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Kurt Vonnegut 

American novelist, essayist 

1922-2007

Special thanks to my faithful editor, Liz Willis, who improves my newsletter every month. See her review of The Glamour of Grammar in this issue 

Try your hand on this quiz on lists! 

Greetings!

Only one-quarter of American students have solid writing skills

A recently released report (The National Assessment of Educational Progress at Grades 8 and 12) reveals that only 27% of eighth-graders and twelfth-graders perform at or above proficient level in writing.

I'm not at all surprised by these data, although I do hope that all students eventually improve their writing skills. Based on my daily experiences in the trenches teaching writing in corporations and organizations, I'm pessimistic about the national level of writing proficiency. Although my students are brilliant in their disciplines, they often struggle with focusing their message, writing concisely, and mastering grammar and punctuation.

Having taught writing to adult learners for many years, I also base my pessimism on my past teaching experience in middle school and high school. Back then, I had five classes of about 30 students per day, which meant an exhausting day of managing all that youthful, hormonal energy. If I assigned any writing, I had to take student papers home in order to provide feedback.

Well, you do the math. If I assigned two pages a week for all 150 students, and it took me 15 minutes to write my feedback on each writing sample, I was grading papers for 37.5 hours a week on top of 40 hours at school (the equivalent of working two full-time jobs). I was young and idealistic then, but that altruistic energy lasted only through the first year, after which I assigned the bare minimum of writing and gave less feedback, opting instead for easily graded quizzes and tests that did not address the real writing issues that my students struggled with. And I hear stories today of even larger class sizes.

I have always known that best practices for teaching writing involve providing a fun, interactive environment combined with extensive feedback on learners' actual writing. Fortunately, some clients recognize the value of this curriculum and are willing to pay for the one-on-one feedback and coaching that really reinforces the learning.

Think about it: Could you learn yoga by having someone simply demonstrate the poses? Obviously, you would learn a bit more if you tried the positions yourself. But wouldn't you get even better after a few one-on-one sessions with focused feedback from your teacher?

Or if you were learning chemistry, would you improve much if you just attended lectures ? Wouldn't you learn a lot more if you experimented in the lab to apply what you learned in lectures?

Of course, providing an interactive, facilitated learning path costs more than some companies are willing to spend, but other organizations do recognize that effective training involves application and coaching. Unfortunately, I don't think that this level of teaching is going to happen any time soon in our public schools, where larger class sizes and reduced spending are the norm.

Writing well is a crucial skill for the democratic and industrial success of any nation. We have a long way to go.

Some of the writing skills required to produce clear, compelling text in most business and technical writing today fall into a broad category that I would call "information design," although I was urged by a client never to use that term because it seemed too "geeky."

Well, I'm coming out and calling it information design anyway, and for our purposes, there are three information design tactics that work well in business and technical writing:

• Lists
• Tables
• Graphics

Done well, these formats will improve your delivery of information to your readers, especially those who skim, scan, search, sort, or sift through the deluge of information coming their way. We'll discuss lists in this newsletter and tables and graphics in the next two newsletters.  

I use the term "vertical lists" to describe lists that place list items vertically (usually by bulleting or numbering them) as opposed to packing the information horizontally into paragraphs.

Vertical layout provides these benefits to readers:

• Creates white space
• Reduces clutter
• Helps you highlight structure, hierarchy, and order of your information
• Helps readers skim, scan, search, sort, or sift

Once you have decided to put your information into lists, you need to determine whether to bullet or number them or leave off these symbols entirely.

• Number your items to show sequence; step-by-step procedures; rankings; priority (order of importance); or for reference purposes (so that you can refer to an item by number in surrounding text).
• Bullet your items when they are equal in importance or when the order doesn't matter.

Avoid either bullets or numbers when you have only two items, and yes, I subscribe to the theory that a list can consist of only two items (especially when you want those items to stand out from the text).

Then you'll need to decide what kind of punctuation to use at the end of your list items.

• If they are all sentences, you'll need to provide appropriate end punctuation (period, question mark, exclamation point).  
• If they are all just fragments and not full sentences, you won't need end punctuation.

