Managers at every level are prisoners of the notion that a simple
style reflects a simple mind. Actually a simple style is the result of
hard work and hard thinking – William Zinsser, On Writing Well Every software engineering manager’s most precious resource is time.
But you wouldn’t know it from reading our emails–bloated screeds of
business buzzwords we expect our engineers to decipher. If you lead a team and you value their time, then demonstrate it
through lean and confident writing. Below you will find guidelines to
help hone your writing skill. Make sure you have something to say before you write. Corporate-speak will write your email for you unless you remain
vigilant1. Jargon lulls the writer into the
false belief they’ve said something precise while your reader may wonder
whether you’ve said anything at all. Be direct and start your draft with the purpose of the email. Writing
That Works by Roman and Raphaelson offers this advice:
try writing what you want to say as if you’re talking
face-to-face. Don’t worry if your first draft sounds too
casual. You can always wrap your plain language in the requisite
business shibboleths later. Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an
audience consisting solely of terminal patients. – Annie Dillard, The Writing Life Everything you write is too long. People reading your emails aren’t fans of your writing—they’re trying
to get through their email. When you’ve finished writing your email, use Stephen King’s equation
from On
Writing: “2nd Draft = 1st Draft – 10%.” Your
writing will be more effective. All visually displayed text involves typography – Matthew Butterick, Butterick’s Practical
Typography Appropriate typography and thoughtful information architecture make
your email easier to parse. It’s not enough for your email to
be easy to read; it’s got to look easy to
read. Researchers at the University of Michigan gave student test subjects
two identical sets of instructions: one in a hard-to-read font and one
in an easy-to-read font. Despite the steps being identical, the student’s predictions of the
difficulty of the tasks differed. Students believed the less
intelligible instructions described a more daunting task. The author’s
conclusion is the title of their study: “If it’s Hard to
Read, It’s Hard to Do.” Break up long text with headings. Keep your paragraphs short. Use
bullet points and short sentences to make your text look less
intimidating and easier to read.
Squint test: Compare the shape of the first three paragraphs of a
popular article about Barack Obama with the first three paragraphs of Barack Obama's
Wikipedia entry.
Professional writers know to make it easy for their readers—the first paragraph on the left is a single sentence.
I know. Emojis 🙄. In her book Because
Internet, author and linguist Gretchen McCulloh posits that
people embraced emojis because they add body language to our writing.
The first two sentences of this section are an example of how emojis
succinctly convey emotion. Emojis help people process the shape of your text at a
glance. I use emojis to lead the eye through a text. Emojis are
precognitive signposts you can use to reinforce the meaning of your
writing. Emojis can’t substitute for substance, but they can help make your
text easier for your readers. I ❤️ the judicious use of emojis. Orwell said in “Politics and the
English Language”: jargon will “construct your sentences for you—even
think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent.”↩︎
1️⃣ Have a point
2️⃣ Keep it short
3️⃣ Make it easy
4️⃣ Make it ✨pretty✨
Further Reading
Software
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