Posted on 12/10/2004 10:50:32 PM PST by neverdem
BLOOMINGTON, Ill. - R. Craig Hogan, a former university professor who heads an online school for business writing here, received an anguished e-mail message recently from a prospective student.
"i need help," said the message, which was devoid of punctuation. "i am writing a essay on writing i work for this company and my boss want me to help improve the workers writing skills can yall help me with some information thank you".
Hundreds of inquiries from managers and executives seeking to improve their own or their workers' writing pop into Dr. Hogan's computer in-basket each month, he says, describing a number that has surged as e-mail has replaced the phone for much workplace communication. Millions of employees must write more frequently on the job than previously. And many are making a hash of it.
"E-mail is a party to which English teachers have not been invited," Dr. Hogan said. "It has companies tearing their hair out."
A recent survey of 120 American corporations reached a similar conclusion. The study, by the National Commission on Writing, a panel established by the College Board, concluded that a third of employees in the nation's blue-chip companies wrote poorly and that businesses were spending as much as $3.1 billion annually on remedial training.
The problem shows up not only in e-mail but also in reports and other texts, the commission said.
"It's not that companies want to hire Tolstoy," said Susan Traiman, a director at the Business Roundtable, an association of leading chief executives whose corporations were surveyed in the study. "But they need people who can write clearly, and many employees and applicants fall short of that standard."
Millions of inscrutable e-mail messages are clogging corporate computers by setting off requests for clarification, and many of the requests, in turn, are also chaotically written, resulting in whole cycles of confusion.
Here is one from a systems analyst to her supervisor at a high-tech corporation based in Palo Alto, Calif.: "I updated the Status report for the four discrepancies Lennie forward us via e-mail (they in Barry file).. to make sure my logic was correct It seems we provide Murray with incorrect information ... However after verifying controls on JBL - JBL has the indicator as B ???? - I wanted to make sure with the recent changes - I processed today - before Murray make the changes again on the mainframe to 'C'."
The incoherence of that message persuaded the analyst's employers that she needed remedial training.
"The more electronic and global we get, the less important the spoken word has become, and in e-mail clarity is critical," said Sean Phillips, recruitment director at another Silicon Valley corporation, Applera, a supplier of equipment for life science research, where most employees have advanced degrees. "Considering how highly educated our people are, many can't write clearly in their day-to-day work."
Some $2.9 billion of the $3.1 billion the National Commission on Writing estimates that corporations spend each year on remedial training goes to help current employees, with the rest spent on new hires. The corporations surveyed were in the mining, construction, manufacturing, transportation, finance, insurance, real estate and service industries, but not in wholesale, retail, agriculture, forestry or fishing, the commission said. Nor did the estimate include spending by government agencies to improve the writing of public servants.
An entire educational industry has developed to offer remedial writing instruction to adults, with hundreds of public and private universities, for-profit schools and freelance teachers offering evening classes as well as workshops, video and online courses in business and technical writing.
Kathy Keenan, a onetime legal proofreader who teaches business writing at the University of California Extension, Santa Cruz, said she sought to dissuade students from sending business messages in the crude shorthand they learned to tap out on their pagers as teenagers.
"hI KATHY i am sending u the assignmnet again," one student wrote to her recently. "i had sent you the assignment earlier but i didnt get a respond. If u get this assgnment could u please respond . thanking u for ur cooperation."
Most of her students are midcareer professionals in high-tech industries, Ms. Keenan said.
The Sharonview Federal Credit Union in Charlotte, N.C., asked about 15 employees to take a remedial writing course. Angela Tate, a mortgage processor, said the course eventually bolstered her confidence in composing e-mail, which has replaced much work she previously did by phone, but it was a daunting experience, since she had been out of school for years. "It was a challenge all the way through," Ms. Tate said.
Even C.E.O.'s need writing help, said Roger S. Peterson, a freelance writer in Rocklin, Calif., who frequently coaches executives. "Many of these guys write in inflated language that desperately needs a laxative," Mr. Peterson said, and not a few are defensive. "They're in denial, and who's going to argue with the boss?"
