At first glance mathematics and persuasive communication - writing,
and particularly public speaking - would seem to have little
in common. After all, mathematics is an objective science,
whilst speaking involves voice quality, inflection, eye
contact, personality, body language, and other subjective
components.
However, under the surface
they are very similar.
Above anything else, the
success of an oral presentation depends on the precision
of its structure. Mathematics is all about precision. It
is therefore not so odd to think that applying some of the
concepts of mathematics to oral presentations could make
them substantially more effective.
As they say in the film
industry, three key factors go into making a successful
movie: the script, the script, and the script. Likewise,
three key factors go into making a successful speech: the
structure, the structure, and the structure.
Not convinced? Then let’s
start with something less radical.
I think we can all agree
that good speaking is related to good writing. If you can
write a good text, then you are well on your way to preparing
a good oral presentation. Therefore, if you improve your
writing, you will also improve your speaking.
To simplify matters,
from now on we will talk mainly about good writing, because
in most cases the same ideas apply directly to good speaking.
Know What You Are Doing
Many commercial companies
do not live up to their potential - and sometimes even go
bankrupt - because they fail to correctly define the business
they are in.
Perfume companies, for
example, do not sell fragrant liquids, but rather love,
romance, seductiveness, self-esteem, etc. Bio-food companies
do not sell organic produce, but rather honesty, purity,
nature, etc. Automobile manufacturers do not sell transportation,
but rather freedom, adventure, spontaneity, prestige, etc.
The fact is, each industry, even each individual product,
may have to determine what it is truly all about - and there
are thousands of them!
Writers are lucky. There
are numerous variations to what we do, but there are really
only two fundamental types of writing. It is important to
recognise this, because not only are they quite different,
in some respects they are exactly opposite. So unless we
clearly recognise which type of writing we are doing - and
how it differs from the other one - we will almost certainly
commit serious errors.
What are the two types?
And how do they differ?
Creative Writing
Texts such as short stories,
novels, poems, radio plays, stage plays, television scripts,
film scripts, etc.
The fundamental purpose
of creative writing is to amuse and entertain.
Expository Writing
Texts such as memos, reports,
proposals, training manuals, newsletters, research papers,
etc.
The fundamental purpose
of expository writing is to instruct and inform.
Essential Attitude
towards Expository Writing
Because the objectives
of creative and expository writing are so different, before
striking a key you must adopt the appropriate attitude towards
the type of writing you are doing.
Creative Writing Attitude
Everyone wants to read what you are going to write.
After all, who doesn’t want to be amused and entertained?
Expository Writing Attitude
No one wants to read what you are going to write.
Most people don’t like to be instructed and informed. They
probably would much prefer to be doing something else.
The importance of recognising
and adopting the "expository writing attitude"
cannot be over-stated, because it can dramatically change
the very nature of what you are writing. Here are a couple of examples.
A. Corporate image brochure
I was once commissioned
to write a corporate image brochure. Two things are certain
about these expensive, glossy booklets:
- Almost all companies
of any size feel compelled to produce them.
- Virtually no one ever
reads them.
Starting from the attitude
that no one would want to read what I was about to write,
I created a brochure that people not only read. They actually
called the company to request additional copies to give
to friends, clients and professional colleagues!
B. Stagnating product
On another occasion, I
was commissioned to develop an advertising campaign to revitalise
a product with stagnating sales. Applying the expository
writing attitude, I discovered that three of the product’s
key benefits were not being properly exploited. Why? The
manufacturer felt that everything about their
product was important, so for years they had been systematically
burying these three key benefits under an avalanche of other
information of less interest to potential buyers. The new
campaign sharply focussed on the key benefits; virtually
all other information was moved to the background or eliminated.
As a result, sales shot up some 40% in the first year.
With some nuances, this
self-same expository writing attitude can be - and should
be - applied to speaking, as well.
Essential Approach
to Expository Writing
Because creative writing
and expository writing have essentially different objectives
and attitudes, they require essentially different approaches.
Creative Writing Approach
Play with language to generate
pleasure.
In other words, use your mastery of the language to amuse
and entertain.
Expository Writing Approach
Organise information to
generate interest.
Clever use of language will never make dull information
interesting; however, you can organise the information to
make it interesting. Forget about literary pyrotechnics.
Concentrate on content.
We are now going to leave
creative writing, because most of what we write, and say,
is expository.
What Do We Mean by
"Good Writing"?
We are now ready to return
to the notion of how mathematics applies to good writing,
and by extension to good speaking.
When someone reads an expository
text or listens to an expository speech, they are likely
to judge it as good or not good. You probably do this yourself.
