The other day a friend and I were talking about the dissertation project she’s been “hard at work” at now for over two years. Her biggest problem, unlike most graduate students I come across, has not been the research, deciding on a topic, the typical back-and-forth with her Dissertation Chair, or the all-too-familiar laziness that sets in sometime after the 2nd semester. My friend’s problem, rather, has been the actual, nitty-gritty writing.

The stare I gave her must’ve been along the lines of “Are you kidding me? Of all the things that could slow you down, just recording your research is the one that gets you?” She immediately became defensive. “Look,” she said. “Writing doesn’t just come to me like it does to some people. I just don’t get it. It’s super hard and I really have to work at making what I write not sound stupid.”

I thought about this for a few minutes. I do believe that we all have certain strengths, things that come more naturally to us than to others. But to what extent is writing one of those things? Is someone “born” without that strength simply doomed to struggle painfully through every written task in life? Was it okay for my friend to just accept her lot and try to move on as best she could?
Oh, fiddlesticks. You may not be as nifty with a fountain pen as say, Shakespeare, but anyone can learn to write well. And barring the time and practice it takes to accomplish that, everyone can at least learn to write better. So for all the struggling, would-be writers of anything out there, I’m going to give you 5 fairly simple steps to writing better and seeing results not in ten weeks or two years, but right now. You ready? Sure about that? Here we go.

1. Know your audience. I don’t mean know them personally, but know who you’re communicating to. No matter what you’re writing – a dissertation, a sci-fi comic book, or a post-it note – you need to know who will be receiving the message. What does this audience expect of you? What words or phrases are they likely to understand and use in their daily lives or vocations? Are they professional? Casual? Academic? Tailor your language appropriately. It would be just as ill-advised, for instance, to pepper a presentation to a client with the words ”dude” or “you know?” as it would to overwhelm your high school babysitter with “Peradventure the child should awaken, the steps first and foremost to be taken, according to the most recent studies on Child Health and Well-Being…”
2. Consider your message. Here’s where many people make their biggest mistakes – and we haven’t even talked about grammar yet. The most common reason written communications fail is not that they’re full of spelling errors but that they’re difficult to understand. If at any point in your communication your audience does not know what you’re saying, you’ve already lost. The keys to great communication are: precision (“What do I want to say? How will I go about saying it?”), conciseness (“What do I need to say? Can I say it better with fewer words?”), and clarity (after writing, read it over and ask, “What did I just say? Is this an accurate reflection of what I wanted to say in the beginning?”).
3. Avoid common grammatical errors. Also a tricky point. Too many people live in fear of the dreaded “g-word” and seem content to assume grammar is much more complicated than it really is. Here’s reason to rejoice: for all of you who never intended to become professional writers, you can ignore a good chunk of what you pretended to learn about grammar in the first place. If you want to communicate well, instead hone in on these grammatical principles:

                         a. Use complete sentences. (Nouns plus verbs!)
                         b. More than one subject (the person doing the action of the sentence), equals a plural verb. Always.
                         c. Remember pronouns? (Hint: they take the place of a noun.)
                             When you use them, make sure the sentence identifies which 
                             pronoun belongs to which noun. In the sentence  Bobby and
                           Tommy played with his kite all afternoon and then went to his
                            house for lunch, who does his refer to? 
                         d. If you start your communication with present tense verbs 
                              finish up that same way, if at all possible. Please. I’m begging.
                         e. Don’t use a comma when a period will work better. In fact,
                              don’t use a comma when anything else will work better.
                              There’s a popular fiction going around that you should place
                              a comma wherever you would naturally pause when reading
                              aloud. That’s simply not true. There are rules for commas
                              just like anything else. The more commas you use, the
                              harder it is for your readers to keep track of your full
                              meaning. If you don’t know the rules, go easy.

         4.  Writer, edit thyself. Seriously. Buy a good dictionary and then use
               it.  Also make much use of your word processor’s spell check. People 
                who argue that it’s only accurate in 90% of situations fail to realize
               that 90% is a lot better than they could do unassisted. And if you’re
                so talented that you don’t even need spell check, you probably 
               shouldn’t be reading this.

      5.   Writer, you are not all-knowing. Get an editor. Even the best writers
             make grammatical mistakes or have trouble communicating a point.
             The problem with proofreading your own stuff is that it’s yours; it’s
              hard to get objective about something so personal, and your brain 
              can often fill in logic gaps or gloss over spelling or grammar errors
               easily because you already know what you intended to say. Your 
                readers, not being in your head, are thus at a distinct disadvantage.
               Help them out. Get someone else to eyeball your writing. You may 
               be surprised at the errors you missed or the perspective you gain
               from a fresh pair of eyes.

Okay, that’s it. Five relatively simple steps (so I cheated and used subpoints – you’re hardly perfect yourself) to immediately improve your writing. I hope it’s been helpful. Come back next week when we tackle global warming.

Happy writing!