Writing To Be Understood Part I

By: DR. UCHE ONYEBADI
Published July 1, 2009

Here’s a thought: don’t kill a good idea with a badly written script. Will you? Why do you have to do that? Oftentimes, we don’t set out to do so. But, that’s the result we get.

So, when next you wish to write, the place to begin is to ask yourself: who am I addressing? Me? The public? If your audience is you, then you don’t need to continue reading this piece. If your audience is the public, be my guest.

One of the first things you need to keep in mind is what some experts tell us: keep it simple. Yes, being simple is not the same as being simplistic. Why take a trip into the wilderness of high-sounding words when you can use simpler ones to make the same point? This reminds me of our high school days. We used to try to be loquacious (big word), and engage in verbal gymnastics and acrobatics of monumental proportions (Hear! Hear!!). While writing to your friends, especially the females, you needed to remind them that you were swimming in the ocean of good health and wishing that their body metabolisms and architecture were in pari passu, and working in terrific conditions (now, I’m feeling dizzy!).

OK, you’ve had a good laugh. But, what does the above say?  Nothing, really. That was our way of writing to impress someone, not to express an idea.

Rule 1: Write to express, not impress. If you cannot express an idea in a simple and elegant way, you’ll lose your reader. Clarity is important.

Rule 2: Try to use short sentences. Some people write such lengthy sentences that you often get the feeling that you are being pursued by a snake, and there is no place to hide. Why should I be put on a respiratory machine just because I read your long sentence? That’s not fair. What long sentences do is that they make the writer lose a sense of coherence, and get confused over matters of grammar, punctuations and all that. On the other hand, the reader feels he or she has run a marathon race after reading the lengthy sentence. Either way, no one benefits from long sentences.

Rule 3: Remember what your good, old teacher told you: a story needs to have a structure. There should be a beginning, the middle and the end. Do not put the end in the middle, or the middle at the beginning. What would be your reaction upon seeing a person whose head is on his or her stomach? Shock? That is what happens when your story has no structure. So, there must be a logical sequence in the way you write your story.

Rule 4: Precision is another matter to consider. Here, you need to be careful with words and say exactly what you wish to convey. Again, keeping things simple is a way to avoid using words that might change the meaning of your text. Let’s try this: Tom says he is an uninterested judge in a case when in fact what he means to say is that he is a disinterested judge. The former means he has no interest in the matter and indeed might not want to be a judge in it. The latter tells us that he is impartial, has no stake in the matter and will indeed by the type of judge you need etc. See how a word can change the meaning of text?

Rule 5: If you are writing news, for instance, the elements of time references and comparisons may be necessary for clarity. OK, let us say that a huge building in the city center collapsed yesterday or that the chief judicial officer in the ministry of justice will not be available in his or her office tomorrow. Here comes trouble: which yesterday and tomorrow are we talking about? The yesterday of the person who gets the information on Tuesday is definitely different from that of the person who will get it on Thursday. The same applies to the idea of tomorrow.

So, what do you do with time references? The conventional style is to use the “week” as your point of reference. In your story, use the day of the week. Peter said Tuesday that……… Tom addressed a press conference Friday….. Even when we get the information on Saturday, it will still be clear that he talked about the issue on Tuesday. This will be adequate for now. Much later, we can discuss how to refer to last month, last year etc

How about comparisons? They add clarity to information: the city center in Kampala is about twice the size of the city square in Dar es Salam. Oh, I didn’t know that! But when you tell me that the city center in Kampala is bigger than the city square in Dar es Salam, I might get the message but it will still be vague. If I live in Kampala, I might get the impression that my city center is just a few square acres larger than the city square in Dar es Salam, only to be shocked when I visit the later and see how small it is.

Rule 6: Here are two sentences: The boy slapped the teacher. The teacher was slapped by the boy. What’s the difference? Basically, they refer to the same incident and tell the same story. However, the second sentence can lull you to sleep with its passive format. It sounds like the feeling you get after a very heavy meal. But the first sentence is quite active. You practically see the action – the slap – although you were not there to witness the incident.

Generally, writing in the active voice is the preferred option. It brings your message to life and engages the reader. Whenever I read something in the passive voice, I am reminded of the battalion of parliamentarians who just sit at the back benches. They make no contributions to debates, snore from time to time, only to collect their salaries at the end of the month. Boring.

I think I’m also sentencing you to boredom at this point. So, let’s stop so far. Join me …… for the second part of this discussion.

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