But some realize their shortcomings and pay Mr. Peterson to help them improve. Don Morrison, a onetime auditor at Deloitte & Touche who has built a successful consulting business, is among them.
"I was too wordy," Mr. Morrison said. "I liked long, convoluted passages rather than simple four-word sentences. And I had a predilection for underlining words and throwing in multiple exclamation points. Finally Roger threatened to rip the exclamation key off my keyboard."
Exclamation points were an issue when Linda Landis Andrews, who teaches at the University of Illinois at Chicago, led a workshop in May for midcareer executives at an automotive corporation based in the Midwest. Their exasperated supervisor had insisted that the men improve their writing.
"I get a memo from them and cannot figure out what they're trying to say," the supervisor wrote Ms. Andrews.
When at her request the executives produced letters they had written to a supplier who had failed to deliver parts on time, she was horrified to see that tone-deaf writing had turned a minor business snarl into a corporate confrontation moving toward litigation.
"They had allowed a hostile tone to creep into the letters," she said. "They didn't seem to understand that those letters were just toxic."
"People think that throwing multiple exclamation points into a business letter will make their point forcefully," Ms. Andrews said. "I tell them they're allowed two exclamation points in their whole life."
Not everyone agrees. Kaitlin Duck Sherwood of San Francisco, author of a popular how-to manual on effective e-mail, argued in an interview that exclamation points could help convey intonation, thereby avoiding confusion in some e-mail.
"If you want to indicate stronger emphasis, use all capital letters and toss in some extra exclamation points," Ms. Sherwood advises in her guide, available at www.webfoot.com, where she offers a vivid example:
">Should I boost the power on the thrombo?
"NO!!!! If you turn it up to eleven, you'll overheat the motors, and IT MIGHT EXPLODE!!"
Dr. Hogan, who founded his online Business Writing Center a decade ago after years of teaching composition at Illinois State University here, says that the use of multiple exclamation points and other nonstandard punctuation like the :-) symbol, are fine for personal e-mail but that companies have erred by allowing experimental writing devices to flood into business writing.
He scrolled through his computer, calling up examples of incoherent correspondence sent to him by prospective students.
"E-mails - that are received from Jim and I are not either getting open or not being responded to," the purchasing manager at a construction company in Virginia wrote in one memorandum that Dr. Hogan called to his screen. "I wanted to let everyone know that when Jim and I are sending out e-mails (example- who is to be picking up parcels) I am wanting for who ever the e-mail goes to to respond back to the e-mail. Its important that Jim and I knows that the person, intended, had read the e-mail. This gives an acknowledgment that the task is being completed. I am asking for a simple little 2 sec. Note that says "ok", "I got it", or Alright."
The construction company's human resources director forwarded the memorandum to Dr. Hogan while enrolling the purchasing manager in a writing course.
"E-mail has just erupted like a weed, and instead of considering what to say when they write, people now just let thoughts drool out onto the screen," Dr. Hogan said. "It has companies at their wits' end."
To the Editor:
Re "What Corporate America Cannot Build: A Sentence" (news article, Dec. 7):
As a university professor, I am troubled by the inability of students (and their working counterparts) to differentiate between their off-the-cuff, private e-mail style and public, formal writing. The speed and informality of Internet and mobile messaging, free of proper spelling, grammar, punctuation and syntax, are partly responsible.
But secondary schools and universities are also culpable: workers have managed to graduate without knowing how to write. In secondary schools as well as colleges and universities, writing-based learning is being cut in favor of recall and test-based curriculums.
Schools need to re-emphasize solid analytical reading and writing, usually taught by much-embattled humanities departments. Classes that stress strong, clear writing once again show their value, not just for teaching content but also for building critical skills.
Heather Grossman Chicago, Dec. 7, 2004 The writer is a visiting assistant professor of art history, University of Illinois at Chicago.
•
To the Editor:
"What Corporate America Cannot Build: A Sentence" neglects a major source of the lamentable prose of many company employees: the decline of the liberal arts education.
