| "Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers | | | | degree of damage, cause of damage - all of which |
| raced across the grassy field toward each other like | | | | set the stage for what environmental clean-up types |
| two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. | | | | love to call "remediation." |
| traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. | | | | Framed by a four-stage process - exploratory, |
| at a speed of 35 mph." ~Anonymous high school | | | | draft(s), edit/revise and publish/send - the young |
| essay. | | | | professionals followed the three guidelines of |
| It's impossible to know whether that young man or | | | | successful business writing, whether a project report, a |
| woman will ever make a dime at the craft of writing, | | | | technical evaluation, a follow-up sales pitch or a brief |
| but you have to appreciate the precision, don't you? | | | | e-mail:o Writing is thinking. It should be viewed as an |
| Pithy analogies clearly aren't his or her strength, but | | | | opportunity, a gift of time to show how smart you |
| details matter a lot. | | | | are.o Know and respect your readers. Good writers |
| Those are the sorts of young minds I had the pleasure | | | | use inclusive language, not pompous, jargon-laden |
| of working with recently at the Energy Department in | | | | language that excludes. They write to edify, not to |
| Washington, D.C. As brand-new hires, six scientists and | | | | impress.o Edit/revise. The first two guidelines are |
| engineers spent two days with me on the basics of | | | | meaningless if you don't check your work carefully. |
| clear, concise writing. Not a one of them had had a | | | | Sloppy or nonexistent editing can make you look |
| writing class in college, but along the way they | | | | foolish. |
| reinforced a valuable lesson when it comes to putting | | | | The result was a revelation to each of the students, |
| pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. | | | | who'd begun the first day telling each other that they |
| First, we had to get over a looming obstacle - what to | | | | found writing intimidating. Aided by one-on-one peer |
| write about. Writing exercises are most productive and | | | | review, they came up with straightforward, concise, |
| least daunting when the topic is familiar to participants. | | | | get-to-the-point-at-the-start writing that I, the lay person, |
| At settings like the Energy Department's Environmental | | | | understood. |
| Management Office, which supervised their | | | | A Peruvian-born lady who had so little faith in herself |
| communication skills training, that would mean writing | | | | and her command of English did a bang-up job |
| about cleaning up radioactive waste sites. | | | | describing vitrification - turning nuclear waste into glass. |
| The problem was that these recent college graduates | | | | A young engineer from Michigan wrote an |
| knew virtually nothing about the specifics of the jobs | | | | unambiguous argument for an employee drug-testing |
| that awaited them after leaving DC. All they had was | | | | program and described how a hypothetical small |
| a location, like Idaho Falls or Oak Ridge, Tennessee, or | | | | business dealing with potentially dangerous substances |
| Cincinnati. So what, I asked myself, could I expect them | | | | could put it in place. What lubricated the process for |
| to write about? | | | | him was calling on details he'd picked up in a college |
| My concerns were short-lived. College had filled their | | | | class and putting himself in the place of the |
| heads with so much useful knowledge that all I had to | | | | hypothetical reader - in this case a business owner |
| do was prompt them to view me, the reader, as a lay | | | | who was skeptical about drug testing. |
| person (a congressional aide, perhaps) who'd asked a | | | | "The best style is the style you don't notice." That's |
| question about a technical matter with far-ranging | | | | how the novelist Somerset Maugham described writing |
| policy implications. | | | | that works. The world of business communications is |
| As they began to develop that idea, I told them to fill in | | | | no different. Effective writers get their points across |
| with details, following the "show don't tell" precept that | | | | concisely without calling attention to the way they |
| governs any worthwhile explanatory business writing: | | | | write. The reader understands what is being conveyed |
| Don't tell me that the groundwater has been | | | | - questions, answers to questions, a call to action, a |
| contaminated by radioactive waste. Show me with | | | | persuasive point - in one reading. |
| details about type of waste, measurements that depict | | | | |