Communication Skills

3.3.1.Effective writing

You cannot make people understand a subject unless you understand that subject yourself.

- William Jennings Bryan

Researches conducted in the area of effective writing have mainly established four important steps viz., plan, write, trim and check.

1. Planning

Good planning always helps the writer in visualising receivers and identifying their interests and felt needs. Actually a good writer plans his/her writing like an architect who first drafts his plan and designs every details and thus prepares a blue print of the building before its construction.Before writing, purpose of writing, message one wants to tell and characteristics of audiences/farmers/farm women should be very clear. Then rearrange ideas in order: Bait your reader i.e. catch their interest by drawing their attention by giving a good title. While writing, it is very important for writers to follow the 'Principle of empathy' i.e. putting himself in the reader's place and start judging the writing. Before you put words on paper that will bait, hold, sell and tell readers you must answer six questions.

(a) Who? - Your Readers: Who are the people you want to reach?

You can not help people solve their problems until you know who they are and what their problems are? Know what your readers know and what they want to know. Visualize their educational, social, and· economic level, their interests, attitudes and beliefs.

Do your readers have the equipment, environment and capacity to use your information? Remember you are writing for readers; the more you know about them, the better your chance of having readers.

Always remember that it is dangerous to try to reach too many different kinds of readers. A publication that has been planned for one kind of reader may not appeal to a reader in another group.

(b) Where? : Where do the intended readers live? Where will they use the publication? -rural area, urban areas, worldwide, continental, in school, at home, in the library, regional, national, provincial, local, in the office, in an enterprise etc?

(c) What?: Your facts: Have something to say and be sure of your facts? List facts that help readers solve a problem. Find a slant, a central theme to develop. Weigh facts. Is information timely and of local interest? does it meet a need? It is practised: Can people use it, can they afford to use it?

(d) Why? : Your reasons for writing the publication. What is your purpose? What do you want your information to accomplish? Do you want to stimulate interest in a programme, or are you trying to show people how to do something? Whether you want to teach, to record, to announce, to persuade, to entertain, to please the boss, or for personal advancement. What response is wanted from the reader? What feedback should you expect.

(e) When?: When is the material going to be used? Will it be of value only for a short time? for many years? It is needed at once? If not, when?

(f) How?: Your outline for writing facts. Think through - how you are going to package your facts, how are you going to present them? First make a rough outline of facts listed.

2. Writing

After preparing a writing plan you should start putting down your ideas.

While writing:

Make it brief: Try to say what you want to say as briefly as you can. Of course, do not miss an)! of the important things you want to say.

Write as you talk: Simple writing is like talking with your readers.

When you talk : to a farmer, you bring your language down to his level, so that he understands you and you understand him. You thus create a common denominator between yourself and him.Simple writing is much the same.

Write in clean terms: Award may mean different things to different people. Your reader attaches a meaning to a word, prompted by his own experience. Use words which bring only one meaning you want him to have. You cannot go wrong, if you stick to simple words.

Use concrete words: Use concrete word, which create a picture in the readers mind. Concrete words always makes meaning clear.

Use personal sentences: Like questions, exclamations sentences starting with verbs, spoken sentences directed to your reader.Sentence pattern should vary and sentence length on an average , should be about 17-19 words.

Use familiar words: Use familiar, every day words and the reader will feel that your writing is specially addressed to him. Technical words should be translated to their language without losing exact meaning, if possible.

Say things accurately : Use words that are precise and say exactly what you want to say. Check your facts and include only those which make the reader understand the subject. Don't generalize, give concrete examples, whenever possible which make him understand easily what you want to say.

Make it short tales: Use mostly short sentences. Let each sentence talk about one idea. Use a noun in each sentence. Use a strong verb too. Then your writing will carry your thoughts forward and smoothly. Do not make the sentence all of the same length, use a longer sentence now and·then.

Add human interest: Write about people. Include names. Identify people.

Address it to the reader: Write directly to the reader. He will then feel your writing is specially meant for him.

Make your writing friendly: Do not sound bossy in your writing.Make yours a friendly approach, use appeals, persuade rather than force.

Make it interesting: Do not make your writing a drab account of facts. Adopt a style that will be interesting to read. See how others do it. You can adopt a style of writing that appeals to you most.There is nothing wrong in copying someone else way of writing, till you are able to, through experience, develop your own.

Sift, sort and sell facts: Screen out irrelevant ideas. Group facts under main heading, this helps you sort facts. Keep related ideas together, put first thing first. Rearrange ideas in the order your reader will take. Motivate your readers to read, believe and use your information must entertain as well as inform, must be clever as well as clear.

3. Trimming of written material

Actually there is no such thing as good writing, there is only good rewriting.

-Never write more than required to convey the message.

-Say the same thing in few words. Change passive verbs to active so your reader can understand your writing more easily.

- Weed out unnecessary ideas, introductions, irrelevant sentences or parts of sentences, words and conductance like and, as, while, because, with a semi colon, if possible.

-Weed out articles - a, an, the. You do not need them half the time e.g. (The) making (of) silage is one of the best way of preserving (the) roughage.

-Avoid vague adjectives and adverbs - those, indefinite words that express degree, such as substantial (substantially), appreciable (appreciably), considerable (considerably). These words clog your message; they give your reader no standard of comparison e.g. 'This is a subject of considerable importance'. Tell the same message with 'this is important'.

- Trim words but not the meaning.

- When you prune you polish.

4. Check and recheck writing

- Check and recheck while reading its average sentence length and word length to find ' How easy'.

- Figure percentage of personal words and personal sentences to know 'How interesting'.

- Technical information must also be rechecked.