Be Heard. Speak Plainly.
Every semester I get a handful of students who have settled on the idea that the more big words they use, the better. Regardless of whether they know what those words mean or not.
So I get papers elucidating the patriarchal configuration of the social arrangement, rather than telling me about male-dominated societies. Or they pontificate on the topic of inadequate provision of pedagogical resources vis-à-vis the particular requirements of participation in the modern form of governance, instead of describing the failure of schools to prepare kids to be good citizens. And so on.
They learn it, of course, from the bad writing that plagues many of the works assigned to them. But it is because we as a society hold such work in high regard that students ape the style of the complicated stuff instead of the more readable work on their reading lists – which is just a s common as the hoity-toity stuff. They think writing smart must mean using big words and tortured grammar, mistaking difficulty of a work for some measure of its quality.
If you have to work at it, the thinking goes, it must be worth working at.
Of course, this is nonsense. Yes, there are works of exceeding difficulty that are worth reading – in spite of the difficulty, not because of it. And these works – even the best of them – would benefit greatly from a good strong dose of plainspoken-ness. In fact, the ideas in many academic works may even be stronger if they were expressed more clearly.
The same holds true for all kinds of writing and speaking – for communication in general. If it’s important at all, it deserves to be expressed clearly and plainly, so that anyone can understand it. The language that academics use and students love to imitate is not meant to communicate ideas, it’s meant to hide them, to act as a test to see who belongs and who doesn’t. The same is true of the gibberish that many business people write and speak, leveraging their synergistic solution platforms in order to maximize the extraction of secondary revenues in the blah blah blah.
The problem is that this kind of language buries ideas and muddies thinking. Which, of course, is the point a lot of the time – the business can’t come right out and say they killed 400 people with faulty products and the student can’t come out an say she has no idea what the readings were about or that he hasn’t been to class for weeks.
But if the ideas are important – and if you live a life where they aren’t, get out and start over – they deserve to be shared in all their glory, not hidden behind a veil of words. It’s not too hard to speak or write plainly if you follow a few simple rules.
1. Honor the idea.
Speaking plainly starts and ends with the idea. This could be how to bring about world peace or what Pantone color to use on your office’s stationery – put the idea front and center and let it shine. Don’t damage it by trying to make it appear fancy – if it’s a good one, it doesn’t need help and if it’s a bad one, it doesn’t need saying.
Along the same lines, avoid qualifying yourself too much. While it’s fine to express uncertainly when you’re really uncertain, too often people “soften” their ideas by phrasing them as things that they “believe” or “think” or “feel”. They present facts as opinions and opinions as feelings, making it almost impossible to deal with the actual substance of the idea being spoken. Don’t do that – stand behind what you say and take the risk of being wrong.
2. Be yourself.
Usually when people speak un-plainly, it’s because they are trying to appear to be something – or someone – that they’re not: smarter, better educated, most business-like, cooler, or whatever. They’re hiding their real self behind a screen of words that they would never use otherwise. It’s a bit odd, really – if the idea you’re trying to express is yours, why pretend someone else had it?
3. When given a choice, choose the shorter word.
English is a funny language; there are almost always two or more words that mean the same thing. Usually, one will tend to be longer and more vague, like “civilized”, and the other will be shorter and more direct, like “polite” or “nice” or just “good”. As a general rule, people trying to dress up their ideas in showy clothes go for the longer, vaguer words – which is why the idea itself can be weakened. Use indirect language to express yourself long enough, soon even you will not be able to say exactly what it is you mean! When you have a choice, go for the shorter word – if it sounds too blunt or even rude, chances are it’s the clearest way to say what you intend.
4. Cut the description.
There is a place for description of course: when you’re describing something. But too often people attempt to give their ideas a little extra “oomph” by adding a whole bunch of adjectives and adverbs around it, burying the idea itself beneath a mass of irrelevant detail. Cut to the chase and leave the descriptive language for when its needed.