Next, you'll edit your list for parallelism. See other resources for parallelism here.

• Check your list items. Are they all sentences or fragments (not a mix)?
• If there is a list within the list item, make sure that each list item is structured similarly to the others.

Next, edit all list items for wordiness. Lists can be space hogs because of the extra spaces above and below each item plus the indentation inherent in bulleting or numbering. The whole point in using lists is to enhance readability, so be ruthless in cutting out repetition or filler words.

Finally, sit back and look at your pages. Do you have too many lists? Or are they nicely distributed throughout your pages to provide a welcome relief from dense paragraphs of text?

You've now learned about designing lists--a key tool in the information design toolkit. Look for tips on tables and graphics in future issues.

Take the quiz on lists here. 

A new reader, Sheri, writes:

Hi, Bette: Do you agree with the information below? (I'm from the old school, where I was taught never to begin a sentence with and or but.)

"Contrary to what your high school English teacher told you, there's no reason not to begin a sentence with but or and; in fact, these words often make a sentence more forceful and graceful. They are almost always better than beginning with however or additionally. Beginning with but or and does make your writing less formal--but worse things could happen to most writing than becoming less formal.

"Note, though, that if you open with but or and, you usually don't need a comma: not "But, we did it anyway"; it's enough to say "But we did it anyway." The only time you need a comma after a sentence-opening conjunction is when you want to sneak a clause right between the conjunction and the rest of the sentence: "But, as you know, we did it anyway." (See the rest of the blog here.) 

My response to Sheri

I don't agree with using a coordinating conjunction (and or but) to start a sentence in formal technical and business writing because a coordinating conjunction, by definition, joins two words or independent clauses in a sentence.    

I have no problem with using a coordinating conjunction to start a sentence in informal writing (fiction, poetry, blogs, texts, some e-mails, advertising/marketing writing, personal writing and yes, a newsletter such as this). However, everyone has a different formality scale in their head. I always urge my writing students to write just a little more formally than their readers might, much as they would dress a bit more formally for a job interview than they might on the job.

Further, I always suggest, "When in doubt, don't."

That said, it's clear to me that more and more people are writing less and less formally. I do not believe that shift is always appropriate. I will continue NOT using and or but to start a sentence for all my formal technical, business, and medical communication.

Do you have your own pet peeve about language? Rant about it here.

By Liz Willis 

When it comes to grammar books, even editors can find them boring. That's because they're usually heavy on rules and light on inspiration. And focusing on rules can distract us from our purpose in learning grammar in the first place--to be better writers and communicators.

That's why I love Roy Peter Clark's The Glamour of Grammar. It files with the grammar books, but it's first and foremost a book about writing.

My first clue that the book was different was the way it was organized. Instead of the standard "Nouns, Verbs, and Pronouns" setup used in most grammar books, Clark identifies five tools we can use to shape our writing--Words, Points, Standards, Meaning, and Purpose--and uses these to organize the book. Within these broad categories, he offers 50 compact chapters on everything from selecting a good dictionary to writing concisely on Twitter.

To appreciate the scope of what he covers, which is remarkable, I urge you to read the book. In the meantime, here's a sampling of what you'll learn:

• Words. Explore the best reference tools to learn the history and meaning of words, enrich your writing, and stimulate your imagination.
• Points. Write more powerfully by accenting your prose with just the right punctuation, including dashes, ellipses, semicolons, and more.
• Standards. Know the standard rules of grammar so your work has credibility and authority--and so you can break rules like a pro!
• Meaning. Deepen your knowledge of sentence structure as a tool for communication and learn to use voice and tense strategically.
• Purpose. Master nonstandard speech, technical jargon, and the new social media to help communicate your message.

Like all good writers, Clark doesn't just tell; he shows us what he means by drawing liberally from a wide range of writing samples--both good and bad. This not only helps illustrate his points but also introduces new books we might want to explore (an added bonus!). Even better, his writing is playful and funny: I found myself chuckling again and again as I read this delightful book.

If your goal in learning grammar is to be a better writer--and that's true for practically all of us--grab a copy of The Glamour of Grammar. You'll be glad you did.