Colleagues,
May I tell you a sad story about writing?
I once worked with a federal lab helping them to transfer technology,
typically through licensing of patents. Early in the process, one of the
scientists brought me his letter to a potential licensee. For several
reasons, that letter was his one and only chance. He'd worked diligently on
the content, and was hoping for the best.
His letter had three paragraphs: One of seven lines, one of 1.5 pages, and a
sign-off of three lines. The middle paragraph was focused tightly on the
technology which was described with, shall we say, difficult technical
language. He did not license his technology. He did not even receive
acknowledgement of his letter. I've wondered ever since how many
opportunities go begging because we can't speak well in writing.
Back when I wrote academic papers (geophysics), I had the unique pleasure of
a conversation with the editor of a major scientific journal. He share a
core truth of written communication. People scan documents. They look for
an excuse to get into the details. Good titles lead people to read
abstracts, and abstracts lead people to scan the article itself. In
scanning, they read the first few words of paragraphs. If a quick glance at
the first page intrigues them, they'll go back and do it all thoroughly.
Lesson 1 for your students. Write to capture readers who don't have to read
your work. Write to capture the interest of scanners.
That letter from my scientist friend so horrified me that I wrote one pager,
"The Business Letter," with thirty recommendations, many of which I learned
in junior high school. (I had the great pleasure of writing a paper a week,
for three years.) It turns out that front loading paragraphs and sentences
improves directness. (see previous posting)
You can easily explain front loading. You can grade on how well scanning
captures key elements of content.
Lesson 2 for your students. Put the audience at the center.
My scientist colleague had written a technology-centered letter. Let's call
it self-centered, since he was so tied to his work. Since then, I've begun
to teach "customer-centered communication." I like the alliteration, yet a
better title would be "audience-centered communication."
You can teach your students that communications can be self-centered or
audience-centered. Indeed, you can grade on "the center."
Unfortunately, writing for an audience center is damned difficult. It means
putting someone else first. It means knowing them so well that I can set a
context that puts them in the picture, then present benefits up front for
their continued attention.
I promote the courses with: "Effective product brochures are NOT about
products." If not about the product, then what could they be about? Any
ideas? Well... they could be about the customer, their problems or
frustrations, then a vision of those problems solved, and finally how the
product is the optimum choice. Value, vision, solution. In that order.
And consider: "Effective business plans are NOT about businesses!" Think
about that for a moment. Surely a business plan must focus on the business.
But then, why is the business in business? Effective business plans are
about opportunities, return on investment, and how those returns will be
delivered.
The audience center is not easy, yet it does more for readability than other
lesson I can offer.
Best,
Gary
PS: I'm publishing a newsletter on innovation.
www.ColoradoInnovation.blogs.com. I try for an audience center every month.
I'd appreciate your evaluation. To get on the mailing list, respond with
"subscribe" in the subject line.
Change agent skills
are as important to individual success
as are professional discipline skills.
Gary Lundquist
President - Market Engineering International
www.Market-Engineering.com
Chair - The Colorado Innovation Summit
www.InnovationSummit.com
303-840-9929
GaryL@Market-Engineering.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Management Education and Development Discussion
[mailto:
MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU] On Behalf Of Thomas Hawk
Sent: Monday, July 25, 2005 10:21 AM
To:
MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
Subject: Re: It's our fault if business students do not write better than
students in other disciplines
I, too, have been drawn into this conversation and find it intriguing. The
students in my two capstone MBA courses submit extensive written analyses of
a case or the consulting project. 10% of the course grade comes from the
spelling, grammatical, and organizational correctness, clarity, and
integrity of their writing and language choices. I provide a feedback and
evaluation rubric in the syllabus and extensive feedback on the places where
they have errors in spelling, grammar, clarity, and organization. Even with
that feedback on preliminary drafts during the semester, it is rare that I
have a student who submits an error-free paper by the end of the semester.
Many of my MBA students have never written a paper that is as long as the
papers they submit in my courses. It takes multiple drafts and extensive
feedback to allow them to see the patterns of their errors. Some do not even
use the spell checker and grammar checker, nor do they proofread. It is my
experience over a 33 year teaching career that the writing abilities of my
students have deteriorated over the last 15 years.
I agree with Rusty that qualifiers such as "I believe" and "I think" are
appropriate and do give an indication of a student's learning style
preferences. I also believe as a result of my extensive exploration of
learning style models that there are other aspects of writing, particularly
in graphical display, that are indications of learning style preferences.
The VARK model and the Felder-Silverman model offer some indicators of that.
My other comment - and I recognize it as a personal preference - focuses on
the use of the passive voice. The passive voice is a very weak writing
construction. Unfortunately, it is rampant in govermental writing. Passive
voice sidesteps accountability. I always recommend to my students to use the
first person active voice and take credit and accountability for the
analyses and the recommendations they make. The active voice is a much
stronger writing construction.
Finally, I would like to advocate that each individual has a particular
writing style. We should not be standardizing writing style but should
insist on error free writing, writing that is clear, and writing that is
well-reasoned and supported, including clear articulation and justification
of assumptions. Students should develop their individual writing styles.
The implication of all of this for me is each of us, as faculty, have a
responsibility to train ourselves to be competent in giving sound feedback
to our students on the quality and correctness of the writing that students
submit to us. Going even farther, we should be asking our students to submit
written assignments as part of every course so that we can continue to
develop those feedback skills and signal to our students the importance of
developing their writing skills.
Tom Hawk, Management Department, College of Business, Frostburg State
University.