The State of Writing

I spent this morning editing a college entrance essay and an annual stockholder letter, and I was struck by one thing: The only improvement the CEO who wrote the stockholder letter has made since college is his masterful command of jargon. The weak command of the English language was very evident in both documents, and I am reminded yet again that writing skills are undervalued and underrepresented in modern America.

I admit I am arrogant when it comes to writing—and awfully presumptuous. After all, I am writing my complaint. I may induce a legion of English teachers and editors to attack my own tenuous grasp of the written word. But it takes courage to write about how bad we write. And if I don’t start the debate, who will?

Actually, many have. I am hardly alone in my concern for the state of written affairs in our nation. I have a file full not only of bad writing examples that have crossed my desk during my years in corporate America, but also of articles from academic journals and the public press alike bemoaning the decline of good writing in all its forms.

Most blame the Internet, e-mail, instant messaging, text messaging. I find this most ironic. The advent of these electronic media and modes of communication have brought “writing” back into fashion. Think of the last time you wrote a letter before you got e-mail. Maybe it was a thank you card, but I doubt it was the kind of beautiful letters exchanged between lovers separated by World War II. And now we are “writing” letters daily. We spend hours a day shooting e-mails back and forth, instant messaging, or texting. Sometimes they are as short as “See you at noon” (or that would be CU@12). Sometimes they are indulgent conversations with an old college buddy who checked in to see how you are. Sometimes they are tirades about some silly thing or other your Dilbertian boss has imposed on the staff. But the point is, we all write. A lot.

So I find it ironic that we are getting worse and worse and worse at it. The college essay I edited this morning was basically reasonable, but the student writing it clearly could not make the leap between e-mail’s “write as you speak” and academia’s “write above your speech.” To me, herein lies the rub. Stream-of-consciousness speech is easy, and now we are grown accustomed to that speech streaming out of our fingers as fast as it streams out of our mouths. To write, to truly write, requires a thought process more complicated than stream of consciousness. It requires deliberate thought. It even requires revision and rewriting. What you put down the first time is rarely what you should keep. That doesn’t mean every word changes, but it does mean making sure every word holds its weight.

Again, I see the perils of writing about writing. Have I thoroughly reviewed and revised this blog? Does every word I write hold its weight or is it leaning upon its neighbors for support? Did I misplace a comma or use “it’s” when I should have used “its”?

Well, nitpick as you may, but the thesis remains the same: The state of writing in this country is disheartening. But as an editor I shouldn’t complain. Bad writing, for me, is job security. And I feel very, very secure.

Clean Desk, Empty Schedule

I remember one day at a former job when I cleaned my desk. You can't imagine the shock waves it sent through the office. Not a passer-by who peaked in didn't exclaim in some fashion or another. But my favorite statement of surprise was my producer's expressionless comment: "It looks like you have nothing to do."

What a Dilbertian thing to say! Immediately I realized the implications of what he was suggesting: cover my desk with papers and magazines and mail and suddenly I look frantically busy. Remove it all (even if it is filed away in an organized and productive system) and suddenly I look as though I could do my nails all afternoon. I had no idea the terribly important and productive aura I projected with my paper-strewn desk. I didn't realize that to my underlings, it looked like the boss was swamped. With a clean desk, they undoubtedly whispered among themselves about how I did nothing but write personal e-mails all day.

And maybe they were right. In a later job, I found myself as the underling of a boss with a very clean desk, and I assure you we whispered regularly about how little he had to do (while we slaved under our piles of paper and floods of e-mail). But truth be told, when I had gotten to the bottom of my piles I realized that much of it could be easily shuffled away into a file or the trash. I was left with a small, but significant, "action item" stack and a very clean desk.

In reality, I am frantically busy at times, and at other times I have a few minutes to clean off my desk. But if it makes the staff feel better about my contributions to the team to have a desk littered with papers, then papers it will be. After all, I must do my part to keep morale high in these perilous times.