5. Communication is job one.
Sometimes when you’re writing something or speaking, you’ll have the urge to “step up” the language because what you’re saying doesn’t sound pretty enough. This means it’s working. Remember that, unless you’re writing a poem or a ballad, your first priority isn’t to impress people with the beauty of your prose but to communicate an idea to them.
6. Don’t be afraid of “you” and “me”.
Another way that people use language to hide their ideas in a vain attempt to sound impressive is to write in a distant, impersonal tone. While there are some forms of writing where this is necessary – journalism, for example, or clinical reports – a lot of writing and speech can be made more approachable by embracing the first person. Using “I” and “me” gives your readers or listeners something – someone –to attach the ideas you’re expressing to a real person, making them more concrete and more human.
Likewise, you can engage your audience more fully by speaking directly to and about them, instead of about “one” or even “we”. Instead of putting your examples in the third person, address them directly to your reader or listener by using “you”.
Remember, no matter how good your ideas, if you can’t communicate them clearly you may as well not have them. Speak plainly and be heard!
WRITER'S BIOGRAPHY
Dustin Wax
Dustin M. Wax is a freelance writer and project manager at Stepcase Lifehack. He is also the creator of The Writer's Technology Companion, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he's not writing, he teaches anthropology and gender studies in Las Vegas, NV. He is the author of Don't Be Stupid: A Guide to Learning, Studying, and Succeeding at College.
Follow him on Twitter: @dwax.
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Comments
Adam Miller says on November 17th, 2008 at 11:27 am
A few comments:
Great points, all. I remember in my first year, one of my first business classes, the professor made the same point when assigning papers. Basically, forget all the flowery language and say what you mean.
On the specific point of I and We, I also remember before that, in high school (also home of the dreaded/possibly useless 5-paragraph essay) it was constantly drilled into our heads that we were NOT, under any circumstances, to use I, we, you, me or any personal pronouns. Everything was supposed to be back up.
And we wonder why people think our children can’t think for themselves . . .
Jacob says on November 17th, 2008 at 11:42 am
You should check out some of Gerald Graff’s stuff on socializing students to academic writing. There is clearly a difference between writing for a scholarly journal and writing for a mass audience and writing instruction should work to include that difference. To help my students, I always try to include mass-media readings that express similar ideas to their “regular” readings. They can read Susan Sontag’s “AIDS and its Metaphors” alongside Kenneth Burke’s terministic screens and see how they are essentially saying the same thing in different ways.
nbashaw says on November 17th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
I disagree with the majority of what was written in this post. While it’s true that academics (and all fields) have jargon, that doesn’t mean the jargon is completely meaningless. Jargon is a double-edged sword: it can be used with precision by experts, or it can be used to bullshit someone into thinking you are smart.
The basic point of the post (clarity is good) is fundamentally true. The route you have taken to get there (stripped-down, basic vocabulary) is not true. The real question is audience. You have to know who you are speaking to. Don’t use a technical jargon term with a layperson, but also don’t go so far as to neglect the distinct connotations between words like “civilized” and “good.”
Jargon and precise language can be used for good. I think what you really meant to say with this post was something more like, “Don’t bullshit – don’t use words that you don’t understand to make you look smart.” If you know what you are talking about, don’t dumb it down for people. They can learn something from you. There is a certain art to be found in employing an expansive vocabulary.
One example of jargon being used for good is computer code. Humans invented computers, and code. Why is it that code isn’t simple and plain for everyone to understand? If the author of this post is correct, anything and everything that can be communicated can and should be communicated in plainspoken conversational English. Code serves a specific purpose, and does things that regular English can’t. The same goes for most jargon, weather it is academic or legal or medical or anything else.
Basically – don’t throw away the thesaurus. “Big words” have distinct connotations and meanings, they don’t all “mean the same thing,” and it would be devastating for modern society to lose the art of language. “Big words,” when expertly employed, are not more indirect, they are more direct.
