Something absolutely horrible that I hear writing teachers occasionally tell their students is, "Imagine that your audience is stupid." This is generally said when the student isn't explaining their ideas clearly because they assume that their reader knows what they're talking about. If they think that their audience is stupid, then they'll make sure to explain everything in adequate detail and make it clear to the reader.
The reason I think this is so horrible is that I personally never write for stupid people. In fact, as I write this I'm assuming that you're rather intelligent and capable of understanding what I write. Likewise, what if I were writing something more advanced, like a legal document or my PhD dissertation? Should I assume that the dissertation committee is composed of morons? Of course not, and if I were to write to them explaining basic principles as if they were stupid, they would probably consider me to be pandering to them. In fact, I can't think of any situation why I would be writing anything to someone who I thought was genuinely stupid (I'd phone them, obviously). But joking aside, telling writers to imagine that their audience is stupid completely ignores the fact that they should be crafting their writing for a specific audience.
Part of the issue has to do with the difference between creative and academic writing. I did drama in high school and sometimes we would overly emphasize a joke in rehearsal to make sure that the audience would get it. Our teacher would stop us and say that we needed to be more subtle. Treat the audience like they're smart, she'd say. They can figure the joke out, and they'll enjoy it more if you don't hit them over the head with it. Academic writing is the exact opposite. You don't want to be subtle; you want to be concise and clear. You don't want the reader to have to figure it out, so you need to come right out and say it.
Again, this isn't because the audience is stupid. I like to explain it to my students this way: the audience can't read your mind. They can only read what you put on the paper. Very often, I mark students down for something in their writing that I simply cannot understand. Afterward, they talk to me about it and explain what they meant. After the explanation, I say, "I understand perfectly what you just said now. However, those ideas didn't make it onto the paper, and I only give the grade based on what's on the paper." That's part of the trick of good writing: getting ideas that make perfect sense in your head onto paper. It's one reason why we write multiple drafts.
Here's another way to think of it. In language education, we typically say there are two functions of communication: transactional and interactional. Transactional language is used to convey a specific message, while interactional language is used to maintain and develop relationships. You can think of interactional language as when you ask someone "How are you?" In general, you don't really want a transaction of information, i.e. you don't really want to know how they are. You're asking simply because it's how you've been taught to be friendly, that is, you're trying to maintain an amiable relationship. This is kind of like my drama example. Actors aren't on stage simply to share information with the audience. If that were the case, they wouldn't bother to memorize their lines and would just read them out loud. Rather, they are there to make the audience feel something. I remember how much we thrived during a performance on building a relationship with the audience and feeding off of their energy.
Academic writing, on the other hand, is really transactional. That is, I have a message to share, and my goal is to make it as clear to the reader as possible. This is one reason writers should avoid vague words like "things" or "stuff." They don't mean anything specific, and I have to guess at what the author really means. When I first came to Qatar, I felt like transactional language was the kind of language that was greatly lacking, mostly from having to deal with absolutely horrible customer service. Very often, this dis-service has been due to the fact the individual had information that they knew and understood very well, but they were uninterested or unable to share it to me. In short, they didn't know how to use transactional language.
For instance, I remember having to pick up an official document for my son, and the woman at the desk told me to go upstairs to Mr. -----'s office. I don't remember the name, but I remember that was the entire message. I stood there quietly for a moment in the lobby of a multistory building, waiting for the next bit of information, like a room number, or some sort of direction telling me to take a right after the water cooler, but that was it. So I asked her how to get to the room, and she was not able to. She did not have the English skills, so I just went upstairs and wandered around until I finally found the office. The thing is, it strikes me that she knew exactly how to get there. Why, she had probably been up to his office several times, but she had never learned how to explain that knowledge to someone else.
Another example happened to me today when I got a phone call from my bank, asking if I "approved the transaction to beneficiary." I had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. I said this, and the gentleman simply repeated the question, only slower, like if I were stupid or a dog. It was as if he had taken the advice of bad writing teachers and tried his best to dumb down the message. But again, I'm not an idiot. I simply had no context whatsoever for what he was saying, so I had to ask a few more questions. "Who is the beneficiary?" I asked. "Am I? Does someone want to transfer money to me? Or am I supposed to transfer money to someone, and if so, to whom? Who is my beneficiary?" After a few minutes of asking questions, we were able to straighten it out (well, kind of).
I'd like to share one more bad customer service story, but this one has more to deal with English ability than transactional skills (though maybe the two overlap). I was on the phone with my internet company because our wireless router was having lots of problems. The representative was talking me through restarting the system step by step when she said, "Now unplug the cable outside." I thought it was a similar situation where there was information she had that I didn't, so I asked, "Where is it outside?" hoping that she would clarify, but she simply repeated her instruction as though the location of the cables outdoors were common knowledge. "Okay, is it downstairs somewhere? Is it in some kind of a box? Is it near my building?" She couldn't understand my line of questioning and repeated herself again, which only made me more frustrated. As it turns out, the "outside" she was referring to was the outside of the router itself, the one that wasn't outside at all, but was on my desk in front of me. Had she said, "Unplug the cable from the router," I would have understood perfectly, but for some reason she wanted to bring "outside" into the mess.
