Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Brevity
17th century French philosopher Blaise Pascal once wrote,
“I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.”
This quote is often mistakenly attributed to Mark Twain, but I’m sure he would agree. The “trick” in writing is not only finding the right words, but paring out words that only dilute your message. It takes real effort and time to condense, and it is hard to do, but there is power in brevity.
At work, when asked to edit documents, my goal was to trim 40%. Authors were stunned to see so much of their work “red-lined” but they couldn’t argue that the message was not more clear and powerful. I’m not trying to brag, if you read this blog you know I am prone to wordiness, but the more time I spend on my posts the shorter they become. It is a curious art-form and it takes constant effort. I am not critiquing anyone else's blog posts, and story-telling is much different than business communications, but in the spirit of Dan's blog, I thought I'd share something that I learned on the job that served me well.
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3 comments:
I am also a red-liner. My natural inclination is to write emails in reverse order:
Hi,
Background on problem.
Propose solution.
Request approval.
Bye.
This seems nice but I have found it is more effective to do it in reverse order:
Hi,
Please approve X.
Describe the solution.
Give problem background (if necessary - sometimes it just isn't)
Bye.
It feels less natural to me but it lets the person know what you want them to do. Writing emails in the latter style also seems to helps brevity.
I've been taught that if you have an actionable request, it should be in the first line. It is a little unnatural because for some reason, we feel that the justification should precede the request. But it doesn't need to. And you are right; writing this way lends itself to brevity. Has anyone ever bemoaned the fact that a memo, am e-mail message, or a slide presentation was too short? I don't think so.
In my last English class we had to write papers like Dan's email style. It was SO hard for me. I think I realized because in math I show my work first and work down to the solution (bottom line).
I always think it is silly when papers for school have to be X pages long. I never understood why if something of equal significance could not be said in fewer words. Good to hear in the corporate world there is not length requirements for length's sake.
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