Adam Miller says on November 17th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
@nbashaw:
I see your point, but the way I’d describe the article is to use the simplest method to say what you want to say. This isn’t always in plain everyday spoken English. As you say, big words have additional meanings, so if the additional meaning is required, and it would take two or more shorter words to make the same point, then the choice isn’t to use the shorter word, because there’s no shorter word that actually says what you want.
Likewise, in speaking to a peer sharing a similar technical/professional background, then corporate acronyms or specific terms may be valid, but I’d take that with a grain of salt, trying to ascertain if the jargon is needed in the first place.
Valeria | TimelessLessons says on November 17th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Really good article. I like the crispness and clarity of your prescription for speaking or writing plainly. I think it is particularly about mindset (plus massive action).
Dustin Wax says on November 17th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
nbashaw and Adam: I agree that audience is important and that the simplest way to get your point across can well differ from situation to situation. But I think that the effectiveness of non-clarity is way overestimated. There are fields where, when speaking among peers, it’s necessary — I wouldn’t want my surgeon to tell her assistant to clamp off the “bleedy thingy”. But if you’re an academic like me, then you’ve read 10s of thousands of pages of academic material, and I would bet that the majority of what has affected you most deeply was not the stuff with the long words and tortured grammar. After all, an important function of graduate school is to translate complicated gibberish into plain language so we can discuss what it means.
The number of situations in which non-plain language is needed (and I don’t mean “non-jargon-y” — jargon can be quite plain ) is far fewer than the number of situations in which it’s used, and that’s the problem I’m trying to address here. Sometimes the best word *is* the humongous one — in that case, you don’t have a choice. But when you have a choice, speaking plainly will help you communicate more effectively and, in many cases, help you think more clearly.
GSEditor says on November 17th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
I can’t imagine reading Guattari and Deleuze, or any work of Critical or Literary Theory without long convoluted sentences and language.
Expressing or communicating theories of language and meaning using the very object of study blurs the boundaries between the expression of the idea and idea itself–this makes for muddy language.
Liz says on November 17th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
I agree with your argument, although I suspect one person’s plain language can be another’s over-complication.
This is one area where I think cultural differences between the USA and UK stand out. I’m from the UK, and I find US English much simpler, both in construction and word usage, than UK English. Sometimes this helps communication, and sometimes it takes away richness from the ideas being communicated. I’m guessing that those of you in the US find British English over-complicated sometimes. For example maybe you are thinking my sentences are way too long…
I think The Economist is a really good example of good use of language. Most Economist readers are busy people so it has to be written with communication as the main objective, even if the subject matter is sometimes quite complex.
ZeroNews says on November 17th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Very good article. Some ideas are similar with Part I from the book “On writing Well” – William Zinsser
Ahmad says on November 17th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
I think i definitely agree with what you say about academic jargon- there’s nothing I hate more than pretentious over-stated academic masturbation. Nathan, though, makes a good point that you need to be conscious of who you’re talking to, not just what about.
Political jargon for example both sufficiently bull-shits everyone into thinking certain things regardless of reality(Patriot Act ftw?), but also promotes efficient legislation better than “Yeah, that one bill about giving money to farms. That shit sucks. We should vote on it now”.
Like Dustin said, its sometimes necessary. But I get hung up on obnoxious pseudo-academics or coffee-house intellectuals that spend life talking about life, which some how makes them smart. This mostly means college students.
Dustin Wax says on November 17th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Adam: I’ve spent time in a half-dozen classes so far this semester (I teach 4 courses, and each has had at least one going-over on this) explaining the difference between using “I” and giving your opinion. It’s an impossibly hard distinction for students to make, precisely because their high school teachers spent so much time forbidding them from using personal pronouns and so little time explaining why.
ZeroNews: That’s a high compliment – “On Writing Well” is one of my most favorite writing books, and I return to it time and time again for inspiration. That much of what I say here links back to Zinsser is probably unavoidable, given how highly I esteem his work.
