Prior to the commencement of my creating this weekly communication for you, it suddenly dawned on me that every one of my previous messages utilised non-complex wording and abbreviated sentences and that made me ask myself whether – in order to impress and inspire you – I ought to make use of more complicated, lengthier, ‘professional’ phrasing and more intricate sentence structures.
Ok, let’s stop there. I HATE that first paragraph. I’m going to re-write it, so it sounds more like me…
Before writing today’s Tip, I realised all previous ones use simple words and short sentences. I wondered whether, to impress you, I should use longer ones.
Both paragraphs say the same thing.
But I know which one you preferred reading! The second one. Because it:
- Uses normal language, not ‘corporate’
- Uses simple phrases. Example: replacing ‘prior to the commencement of’ with ‘before’; ‘in order to’ with ‘to’
- Is much shorter – 26 words compared to 60
- Has two short sentences, not one long one
- Sounds good if you read it out loud (the first one sounds weird if you hear it)
- Etc
But, even though we all prefer the second version, we often read things that look more like the first. Especially in ‘formal’ documents and/or ones where the reader is keen to impress.
Which all leads to a weird observation:
- Most of us think we don’t write like the top paragraph
- Yet we’ve all read lots of stuff that’s written exactly like the top paragraph…
… the only way both these can be true is if some of us write like the top paragraph – even though we didn’t know we do.
Eek! What if it’s me doing it?!
Or you?
Let’s make sure it isn’t you or me, by doing this week’s…
…Action Point
- Find it – Find your most recent written communication. Ideally, one that was ‘formal’ and/or where you wanted to impress the reader
- Review it – is it more like the top paragraph or the re-written version?
- Read it – read it out loud to yourself … when nobody can hear you (!) Does it sound like a human or a robot? More importantly, does it sound like you?