice Five hundred widgets were received by the customer. This method is recommended by me. The program will be implemented by the state agencies. 8/19/09 9:40:57 AM Rev.Confirming Pages 192 Part 2 Menu Word Choice Some restaurants use humorous names for their dishes so patrons will talk about them to their friends. Sticky Fingers RibHouses, a South Carolina-based chain, calls its onion appetizer Git-R-D'onions. David Burke at Bloomingdales, New York, offers Angry Roasted Henin-Law: a roasted chicken which comes with a knife in its back. Spy City Caf, next to Washington's Spy Museum, serves Disguise Dogs, hotdogs which come with a selection of 15 toppings (\"disguises\"). Adapted from Judy Mandell, \"Name That Dish: Menu Writing Gets Creative,\" USA Weekend, March 18, 2007, 19. The Communication Process To change from passive voice to active voice, you must make the agent the new subject. If no agent is specified in the sentence, you must supply one to make the sentence active. Passive Voice Active Voice The request was approved by the plant manager. A decision will be made next month. No agent in sentence. A letter will be sent informing the customer of the change. No agent in sentence. The plant manager approved the request. The committee will decide next month.. [You] Send the customer a letter informing her about the change. Passive voice has at least three disadvantages: 1. If all the information in the original sentence is retained, passive voice makes the sentence longer. Passive voice takes more time to understand.29 2. If the agent is omitted, it's not clear who is responsible for doing the action. 3. Using much passive voice, especially in material that has a lot of big words, can make the writing boring and pompous. Passive voice is desirable in these situations: 1. Use passive voice to emphasize the object receiving the action, not the agent. Your order was shipped November 15. The customer's order, not the shipping clerk, is important. 2. Use passive voice to provide coherence within a paragraph. A sentence is easier to read if \"old\" information comes at the beginning of a sentence. When you have been discussing a topic, use the word again as your subject even if that requires passive voice. The bank made several risky loans in the late 1990s. These loans were written off as \"uncollectible\" in 2001. Using loans as the subject of the second sentence provides a link between the two sentences, making the paragraph as a whole easier to read. 3. Use passive voice to avoid assigning blame. The order was damaged during shipment. Active voice would require the writer to specify who damaged the order. The passive voice is more tactful here. According to PlainLanguage.gov, changing writing to active voice is the most powerful change that can be made to government documents.30 But even the self-proclaimed prescriptivist style editor Bill Walsh, a copy chief at the Washington Post, admits that sometimes passive voice is necessaryalthough not as often as many writers think.31 4. Use verbsnot nounsto carry the weight of your sentence. Put the weight of your sentence in the verb to make your sentences more forceful and up to 25% easier to read.32 When the verb is a form of the verb to be, revise the sentence to use a more forceful verb. loc77805_ch07_178-215.indd 192 8/19/09 9:40:58 AM Rev.Confirming Pages Chapter 7 Weak: Planning, Composing, and Revising The financial advantage of owning this equipment instead of leasing it is 10% after taxes. Better: Owning this equipment rather than leasing it will save us 10% after taxes. Nouns ending in -ment, -ion, and -al often hide verbs. adjust make an adjustment make a payment pay make a decision decide reach a conclusion conclude take into consideration consider make a referral refer provide assistance assist Use verbs to present the information more forcefully. Weak: We will perform an investigation of the problem. Better: We will investigate the problem. Weak: Selection of a program should be based on the client's needs. Better: Select the program that best fits the client's needs. 5. Eliminate wordiness. Writing is wordy if the same idea can be expressed in fewer words. Unnecessary words increase writing time, bore your reader, and make your meaning more difficult to follow, since the reader must hold all the extra words in mind while trying to understand your meaning. Don Bush, the \"friendly editor\" columnist for intercom, calls wordiness the most obvious fault of technical writing.33 Good writing is concise, but it may still be lengthy. Concise writing may be long because it is packed with ideas. In Chapter 3, we saw that revisions to create you-attitude and positive emphasis and to develop benefits were frequently longer than the originals because the revision added information not given in the original. Sometimes you may be able to look at a draft and see immediately how to condense it. When the solution isn't obvious, try the following strategies to condense your writing: 193 What's in a Name (3): Medicine Names \"Prozac. Viagra. Lipitor. \"The names of these incredibly popular medicines don't have defined meanings. But millions of dollars are spent creating just the right sound and image. \"Research shows letters with a hard edge like P, T or K convey effectiveness. X seems scientific. L, R or S provides a calming or relaxing feel. Z means speed. . . . \"Most companies prefer a name that says something about the drug, like Allegra, which alludes to the allergy relief it provides. . . . \"The name cannot make a claim about a drug. The hair-loss treatment Rogaine, for instance, was originally called Regain until the FDA rejected it. . . . \"The FDA rejects 35 percent to 40 percent of the brands it reviews. In Europe, the rejection rate approaches 50 percent.\" Quoted from Tom Murphy, \"Starts with P, T, K? Payoff Big for Right Drug Name: Companies Spend Millions of Dollars on Processing a Winning Medicine Brand,\" Des Moines Register, January 18, 2008, 6D. a. Eliminate words that add nothing. b. Combine sentences to eliminate unnecessary words. c. Put the meaning of your sentence into the subject and verb to cut the number of words. You eliminate unnecessary words to save the reader's time, not simply to see how few words you can use. You aren't writing a telegram, so keep the little words that make sentences complete. (Incomplete sentences are fine in lists where all the items are incomplete.) The following examples show how to use these methods. a. Eliminate words that add nothing. Cut words if the idea is already clear from other words in the sentence. Substitute single words for wordy phrases. Wordy: Keep this information on file for future reference. Better: Keep this information for reference. or: loc77805_ch07_178-215.indd 193 File this information. 