Nathan says on November 17th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
I didn’t really communicate myself effectively in my first comment. To a certain level we agree: I definitely think that clarity is good. I’m pretty sure you would agree that oversimplification is a bad idea. The central thrust of my disagreement stems from the fact that, first, I see “big words” as clarifying forces, rather than an obscuring ones, and second, I think the bigger problem is oversimplification rather than overcomplication. I also suspect the two are related.
When you talk about “non-clarity” being a necessary evil in some professions, and use the example of the surgeon referring to a scalpel by it’s name instead of as a “bleedy thingy,” it really helps illustrate my point. Which is more clear – scalpel or “bleedy thingy”? It depends on who you are. If you are a layperson then bleedy thingy might be more immediately useful as a descriptor. But what if there is blood on lots of different instruments? Technical terms become more useful (and clear).
The same logic still holds not just for jargon, but also in common conversation and writing. You are correct to point out that we should always default to the least complicated word that still gets the point across, but I would suggest an alternate formulation. “Choose the most precise word.” This would check against your student’s frivolities, because it would be imprecise to use an obscure word when you don’t understand the difference between it and the more common one.
I think society could use a healthy dose of poetry and tact in our everyday communications with each other. Sure, from the perspective of someone reading works by aspiring critical theorists there is bound to be an overload of faux-intellectualism. This is mostly a product of insecurity. Nietzche said “Those who know they are profound strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem profound strive for obscurity.”
But our society at large is not brimming over with academic-speak. But maybe that’s just me exposing my social location (undergraduate at a state university).
People usually have no interest in academia because they are disgusted by the writing style. This is a big problem. The key is to find the right balance between readability and oversimplification. We both fundamentally agree, but err to different cautions.
Richard X. Thripp says on November 17th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
When one feels that he/she has obfuscated his/her inexorable vicissitudes behind a cloak of biodegradability, it may become a prerequisite for continued social discourse to reinstate them in less conglomerated taxonomy.
You’re right, I can’t do this. Sorry. :D
Really, it impresses people more if you are honest even if “offensive” and if you speak precisely when your peers prefer vagueness. The truth about offending others is that if you offend others, they are actually offending themselves. Whatever you can say to yourself you can say to other people.
LifeMadeGreat | Juliet says on November 18th, 2008 at 1:30 am
Hi
Great post! Thank you.
Acronyms are another “secret” code. The company where I work part-time is riddled with them. They even have a company acronym dictionary! Crazy.
They also talk of “company X speak”. I always notice how soon someone new falls into this “company X speak”.
Juliet
Vincent says on November 18th, 2008 at 4:32 am
When communicating, it will be better to just get straight to the point. Make it sweet and simple and the other party will understand it more clearly.
Cheers
Vincent
Personal Development Blogger
TechieBird says on November 18th, 2008 at 7:43 am
In the UK we have the Plain English Society which aims to promote clear communication. Mostly it’s aimed at government bodies’ and companies’ communication with the public, but the advice can apply to any business setting. (They also have some great examples of how not to do it if you want a laugh.)
Check out http://bwain-dump.blogspot.com.....lish.co.uk and specifically their excellent document on how to write plain English at http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/howto.pdf.
TechieBird says on November 18th, 2008 at 7:44 am
Oops – of course I meant the Plain English Campaign! And the link I gave was wrong too – here’s the correct one: http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/
Laurie | Express Yourself to Success says on November 18th, 2008 at 10:15 am
Good article – I really like your first point: ‘honor the idea.’ I think that says it all.
The point of communicating is being understood: if the message or idea is not understood then it wasn’t communicated at all, no matter how many words are used or how fancy they are.
Richard Johnson says on November 18th, 2008 at 10:15 am
I’m surprised no-one has mentioned ‘The Elements of Style’ yet by Strunk and White. That pocket book on good writing has been around for decades and critics love it.
