Thanks to Tracy Allison Altman over at Evidence Soup, I just read Does the Language Fit the Evidence by Mark Zweig, MD, and Emily DeVoto, PhD. The authors are concerned about the translation of medical research into popular media stories. Here’s why: A subtle trap occurs in the transition from the cautious, nondirectional, noncausal, passive language…
The AACSB peer review team left this morning after a whirlwind onsite accreditation visit to our business school. I shared a copy of our report with you a couple of months ago. Today I want to share a lesson on bottom line messages. Some background. One area in which the College is reviewed is called Assurance of…
You’ve heard me talk about my interest in the obstacles to widespread adoption of plain language before. Over the holidays, I read Joseph Kimble’s Writing for Dollars, Writing to Please. What a terrific compilation of resources for those of us interested in more successful workplace writing! Kimble is a law professor with a long history as…
I like to highlight best practices in writing for the workplace when I see them. Here’s a terrific example. This morning, Judy Knighton posted Listen to your readers! at Write, “a professional services firm that helps government and business organisations create clear, reader-friendly communications” located in New Zealand. I’ve written about audience analysis and posted a video tutorial on…
Last week I said I wanted to understand the obstacles to widespread adoption of plain language. This post will explore organizational willingness. I wrote earlier that I intend to study this topic in detail next fall. But, to make the best use of my time, I’d love to hear from those who have been involved in plain language…
We use language to communicate content. But we also use it to manage social relations. And we have to do both within the same message. Watch this 10-minute RSA Animate video of Steven Pinker‘s Language as a Window into Human Nature to explore this topic. The need to manage social relations explains why plain language, although…
The ability to communicate clear messages in writing is critical for the success of individuals in the workplace and the organizations they represent — though I have argued that plain language is only one of the communication strategies a pro must master. There are gads of folks who condemn business and government for creating ineffective documents and who advocate clear…
This week in my class, we begin discussing strategies and tactics for effective leadership communication. The TILL System builds on research in linguistic politeness, identifying four strategies as shown in the figure above. The strategies differ in the degree of clarity with which they deliver a message. Because efficiency is so highly valued in Western cultures…
This post follows up on a couple of earlier ones about a letter soliciting sponsorships for an outdoor sign at The First Tee of Tuscaloosa. Pros don’t settle for platitudes about audience described the principled way in which we analyzed our audience. Pros plan message content strategically described how we developed the content for the first draft. This one describes…
Whew! The beginning of the academic year has kept me fully occupied this past week. I wanted to take time to share a few good discussions I’ve been reading about constructing graphs. Check out Nigel Lewis at Capgemini’s Business Analytic’s blog for some good examples of scale issues (as discussed in my Video Tutorial on Graphics). And Naomi…