Over the years, I’ve read a lot of writing how-tos. I even wrote some. From basics, such as paying attention to alliteration and rhythm, to more complex studies on writing effectively in short and long forms. But some of the best writing advice I’ve received came from before I even knew I was going to write for a living. Our high school English teacher, Michaela, taught us not only proper grammar and spelling but also useful skills that fit into everyday writing. I keep going back to it even today:
1.Don’t Tell Me, Do It
One of the often-repeated comments we’d received on our essays was a red-pen initialism D.T.M.D.T - Don’t tell me, do it. It happened when we would write opening sentences along the lines of “I’d like to tell you what happened to me yesterday” or “Here’s a story about my cat.” It’s common for fledgling writers to want to frame what they’re about to write for the reader, but it’s completely redundant. You can just tell me what happened yesterday. You can write a story about the cat. I will lose nothing by not getting a heads-up.
But it’s not only high schoolers that suffer from this syndrome. Think of all the articles that begin with “In this article, we will explore the implications of…”. How many marketing materials have a variation of “Here’s a list of our services” as a title? How many cold emails you’ve received with a line like “I’d like to tell you about COMPANY and what we can do for you.” For the most part, all of it is just as superfluous as my examples from high school. It takes time away from the reader when you need their attention the most.
2. There’s No Such Thing as a “Thing”
Not to start a fight with Dr. Seuss, but Michaela forbade us from using the word “thing” in our essays. Why? because "thing" is a cop out word, when the writer is too lazy to be specific. “AI will change many things in our lifetimes” is much weaker than “AI will change many industries in our lifetime.” Yes, the word “things” encompasses more than the word “industries”, but the mind glosses over it. It’s less impactful.
You can extrapolate this lesson to a greater piece of advice: it's better to be specific than to be general. “Our product can improve your company’s workflow” is ok, but “Our product was designed to improve communication between product and development teams” is better. Of course, being specific means you might need to work harder on targeting, but that’s usually a feature, not a bug. You should always strategize to know who your audience is, their pain points, and how you can address them.
3. Some Words Bear Repetition
Inexperienced writers are often told to avoid repeating words or phrases, as reading the same thing over and over will cause readers to lose interest in what you have to say. Armed with this advice, I once sent in an essay where, whenever a word repeated for two straight sentences, I used the trusty thesaurus to switch it with a synonym. Michaela rightfully gave me the essay back with red pen all over it; in my attempt to avoid repetition, I swung too hard in the other direction, and ended up writing an awkward and confusing text.
The lesson here is to always take a step back and make sure what you're writing remains sensible and engaging, regardless of conventional wisdom. Some phrases you might have no choice but to repeat. For example, if you’re writing about international relations, there’s no point in trying to call it “global wheeling and dealing” just to be clever. Trust your readers to know that if it’s the subject of what you’re writing about, it will come up a lot. I’ve also seen some online “editors” mark conjunctions such as “and”, “or”, “for”, etc., as repeating. That’s a trap that will make you overthink a simple sentence where no one will notice if you’ve used “and” two sentences in a row. And that’s not even mentioning creative writing, where repetition might be used to great effect.
4. Know the Difference Between "Good to Have" and "Important"
One of Michaela’s quirks was her tendency to exclaim, “This is important, it’s not like math, you’re going to use it!” when she felt the class wasn’t paying attention. My friends and I always found this hilarious, because being the nerds we were, we all took advanced math classes and thought math to be incredibly important to our futures. We weren't necessarily wrong to appreciate math. It gave us problem solving skills we needed and even helped us learn teamwork. But there is a reason this article isn’t called “4 Lessons from My High School Math Teacher.” My knowledge of math served me well on occasion, but it's English I rely on daily.
This is less of a writing advice and more of a general, career advice: Throughout your professional life, you will acquire knowledge and skill that will require maintenance to keep useful. You're going to need to prioritize what to focus on and what to leave at a more basic level. Even if you remain in one place, what's useful today might be old-fashioned tomorrow. Analytics might tell you a different story than what you want to tell yourself. Always notice what you're using and how often. A skill you rely on daily is important. A skill that you rely on every now and then is only good to have.
Breaking the Rules
As with all advice, none of the above is a hard rule you must follow. But after over a decade of writing for a living, I still come back to these practices constantly, and I still see some of these mistakes in the wild, even from writers who should know better. I hope very much that these are as helpful to you as they were for me, and that you’re able to use this advice—even if it's just when writing an email to a colleague.
Rest in peace, Michaela.
Comentarios