But what do you actually mean when you say a text or a speech
is "good".
After some struggling,
most people will usually settle on two criteria: clear
and concise.
Mathematics depends on
unambiguous definitions; if you are not clear about the
problem, you are unlikely to find the solution. So we are
going to examine these criteria in some detail in order
to establish objective definitions - and even quasi-mathematical
formulae - for testing whether a text or a presentation
truly is "good".
A. Clarity
How do you know that a
text is clear?
If this sounds like a silly
question, try to answer it. You will probably do something
like this:
Question: What makes this
text clear?
Answer: It is easy to understand.
Question: What makes it easy to understand?
Answer: It is simple.
Question: What do you mean by simple?
Answer: It is clear.
You in fact end up going
around in a circle. The text is clear because it is easy
to understand . . . because it is simple . . . because it
is clear.
"Clear", "easy
to understand", and "simple" are synonyms.
Whilst synonyms may have nuances, they do not have content,
so you are still left to your own subjective appreciation.
But what you think is clear may not be clear to someone
else.
This is why we give "clear"
an objective definition, almost like a mathematical formula.
To achieve clarity -i.e. virtually everyone will agree that
it is clear - you must do three things.
- Emphasise what is
of key importance.
- De-emphasise what
is of secondary importance.
- Eliminate what is
of no importance.
In short: CL = EDE
Like all mathematical
formulae, this one works only if you know how to apply it,
which requires judgement.
In this case, you must
first decide what is of key importance, i.e.
what are the key ideas you want your readers to take away
from your text? This is not always easy to do. It is far
simpler to say that everything is of key importance, so
you put in everything you have. But there is a dictum that
warns: If everything is important, then nothing is.
In other words, unless you first do the work of defining
what you really want your readers to know, they won’t do
it for you. They will get lost in your text and either give
up or come out the other end not knowing what it is they
have read.
What about the second element
of the formula, de-emphasise what is of secondary
importance?
That sounds easy enough.
You don’t want key information and ideas to get lost in
details. If you clearly emphasise what is of key importance
- via headlines, Italics, underlining, or simply how
you organise the information - then whatever is left
over is automatically de-emphasised.
Now the only thing left
to do is eliminate what is of no importance.
But how do you distinguish
between what is of secondary importance and what is of no
importance? Once again, this requires judgement, which is
helped by the following very important test.
Secondary importance is anything that supports and/or elaborates one or more of the key
ideas. If you judge that a piece of information in fact
does support or elaborate one or more key ideas, then you
keep it. If not, you eliminate it.
B. Conciseness
How do you know that a
text is concise?
If this once again sounds
like a silly question, let’s try to answer it.
Question: What makes this
text concise?
Answer: It is short.
Question: What do you mean by short?
Answer: It doesn’t have too many words.
Question: How do you know it doesn’t have too many words?
Answer: Because it is concise.
So once again we end up
going around in a circle. The text is concise because it
is short . . . because it doesn’t have too many words .
. . because it is concise.
Once again, we have almost
a mathematical formula to solve the problem. To achieve
conciseness, your text should meet two criteria. It must
be as:
- Long as necessary
- Short as possible
In symbols: CO = LS
If you have fulfilled the
criteria of "clarity" correctly, you already understand
"as long as necessary". It means covering all
the ideas of key importance you have identified, and all
the ideas of secondary importance needed to support and/or
elaborate these key ideas.
Note that nothing is said
here about the number of words, because it is irrelevant.
If it takes 500 words to be "as long as necessary",
then 500 words must be used. If it takes 1500 words, then
this is all right too. The important point is that everything
that should be in the text is fully there.
Then what is meant by "as
short as possible"?
Once again, this has nothing
do to with the number of words. It is useless to say at
the beginning, "I must not write more than 300 words
on this subject", because 500 words may be the minimum
necessary.
"As short as possible"
means staying as close as you can to the minimum. But not
because people prefer short texts; in the abstract the terms
"long" and "short" have no meaning.
The important point is that all words beyond the minimum
tend to reduce clarity.
We should not be rigid
about this. If being "as long as necessary" can
be done in 500 words and you use 520, this is probably a
question of individual style. It does no harm. However,
if you use 650 words, it is almost certain that the text
will not be completely clear- and that the reader will become
confused, bored or lost.
In sum, conciseness means
saying what needs to be said in the minimum amount of words.
Conciseness:
- Aids clarity by ensuring
best structuring of information.
- Holds reader interest
by providing maximum information in minimum time.
C. Density
Density is a less familiar
concept than clarity and conciseness, but is equally important.