Driven by economic anxieties, both parents and undergraduates often assume that the principal purpose of higher education is preparation for a particular job, which they believe is best accomplished through courses specifically tailored to that field. But my literature classes, like my colleagues' courses in history, philosophy and so on, are not mere frills. Rather - in addition to all its other vital functions - a liberal arts education teaches skills in reading, writing and thinking that, as your article demonstrates, are crucial to any number of jobs.
Heather Dubrow Madison, Wis., Dec. 7, 2004 The writer is a professor of English, University of Wisconsin.
•
To the Editor:
"What Corporate America Cannot Build: A Sentence" makes several correct comments about the dismal quality of communication skills and commerce.
It should also be noted that reading and writing are inseparable. From this, we can extrapolate a lesson for corporate America and the country in general - read so that you can write. The positive effect of clear, concise written communication is obvious; the opposite may catalyze inadvertent negative consequences.
Bebe Lavin Bexley, Ohio, Dec. 7, 2004 The writer teaches reading and writing skills to employed adults.
•
To the Editor:
Your photo of the writing instructor in front of a PowerPoint presentation captures nicely the reason that good writing is increasingly rare today. Bullet points have replaced the use of complete sentences and carefully constructed paragraphs. Sadly, this is true not only of the corporate world, but the academy as well.
Peg Birmingham Chicago, Dec. 7, 2004 The writer is an associate professor of philosophy, DePaul University.
•
To the Editor:
Every five or 10 years, you publish an article about corporate writing concerns. But nothing changes because corporations don't really care.
I have given hundreds of programs over 23 years for companies in New England and their employees. Senior managers pay no attention to the programs before, during or after they take place. They spend some money and hope it works.
The individuals believe that they've done their part because they showed up for the program.
Richard Reynolds Storrs, Conn., Dec. 7, 2004
•
To the Editor:
If corporate America has trouble managing sentences, then no wonder it has trouble managing itself.
Jason Lott Philadelphia, Dec. 7, 2004
Mr. Richard Reynolds Storrs is 100% correct.
I didn't think the bad examples here were beautiful English. But they communicated. People would visibly suffer economically if society truly valued clarity in writing above all else. But I don't think that is any society's premier value, nor do I think it should be, and there are plenty of things more important to corporations than writing.
'Lectronic ebonics?
This fellow still seems to have a 'predilection', and, I suppose, still a fetish for exclamation points. One of my pet irritations, here on FR.
Personally, I would support that all keyboards deliver a 2000-volt shock for every excalamation point after the first one in the course of five seconds. As a small token of my irritation, any post with more than one exclamation point in the headline is routinely ignored.
Perfect, LOL!
It's that pubic skool sistem.
r u series???!!!
Heather Dubrow Madison, Wis., Dec. 7, 2004 The writer is a professor of English, University of Wisconsin.
More and more, I am coming to believe that liberal arts professors are mainly teaching students what they need to know to follow an academic career. This leaves the vast majority of students who will not follow this path with very little to show for the money that has been invested in their education. There must be more efficient ways of acquiring the skills enumerated by this professor.
Some do not understand that the first letter of word of every sentence shoul d be a capital letter.
Another point is that these individuals cannot discern the difference from a possesive word from a contraction. An example is, "your" versus "you're.
Another example is the lack of punctuation between the '," and the ';'.
Folks like Sean Hannity's grammar is terrible. For instance, "Me and my wife went to the Jeep dealer last week.." If he had not gone with his wife; would he have said, "Me went to the Jeep dealer"? "Him and me..."
I was brough up to put the other person before my personal pro-noun; as in, "he, and I, did such-and-such."
That said, I do not think that Sean ever graduated from the eighth grade.
Regardless, Sean is earning a lot of money in his initiatives on radio and television.
