Business Writing Skills, Media Training, Presentation Skills Training (Not PowerPoint) Count On Quality Control

Editing as Quality Control (Or How to Avoid Looking Like an Idiot)

"Everyone needs an editor." ~ Ernest Hemingway

  Papa Hemingway was honest enough to acknowledge that he wouldn't have emerged as one of the 20th century's most distinctive and popular prose stylists without help. He had Maxwell Perkins. You have colleagues and bosses and even subordinates who can help you exert quality control and sharpen your business writing skills. More importantly, you also have yourself.

  Remember: Just because you've typed the last word doesn't mean you're finished. Assume you've misspelled at least several words. Assume you've dropped words as your fingers flew over the keyboard. Assume you've fallen into the "sentence fragment" and "comma splice" habits. DON'T assume that spell-check is enough.

  Here are some fine examples from notes written to school by parents in Charleston, W.Va.:

"Please excuse Gloria from Jim today. She is administrating."

"My son is under a doctor's care and should not take P.E. today. Please execute him."

"Please excuse Jimmy for being. It was his father's fault."

"Sally won't be in school a week from Friday. We have to attend her funeral."

  See how spell-check can let you down? Keep this in mind: That's YOU who signed the note or wrote the email or report. That's YOUR name on the poorly edited -- or unedited -- piece of writing. And that's a terrible impression of you and your business or agency or nonprofit.

Building a Bridge to the Press

  If you've ever watched one of those Sunday morning shows where the late, lamented Tim Russert and his like question seasoned politicians and top Administration appointees and glib foreign leaders, you're familiar with the thrust and parry of the sparring. Having been a reporter in Washington (national security correspondent for Business Week magazine), I can tell you that the "non-answer answer" is about as frustrating as it gets -- particularly when we know that the public already finds the press obnoxious and pushy. But it's an occupational hazard and we have to live with it.

  What those guests are doing is "bridging" from the import of the potentially embarrassing question to the "spin" that they want to leave in viewers' minds. Handled shrewdly, bridging often gets them through the half-hour untouched and perhaps even looking sharp and self-confident.

They come in with a message. If they don't like the questions, they can deploy such bridging phrases as:

  --"What's important to remember, however..."

  --"That's a good point, but I think you'd be interested in knowing..."

  --"Let me put that in perspective."

  --"What that means is..."

  --"Yes, but that's not a fair comparison. We do things differently because..."

Put Power Point In Its Place

  Two things happen during a Power Point show -- the lights go down and the speaker loses eye contact with the audience. Neither one helps you get your message across, particularly if you're constantly looking over your shoulder at the screen and referring your listeners to one dense slide (too many words in too small a space, or yet another boring chart) after another.

  I recently spent three days running a writing skills seminar for seven Navy SEALs who, between overseas assignments, were doing staff work at the Naval Special Weapons Development Group in Virginia Beach, Va. To a man, they slammed Power Point for expecting too much of the audience. "You see a Power Point, and you're expected to be proficient," one SEAL said of the classroom training they often have to sit through. "But it's not enough."

  So we worked on presentation training without Power Point. Each one practiced traditional communication skills, looking from listener to listener as the rest of us played the roles of the generals and admirals and ambassadors and foreign dignitaries who SEALs brief around the world. They went to the whiteboard to highlight key points with a magic marker, maintaining that vital audience contact throughout. They learned to be concise and leave enough room for the questions that anyone proficient in presentation skills is sure to inspire. In other words, they communicated.