8/19/09 9:40:59 AM Rev.Confirming Pages 194 Part 2 Meaningless Sentences Editor Bill Walsh of the Washington Post gives these examples of meaningless sentences: A donation of your car, truck or boat is tax-deductible to the maximum extent of the law. The Communication Process Wordy: Ideally, it would be best to put the billing ticket just below the monitor and above the keyboard. Better: If possible, put the billing ticket between the monitor and the keyboard. Phrases beginning with of, which, and that can often be shortened. Wordy: the question of most importance Better: the most important question Wordy: the estimate which is enclosed Better: the enclosed estimate In other words, you're allowed to deduct it as much as you're allowed to deduct it. Good news: Your toenail clippings are also deductible to the maximum extent of the law. You can use this scholarship at any participating school in the world. Wordy: We need to act on the suggestions that our customers offer us. I have no doubt that this is true. But it raises one major question. . . . Area schools will be back in session Monday, disappointing thousands of children who would rather stay home and watch John Wayne movies. Tighter: College graduates advance more quickly in the company. No, they wouldn't. (How old are you, anyway?) Examples and their commentary quoted from Bill Walsh, The Elephants of Style: A Trunkload of Tips on the Big Issues and Gray Areas of Contemporary American English (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004), 140, 149. Figure 7.4 Better: We need to act on customer suggestions. Sentences beginning with There are or It is can often be tighter. Wordy: There are three reasons for the success of the project. Tighter: Three reasons explain the project's success. Wordy: It is the case that college graduates advance more quickly in the company. Check your draft. If you find these phrases, or any of the unnecessary words shown in Figure 7.4, eliminate them. b. Combine sentences to eliminate unnecessary words. In addition to saving words, combining sentences focuses the reader's attention on key points, makes your writing sound more sophisticated, and sharpens the relationship between ideas, thus making your writing more coherent. Wordy: I conducted this survey by telephone on Sunday, April 21. I questioned two groups of upperclassmenmale and femalewho, according to the Student Directory, were still living in the dorms. The purpose of this survey was to find out why some upperclassmen continue to live in the dorms even though they are no longer required by the University to do so. I also wanted to find out if there were any Words to Cut Cut the following words Cut redundant words Substitute a single word for a wordy phrase quite a period of three months at the present time now really during the course of the negotiations due to the fact that because very during the year of 2004 in order to to maximum possible in the event that if past experience in the near future soon (or give the date) plan in advance on a regular basis regularly refer back prior to the start of before the color blue until such time as until the state of Texas true facts loc77805_ch07_178-215.indd 194 8/19/09 9:41:00 AM Rev.Confirming Pages Chapter 7 Planning, Composing, and Revising 195 differences between male and female upperclassmen in their reasons for choosing to remain in the dorms. Tighter: On Sunday, April 21, I phoned upperclassmen and women living in the dorms to find out (1) why they continue to live in the dorms even though they are no longer required to do so, and (2) whether men and women gave the same reasons for staying in the dorms. c. Put the meaning of your sentence into the subject and verb to cut the number of words. Put the core of your meaning into the subject and verb of your main clause. Think about what you mean and try saying the same thing in several different ways. Some alternatives will be tighter than others. Choose the tightest one. Wordy: The reason we are recommending the computerization of this process is because it will reduce the time required to obtain data and will give us more accurate data. Better: Computerizing the process will give us more accurate data more quickly. Wordy: The purpose of this letter is to indicate that if we are unable to mutually benefit from our seller/buyer relationship, with satisfactory material and satisfactory payment, then we have no alternative other than to sever the relationship. In other words, unless the account is handled in 45 days, we will have to change our terms to a permanent COD basis. Better: A good buyer/seller relationship depends upon satisfactory material and payment. You can continue to charge your purchases from us only if you clear your present balance in 45 days. 6. Vary sentence length and sentence structure. The Benefits of Plain English Allen-Bradley spent two years converting its manuals to plain English. The work is paying off in five ways. (1) Phone calls asking questions about the products have dropped from 50 a day to only 2 a month. (2) The sales force is selling more systems because people can learn about them more quickly. (3) Distributors spend less time on site teaching customers about products. (4) The clearer documents are easier to translate into Japanese, German, and French for international sales. (5) The tighter documents cost less to print, especially when translated into Arabic and German, which require 125% more space than the same content in English. Adapted from Barry Jereb, \"Plain English on the Plant Floor,\" Plain Language: Principles and Practice, ed. Edwin R. Steinberg (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991), 213. Readable prose mixes sentence lengths and varies sentence structure. A really short sentence (under 10 words) can add punch to your prose. Really long sentences (over 30 or 40 words) are danger signs. You can vary sentence patterns in several ways. First, you can mix simple, compound, and complex sentences. (See Appendix B for more information on sentence structure.) Simple sentences have one main clause: We will open a new store this month. Compound sentences have two main clauses joined with and, but, or, or another conjunction. Compound sentences work best when the ideas in the two clauses are closely related. We have hired staff, and they will complete their training next week. We wanted to have a local radio station broadcast from the store during its grand opening, but the DJs were already booked. Complex sentences have one main and one subordinate clause; they are good for showing logical relationships. When the stores open, we will have specials in every department. Because we already have a strong customer base in the northwest, we expect the new store to be just as successful as the store in the City Center Mall. You can also vary sentences by changing the order of elements. Normally the subject comes first. We will survey customers later in the year to see whether demand warrants a third store on campus. loc77805_ch07_178-215.indd 195 8/19/09 9:41:01 AM Rev.Confirming Pages 196 Part 2 What's in a Name? (4) or When Is a Sand