Breaking Through ...

In my current job (in academe) I read a lot of dreadful student papers and obtuse academic or administrative tomes. Sometimes I despair that we are losing our ability to communicate.

Faced with this tower of Babel, I have turned to three touchstones of good writing: a new book, an old standby, and some good advice from colleagues.

The first is Made to Stick Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip and Dan Heath. You can easily find it at the bookstore ... it's the book with duct tape on the cover. The book is filled with practical advice for getting your ideas noticed and remembered.

The old standby is The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White. I make an appointment to re-read this classic every few years. I'm up to the fourth edition. Some may complain that the book is too focused on rules. But rules are necessary for good communication (just look at the wild west of email communication). Beyond the rules, there's good advice here: "Write in a way that comes naturally." "Don't explain too much." "Be clear." That's great advice both for my students and my sometimes-obtuse-and-unclear colleagues.

The final bit of advice that has stuck with me came from my journalism school background and an early boss - both of whom taught me that good writing is hard work. Write and re-write. Edit so that your message is, as one j-school professor insisted, "tight, terse, telegraphic and to-the-point." I often advise my students to read their papers aloud. The ear can catch syntax errors and jumbled logic that somehow is hidden on the page.

I don't want to squelch the evolution of language anymore than I would want to see the return of "thee" and "thou" in our vocabulary. But I would like to see the evolution of the English language result in clarity and effective communication. Not the Tower of Babel.