Most of you spend at least a part of your time writing all kinds of stuff. Depending on your profession, job description, or hobby, you could be writing anything from Annual Reports to the Great American Novel. So what’s the most important ingredient in really good writing? (Sound of crickets)

Matthew Stibbe at Bad Language points to an article written by Peter Seebach at IBM’s website about really bad language usage in software dialog boxes. It’s amazing how perfectly competent people can come up with something as complicated and technically beautiful as a fully-functional software program, yet the dialog boxes can still look like they were written by someone with no language skills whatsoever! My favorite part of the article is this quote:

“One trend that I suspect may be at issue (and it’s hardly unique to computers) is a tendency for people to become incoherent when they try to talk real pretty.”

Yup, that’s the problem all right. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve started to write some mundane report or (especially) a blog entry, and found myself tending to “wax eloquent” (an old-English term that translates roughly as “laying it on thick and polishing it to a nice, shiny finish”.) It’s a sadly common problem, unless you’ve had many, many years of practice. Or you’re a lawyer.

The thing is, nobody writes in a vacuum (well, sometimes it feels like I do when I blog, but what-ever), but once the words are all arranged on the screen or notepad or envelope, I’ve discovered the most useful ingredient to good writing is… feedback! So if you want to avoid that deer-in-the-headlights look when your audience reads your work, here are a couple of tips for you that pretty much ought to be automatic.

#1 – Say What You Mean. My comment about lawyers above was not meant as a snark. I have a lawyer friend who helps me be continuously aware of words and their meanings. (Thanks, Mr. T.) I can’t imagine a successful lawyer who is imprecise in his or her use of words.

#2 – Proofread It. Depending on the importance of the document (or report, note, blog or email), it wouldn’t hurt to go get a cup of coffee first before proofing it. It’s amazing how a simple shift of focus for even a few moments can give your brain a fresh perspective.

#3 – Check Your Speeling. Sure, spell-checkers have gotten better, but they stumble a lot. Also, don’t assume grammar checkers are that good. I’ve had running arguments with MSWord’s recommendations for years.

#4 – Watch Your Tone. When writing an email, and particularly when you’re responding to one, for Pete’s sake, read what you wrote before you punch the SEND button! (Pete, we’re doing this for YOU!) Good communication (with other people) is reduced the fewer channels being used: visual, aural, and verbal. It’s amazingly difficult to convey tone when you don’t have all three, so as that great American scholar, Elmer Fudd, would say, “Be vewwy, vewwy careful.”

#5 – Avoid Jargon. If you have a problem with jargon, and you’re writing with no feedback, here’s a little free application called Bullfighter I found recently that may help. It installs as a simple toolbar in MSWord. Once you’ve written your document, simply push the “Bullfighter” button and within a few seconds you’ll get a critique that identifies the bull words you may have inadvertently used, plus recommendations for better clarity. Pushing the “Bull Index” button measures readability using something with the yucky name of the “Flesch Index”. (It’s based on the length of sentences and average number of syllables per word.) Overall a handy little gizmo!

#6 – Get Feedback. Whenever possible, run your masterpiece by someone else. However, as mentioned before, sometimes you have to provide your own feedback. If that’s the case, go back to points #1-5.

And just so ya know – I can, with total humility and modesty, report that Bullfighter certifies this blog entry – and the previous three – as “Bull-Free”. This means either I’m being very clear, or that Bullfighter is as bad a critic as I am a writer. I think I’ll go with the former.