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Frustrations with (bad) writers
So I do a lot of editing, of both colleagues and our PR firm(s). And there are two major recurring themes.
1. People do not know how to organize information into a coherent or interesting argument. They just throw a bunch of random ideas in there. More ideas is better, right? It's kind of sort of related if you squint real hard. That definitely strengthens your argument! Also, it does not matter what order you put things in. All ideas are of equal importance, and they do not need to be connected in any way.
2. Extra syllables means you're smarter! Why use "use" when you can use "utilize"? I just hit the phrase "optimize their knowledge transfer." TEACH! The word you're looking for is TEACH! You don't sound smart, you sound like either you're hiding something or you're a middle schooler who just discovered the existence of the thesaurus.
I have a personal rule that you're allowed one z per sentence. If you already used "synergize," you're not allowed to use "optimize." Ideally, you get one per paragraph.
Clear, concise writing that you only have to read once to parse. That's what the goal should be. The more you try to sound smart, the less your audience will actually believe your point at the end.
This has been brought to you by a truly egregious PR brief.
1. People do not know how to organize information into a coherent or interesting argument. They just throw a bunch of random ideas in there. More ideas is better, right? It's kind of sort of related if you squint real hard. That definitely strengthens your argument! Also, it does not matter what order you put things in. All ideas are of equal importance, and they do not need to be connected in any way.
2. Extra syllables means you're smarter! Why use "use" when you can use "utilize"? I just hit the phrase "optimize their knowledge transfer." TEACH! The word you're looking for is TEACH! You don't sound smart, you sound like either you're hiding something or you're a middle schooler who just discovered the existence of the thesaurus.
I have a personal rule that you're allowed one z per sentence. If you already used "synergize," you're not allowed to use "optimize." Ideally, you get one per paragraph.
Clear, concise writing that you only have to read once to parse. That's what the goal should be. The more you try to sound smart, the less your audience will actually believe your point at the end.
This has been brought to you by a truly egregious PR brief.
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Go for it. Please. We need to end the tyranny of the "z" buzzwords.
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Don't you dare get rid of my easy mnemonic for when you're being pretentious.
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My current frustration is variance explanations. If you're trying to explain why a ratio changed, listing for me a bunch of underlying data for the numerator and the denominator does not actually explain anything about the relationship of the two. It is very, very hard, it turns out, to get people to understand that the point is not to find the arithmetic reason (the numerator increased, therefore the ratio increased) but the business reason (I can see the numerator increased--why didn't the denominator?). This brought to you by the sentence "the returns percentage increased because returns were higher in relationship to sales." You have just stated how to calculate the percentage. Congrats.
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Yeah, that's another one people struggle with. Cause and effect, people, cause and effect. Not effect and linked effect.