I hope this clearly demonstrates how important transactional language is for formal writing, customer service, or any time when a message needs to be clearly conveyed to an audience. Just remember that the person on the other end may be incredibly smart, perhaps even a genius, but chances are they are not clairvoyant.
The reason I think this is so horrible is that I personally never write for stupid people. In fact, as I write this I'm assuming that you're rather intelligent and capable of understanding what I write. Likewise, what if I were writing something more advanced, like a legal document or my PhD dissertation? Should I assume that the dissertation committee is composed of morons? Of course not, and if I were to write to them explaining basic principles as if they were stupid, they would probably consider me to be pandering to them. In fact, I can't think of any situation why I would be writing anything to someone who I thought was genuinely stupid (I'd phone them, obviously). But joking aside, telling writers to imagine that their audience is stupid completely ignores the fact that they should be crafting their writing for a specific audience.
Part of the issue has to do with the difference between creative and academic writing. I did drama in high school and sometimes we would overly emphasize a joke in rehearsal to make sure that the audience would get it. Our teacher would stop us and say that we needed to be more subtle. Treat the audience like they're smart, she'd say. They can figure the joke out, and they'll enjoy it more if you don't hit them over the head with it. Academic writing is the exact opposite. You don't want to be subtle; you want to be concise and clear. You don't want the reader to have to figure it out, so you need to come right out and say it.
Again, this isn't because the audience is stupid. I like to explain it to my students this way: the audience can't read your mind. They can only read what you put on the paper. Very often, I mark students down for something in their writing that I simply cannot understand. Afterward, they talk to me about it and explain what they meant. After the explanation, I say, "I understand perfectly what you just said now. However, those ideas didn't make it onto the paper, and I only give the grade based on what's on the paper." That's part of the trick of good writing: getting ideas that make perfect sense in your head onto paper. It's one reason why we write multiple drafts.
Here's another way to think of it. In language education, we typically say there are two functions of communication: transactional and interactional. Transactional language is used to convey a specific message, while interactional language is used to maintain and develop relationships. You can think of interactional language as when you ask someone "How are you?" In general, you don't really want a transaction of information, i.e. you don't really want to know how they are. You're asking simply because it's how you've been taught to be friendly, that is, you're trying to maintain an amiable relationship. This is kind of like my drama example. Actors aren't on stage simply to share information with the audience. If that were the case, they wouldn't bother to memorize their lines and would just read them out loud. Rather, they are there to make the audience feel something. I remember how much we thrived during a performance on building a relationship with the audience and feeding off of their energy.
Academic writing, on the other hand, is really transactional. That is, I have a message to share, and my goal is to make it as clear to the reader as possible. This is one reason writers should avoid vague words like "things" or "stuff." They don't mean anything specific, and I have to guess at what the author really means. When I first came to Qatar, I felt like transactional language was the kind of language that was greatly lacking, mostly from having to deal with absolutely horrible customer service. Very often, this dis-service has been due to the fact the individual had information that they knew and understood very well, but they were uninterested or unable to share it to me. In short, they didn't know how to use transactional language.
For instance, I remember having to pick up an official document for my son, and the woman at the desk told me to go upstairs to Mr. -----'s office. I don't remember the name, but I remember that was the entire message. I stood there quietly for a moment in the lobby of a multistory building, waiting for the next bit of information, like a room number, or some sort of direction telling me to take a right after the water cooler, but that was it. So I asked her how to get to the room, and she was not able to. She did not have the English skills, so I just went upstairs and wandered around until I finally found the office. The thing is, it strikes me that she knew exactly how to get there. Why, she had probably been up to his office several times, but she had never learned how to explain that knowledge to someone else.
Another example happened to me today when I got a phone call from my bank, asking if I "approved the transaction to beneficiary." I had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. I said this, and the gentleman simply repeated the question, only slower, like if I were stupid or a dog. It was as if he had taken the advice of bad writing teachers and tried his best to dumb down the message. But again, I'm not an idiot. I simply had no context whatsoever for what he was saying, so I had to ask a few more questions. "Who is the beneficiary?" I asked. "Am I? Does someone want to transfer money to me? Or am I supposed to transfer money to someone, and if so, to whom? Who is my beneficiary?" After a few minutes of asking questions, we were able to straighten it out (well, kind of).
I'd like to share one more bad customer service story, but this one has more to deal with English ability than transactional skills (though maybe the two overlap). I was on the phone with my internet company because our wireless router was having lots of problems. The representative was talking me through restarting the system step by step when she said, "Now unplug the cable outside." I thought it was a similar situation where there was information she had that I didn't, so I asked, "Where is it outside?" hoping that she would clarify, but she simply repeated her instruction as though the location of the cables outdoors were common knowledge. "Okay, is it downstairs somewhere? Is it in some kind of a box? Is it near my building?" She couldn't understand my line of questioning and repeated herself again, which only made me more frustrated. As it turns out, the "outside" she was referring to was the outside of the router itself, the one that wasn't outside at all, but was on my desk in front of me. Had she said, "Unplug the cable from the router," I would have understood perfectly, but for some reason she wanted to bring "outside" into the mess.
I hope this clearly demonstrates how important transactional language is for formal writing, customer service, or any time when a message needs to be clearly conveyed to an audience. Just remember that the person on the other end may be incredibly smart, perhaps even a genius, but chances are they are not clairvoyant.
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