I went to a business writing class today at work given by Exec|Comm,
a group which helps firms with business writing. I did not want to go, my boss asked me to
go. I thought I was in trouble for the
sometimes angry e-mails I send when I think people don’t read or listen to what
I wrote before. I was not sent for
personal reasons. I was a member of a
group who were all asked to take the class.
I think I am a very good writer. I enjoy reading my own work. I often spend time when I edit my work just
reading what I have written for the pleasure of doing so. I will realize later that I have read far
beyond the section I was editing. I have
to go back and start again with more focus.
At my last sesshin, one of the teachers told me that he
likes “to start simple and then go simpler.”
He was talking about zen practice. This is a good notion to apply to writing.
I enjoy English. I
like big words, complex construction, and layered dependent clauses. Much like some runners may like the challenge of a
hard or long course, I enjoy writing in complex and flowing language. I like to write in a way that closely
describes the unique message I want to convey but also draws upon the beauty of
English I often find in complex grammar and long words. That is fun for me, but I learned today that
this complex writing can exhaust my readers.
I am ashamed and sad to say that some of my best writing is
tiring to read, but it is. I want to
change that. In this post I am using the
lessons from the class today.
The Flesch-Kincaid grade level scale, a simple method for scoring how complex a sample of writing might be for people at different reading skill levels, was the most useful thing I learned today. It is part of Microsoft Word. One gets a score like the one on the left below after a spell-check if you
have the right options chosen in your Word set-up.
In short, the scale will punish long sentences and complex words with a
higher grade. The score is the grade
level required to read the writing.
I learned from my zen practice that simplicity is not the same as dumb. Making writing simple is not the
same as making writing dumb. The teacher
today said that Einstein’s work on special relativity receives a Flesch-Kincaid
score of five. That means a fifth grade
level of education is needed to read it.
That made me think.
It is hard to write simply.
It takes a long time.
This post has a Flesch-Kincaid Grade level score of about 5. I brought a sample of my writing to class today that I thought was simple and clear. It had a Flesch-Kincaid Grade level score of 13.
Simple is hard.