FrugalNYC says on November 18th, 2008 at 11:45 am
Dustin, this coming from an academic like yourself is great. I agree with what you and others have said. It’s best to use plain language whenever possible. I’ve heard this same point from teachers I highly regard in my school days. They definitely stand out, because they do not hide behind the veil of miscommunication.
Language is complicated enough as it is, written words may not be able to fully express what we mean to say. Language is sometimes more clear when written, other times communicating in person is best. Once you throw cultural differences into the mix, it becomes a total mess. No wonder governments are hard to run.
Thanks again for putting such a big idea in simple terms.
Jay says on November 18th, 2008 at 11:58 am
Good stuff, Dustin. Makes me want to drive through the front gate of my seminary and staple this “edict” for all to see. I’m at the point in my academic program where I expect to be bored and frustrated with the writing style found in many of our required texts. Irony of ironies, there are some writers who can even make God sound dull.
hlgirl says on November 18th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Most of this article is quite useful advice, but I do take issue with point #3. The English language has many words that mean *almost* the same thing; few that are exactly the same. In the example, “polite,” “nice,” and “good,” aren’t even synonyms for each other, much less synonymous with “civilized.” (”Nice” is a particularly over-used word that shouldn’t be used unless absolutely necessary.)
It’s true that speakers and writer shouldn’t use 50-cent words just for the sake of showing off, but picking the *right* word is essential — and if that means using a longer word rather than a simpler one, then that’s the right way to go.
TatteredScribe says on November 18th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Oh goodness, I know the type. I recall one of my classmates hearing a word that one of my friends happened to utter, went home, studied its Latin roots, then came back the next day and started spewing about how wonderful a word it was and giving us its etymology. He was a headcase.
Anyway, I think you’ll find this style is meant to be sound quite official, but instead makes us all sound stuffy and bland. We’re not all politicians and high-brow academics.
Marcio says on November 20th, 2008 at 7:59 am
Dustin,
I am a big fan of what you write. I live in Brazil (in the south, almost in Uruguai) and I speak Portuguese. You can’t image the communication problem we have, basically because Portuguese have much more words than English and a far more complex grammar. The second problem is that most of the studies come in English and some people translate then to Portuguese. There are lots of words that you can’t translate because we don’t have a word with that exactly meaning. Try to image a complex written text translated to a more complex language witch does not have some of the jargon words – and substitute this words for an “explanation”of them.
Olivia Mitchell says on November 22nd, 2008 at 11:13 pm
There’s also a distinction between writing and speaking. When it comes to speaking the points that Dustin makes are even more critical – as the listener has to grasp the idea immediately – or be confused. If you’re reading – as opposed to listening – you’re in control and can take your time to ensure you understand the idea.
Dustin mentions using shorter words – a useful guideline I use is to pick the Anglo-Saxon word as opposed to the word derived from Latin or Greek. Sentences which use Anglo-Saxon words are crisp and have more punch. Sentences constructed with Latin words are liable to be verbose and are deficient in impact.
Name (required) says on January 1st, 2009 at 4:26 am
Third paragraph, last sentence, second word: “They thing writing smart must mean using big words and tortured grammar, mistaking difficulty of a work for some measure of its quality.”
Wade says on January 3rd, 2009 at 10:01 pm
Is the 2nd sentence in this article a proper sentence? If not, shouldn’t a post on “how to write” contain complete sentences?
“Every semester I get a handful of students who have settled on the idea that the more big words they use, the better. Regardless of whether they know what those words mean or not.”
Dustin Wax says on January 3rd, 2009 at 10:30 pm
Wade: There is one test of writing: Do you understand what was said? That sentence is, indeed, a sentence fragment. And I have no problem with that. A post on “how to write” should NEVER only contain complete sentences — nor follow any other high school rule unless there’s a better reason than “that’s the rule”.
So, please, if you need permission, consider this a license to use thoughtful sentence fragments, if they make the point. By all means, start sentences with “and” or “but”. For the love of all that is good in the world, end your sentences with prepositions. They’re only errors if you don’t know what you’re doing, and if because of that your writing is unclear.