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…
This post follows up on some conversation about the meaning of “specialist” after my On Being a Writing Specialist a few days ago. I had always used “specialist” and “pro” and “expert” interchangeably. That will change now that I’ve done some more reading and reflecting. I knew I would have to define what I mean by “pro”…
One of the most important things any teacher or manager can do to help amateurs become pro writers is to discuss sample messages with them. The key here is discussing the sample message in sufficient, relevant detail and connecting those details to future messages the writer will create.** Here are the guidelines I’ve provided before to those introducing…
Motivated Grammar provided an excellent discussion of word choice — specifically confusing homophones (like “your” and “you’re”).
Anyone who avoids full responsibility after making a mistake counts as an amateur in my book. This past week, my students discussed the purpose and effectiveness of a letter from a publications manager to a group of volunteer editors. The consensus was that it effectively informed readers about the reasons for performance issues in the manager’s area, as well as plans to address them in the…
Last week, I wrote that subject-verb disagreement matters because it signals a serious breach in etiquette. And that distracts business readers. Relatively few of my former students (or writers for whom I served as editor) have committed the faux pas in the writing they have done for me. But, for those amateur writers who do struggle with subject-verb disagreement,…
If you have known or followed me for long, you know I am no grammar nazi. As I wrote recently, If my students’ language signals they may not pass inside the gate where professionals reside, I never tell them they’re wrong. I do sometimes tell them their language will elicit negative attention from more than a…
I have been totally consumed with my day job the past few days. The semester starts at Bama next week. Cause I don’t want ya to think I forgot ya, I’m sending you to a nice piece by Stan Carey, who blogs at Sentence First. He talks about word choice and defines “inkhorn” and “sesquipedalianism” for…
I recently found a marvelous video of Stephen Fry talking about language. Here’s what the creater (Matthew Rogers) says about his video: Using the wonderful words of acclaimed writer, actor and allround know it all (I mean that in the best of ways) Stephen Fry, I have created this kinetic typography animation. . . I loved this particular essay on…