One last word, Sean needs to focus on one individual in a conversation and not confuse his thought procesees with a dozen personalities; and then refer to "him," or "he." Sean needs to get eliminate pronouns; and refer to the particular individual towards whom he is referring
Depending on the amperage, how many folks on FR would you want to be dead after ten or more 2000-volt shocks? What about folks who fail to use the spell checker? 8^)
U.S. Corporations Find Prospective Employees Lack Basic Skills
AMA survey finds 38% are deficient in reading, writing, and math skills
New York, May 25 (2000)—Over 38% of job applicants tested for basic skills by U.S. corporations in 1999 lacked the necessary reading, writing and math skills to do the jobs they sought, according to American Management Association's annual survey on workplace testing.
http://www.amanet.org/press/archives/basic_skill.htm
Don't blame Sean. He's overwhelmed and burdened by the fact that he only knows about six things. These occupy at least three hours per day - that's all he asks.
My two email peeves:
"Loose" instead of "Lose" and the use of an apostrophe when creating a plural by appending an "s" to a word. The apostrophe would be better named the tack or staple, since it seems to be used to keep the trailing S from dropping off the end of a word.
When I lived in Central Florida I once saw a fellow selling boiled peanuts from a tiny roadside stand. I wish that I had taken a picture of his boldly lettered cardboard sign which advertised BOILT P-NUT'S 4 SAIL. Spelling errors aside, the "p-nut's" tasted great.
The companies with grammer and sentence problems need to issue a copy of the "Tongue and Quill" to all their personnel.
And then insist that their employees adhere to the standards therein or face a 'termination of email privileges' notice.
There would be improvement... and an INCREDIBLE drop in the number of emails clogging their computer systems.
:-)
"Communities can communicate within itself, however out side of that, and on a national scope is undesirable for many reasons. I see your point, 'but they communicated.'"
***Your post is a reasonably good example of what the author was talking about. It is simply incoherent.
http://www.e-publishing.af.mil/pubfiles/af/33/afh33-337/afh33-337.pdf
Those of us a little older had public school teachers who demanded proper spelling, grammar and punctuation.
We are headed toward the day, in the near future, when most written communication in America will be gibberish and lose all value because neither reader or writer will be using a common language.
I think that ensuring my children write well and come across intelligently to the professorial ranks is important. But other parents decide early on that their children don't merit that type of education. They choose to educate them on how to race a car, or how to grow a crop, or how to build a home. Some people think that communication is less important than execution. As parents, we all think different things are important. I'll let those parents choose for their kids, and I'll let corporations make their own choices as to what they need in employees. I don't care if the mechanic can't spell "battery," or the marketer can't spell "sale," if my company has editors to oversee any writing from them that will impact public perception of my company--and as long as the marketer picks where to sell my products correctly and the mechanic fixes my car properly!
Where I hope we don't differ is the real argument behind the argument being made here, that the public educational system sucks, turning out millions that have no clue as to grammar or spelling. However, if you want a better education for your kids, being anal about other people or being anal about public education isn't the solution. Public education is the problem. Being anal about its flaws and arguing that corporations should only hire those who really are educated is both slapping a bandaid on a shredded carotid and missing the fact that the patient's already dead meat anyway. You want well-educated children, homeschool them or send them to a good private school.
On that level, what's being argued (English should be the government's 'official' language) isn't a standard this country had imposed historically. People in the U.S. speak and spoke English because it is and was an economic necessity, not a government-mandated language. Up until the teens of the last century, many towns didn't have any citizens who were educated in English--they spoke German and went to German schools. Today, the same is true for Spanish. And you can choose to speak Swahili if you want.
If your argument is that Americans should speak English properly because that's the standard, I beg to differ. The standard today is actually rudimentary, USA-Today level English, at best. No thanks at all are due to public education, of course. /sarcasm
People will choose a level of education depending upon how they wish to be perceived by others and their own perception of the personal value of that education to their daily lives. I know when people misspell things, or write improperly, and certainly, corporations shouldn't hire people who can't write well for positions where it's possible the public could poorly perceive that company as a result of lousy writing. But it's silly to say that every job requires a grammaticist or spelling champ. The world needs ditchdiggers, too, and your average engineer doesn't need to know how to onomatopoeia.
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