In mathematical form, density consists of:
- Precise information
- Logically linked
In other words: D = PL
Importance of Precise
Information
Suppose you enter a room
where there are two other people and say, "It’s very
hot today." One of those people comes from Helsinki;
in his mind he interprets "hot" to mean about
23°C. The other one comes from Khartoum; to him "hot"
means 45°C.
You are off to a rather
bad start, because each one has a totally different idea
of what you want to say. But suppose you say, "It’s
very hot today; the temperature is 28° C." Now
there is no room for confusion. They both know quite clearly
that it is 28° C outside and that you consider this
to be very hot.
Using as much precise information
as possible in a text gives the writer two significant advantages:
Let’s not be embarrassed by the term "mind control", because
this is precisely what the good expository writer wants
to achieve. He needs for the reader’s mind to go only
where he directs it and nowhere else.
Because they can be interpreted in unknown ways, ambiguous terms (so-called
"weasel words") such as "hot", "cold",
"big", "small", "good",
"bad", etc., allow the reader’s mind to escape
from the writer’s control. An occasional lapse is not
critical; however, too many weasel words in a text will
inevitably lead to reader confusion, boredom and disinterest.
Using precise information
generates confidence, because it tells the reader that
the writer really knows what he is talking about.
Reader confidence is
important in any kind of text, but it is crucial in argumentation.
If you are trying to win a point, the last thing you want
is the reader to challenge your data, but this is the
first reaction imprecise writing will provoke. Precise
writing ensures that the discussion will be about the
implications of the information, i.e. what conclusions
should be drawn, not whether the whole thing needs to
go back for further investigation.
Importance of Logical Linking
Precise data (facts) by
themselves are insufficient. To be meaningful, data must
be organised to create information, i.e. help the reader
understand.
There are two important
tests to apply when converting data into information:
- Relevance
Is a particular piece of data really needed? As we have seen, unnecessary
data damages understanding and ultimately undermines confidence.
Therefore, any data that do not either aid understanding
or promote confidence should be eliminated.
- Misconceptions
The logical link between
data must be made explicit to prevent the reader from
coming to false conclusions. For example: a specific situation
may be confused for a general one; credit for an achievement
may seem to belong to only one person when it really belongs
to a group; a company policy may appear to apply only
in very specific circumstances rather than in all circumstances,
etc.
To ensure that a logical
link is clear, place the two pieces of data as close to
each other as possible, preferably right next to each
other.
When data are widely
separated, their logical relationship is masked and the
reader is unlikely to make the connection.
What do you want? What do your
readers want?
I frequently ask non-professional
writers what they are thinking when they sit down at the
keyboard to compose their text. The answer is usually something
like, "How do I want to present my material?"
"What tone and style should I use?" "In what
order should I put my key ideas?" And so on.
However, if you start with
the correct attitude, i.e. no one wants to read what you
write, your first task is none of these. Ahead of anything
else, you must find reasons why people should spend
their time to read what you write.
In general, you cannot
force people to read what they don’t want to, even if they
are being paid to do so.
For example, you produce
a report defining opportunities for increased sales and
profits. However, if it is not well written, even people
who must read it as part of their job are unlikely to give
it their full attention. On the other hand, if they immediately
see their own self-interest in reading what you have written,
they will do so gladly and with full attention. In fact,
you probably couldn’t stop them from reading it!
There are various methods
to generate such a strong desire to read, depending on the
type of readers and the type of information. Whatever the
most appropriate device, the crucial thing is to recognise
the imperative need to use it. Until this need is met, nothing
else is of any importance.
Editor’s note: Reading is an isolated activity and listening to a speech is a social
one. Therefore, whilst the underlying principles of good
writing and good speaking are constant, the way they are
applied can be markedly different. In the "I" of the
Storm: the Simple Secrets of Writing & Speaking (Almost)
like a Professional, Mr. Yaffe’s recently
published book, clearly explains these differences. It also
offers several appendices with cogent examples and pertinent,
effective exercises.
Philip Yaffe is a former
reporter/feature writer with The Wall Street Journal
and a marketing communication consultant; He currently teaches
a course in good writing and good speaking in Brussels,
Belgium. In the "I" of the Storm is available
either in a print version or electronic version from Story
Publishers in Ghent, Belgium (www.storypublishers.be) and Amazon (www.amazon.com).
For further information,
please contact:
Philip Yaffe
61, avenue des Noisetiers
B-1170 Brussels, Belgium
Tel: +32 (0)2 660 04 05
Email: phil.yaffe@yahoo.com
