Nature and Function of

Written Communication

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Communicating Ideas-the Fundamental Skill

Regardless of the intellectual powers we may possess, if we did not have the ability to communicate-to get ideas out of our heads into the heads of others—our salaries would abruptly stop. For all of us who work above the level of manual labor, communication skill is not one of the reasons we are hired; it is the reason. True, if we had no ideas to express we would be viewed with some concern by our superiors; but the sad fact is that an undeterminable but vast number of people have far better ideas than anyone knows. Their thoughts either beat about in their heads, finding no communication package in which to emerge; or they come out distorted and in fragments, jammed into words and sentences which do not exhibit them as they really are.

It is impossible to estimate the degree of efficiency of Government communication, but one fears it is appallingly low. Either ideas are only partially revealed or they are actually falsified. How often a writer is forced to insist that he did not mean to say what his reader thinks he said. How many letters are written simply to correct misapprehensions produced by other letters? Indeed, there is on record at least one instance of a misunderstanding which became a permanent policy, simply because the misunderstanding had become so widely disseminated that it would have taken Psyche herself to separate the misinterpretations from the correct ones. A rather carefully controlled experiment some few years back indicated that approximately 40 to 60 percent of the content of abstract ideas in a paragraph of Government writing is lost. in the process of four transmissions.

This figure, even if it only approximates the truth, confirms the many studies made of communication efficiency, notably the Hoover Commission report of several years ago. Let us, therefore, look more closely at this basic skill, writing, which is working so poorly for us.

The Nature of Writing

Writing is a substitute for something else; it is not of value in itself. If direct thought transference were possible, no one, for the pleasure of it, would engage in that artificial, wholly acquired art we call writing. Since it is a substitute, it is never perfect. No sentence ever written has conveyed in every dimension the exact thought held by the writer; no utterance has ever transferred without some distortion of that mysterious combination of rational concepts, emotions, preconceptions, assumptions, determinations which we call, loosely, our "ideas." Even the definition of a sentence as a "complete thought" is inaccurate, for we learn much about the meaning of any sentence from its context.

But if writing never perfectly accomplishes its goal, there is still a vast range between writing which comes close to communicating clearly and that which fails utterly. It is our purpose to study the causes of failure and avoid them, the causes of success and employ them. First, we must clearly understand the nature of the English sentence, for that is the only basic tool we possess.

Basic Structure of the Sentence-the First Rank of Units

Words contain ideas; sentences make statements. That is why a sentence which fails to make clear what (or who) is doing what is not meaningful even if all the words are understood. We get from such a sentence many ideas several for almost every word. But ideas are the stuff of communication, not communication itself. Only statements made about ideas can carry the reader forward, can lead him to understanding and to conclusions.

In practical terms, this means that a statement consists of a subject doing something. Any vagueness about the subject, any ambiguity about the action, makes the reader's job more difficult. The key parts, in other words, in every sentence are the thing and the doing.

The Three Kinds of Statement

At the basic level, one can make three sorts of statement:

1. One can assert that the subject is itself doing something. (Active

2. One can assert that the subject is having something done to it. (Passive sentences)

3. One can assert that the subject is equal to something else. (Linking sentences)

Each type has its particular usefulness. For directness, clarity, and naturalness, the active sentence is best. But only if the thought is appropriate. It is better to say "Mr. Jones discussed the principle" than “The principle was discussed by Mr. Jones." But it is not necessarily better to say "A dog bit Mr. Jones" than "Mr. Jones was bitten by a dog." It depends on what is more important in context, Mr. Jones or the dog, active subject or acted-on subject.

The passive sentence is best whenever the thing receiving the action is more important than the thing doing the action, or whenever the thing doing the action is unknown. Thus, we cannot legislate against the passive sentence; we cannot say "Never use the passive voice," as do some pamphlets on writing.

The linking sentence is, in one sense, weak (it cannot push a line of thought forward), but it is essential in establishing logical relationships. A common mistake is to use the linking sentence when the thought is actually active. For example: "The vital importance of this idea [subject] is [linking verb] a matter perfectly apparent to my understanding [predicate complement]." The writer means: "I [active subject] fully understand [verb] the vital importance of this idea."

The vigor of a sentence lies mainly in its action, its verb. To waste the. energy which lies inherent in a thought by failing to exhibit that energy in an active verb is as foolish as to take half the spark plugs from the car we drive.

The Fundamental Relationship

It is impossible to give too great emphasis, even this early in the course, to one truth: A sentence is no stronger than the strength of the subject and the verb. It is the union of these two, their domestic relationship, as it were, which is the sentence. If the subject is not exact, clear,

specific, and if the verb is not vigorous, any effort to improve the sentence is a process of shoring up ruins.

I am aware as I write that you have heard these truths from grammar school upward. Yet, as we do with so many fundamental truths, we give lip service, not mind service. We may readily agree that a sentence must have a good subject and a good verb and then, without any sense of anachronism, write: "Certain aspects of inefficiency manifest themselves when the concept of implementing this directive is considered."

Now, that sentence has a subject, grammatically. It is "certain aspects of inefficiency." But it is not a strong, clear, exact subject. Only the writer knows what types of inefficiency he means; only he knows whether these aspects involve operating, theoretical, or qualitative deficiencies. (But perhaps even the writer does not know. One has a legitimate suspicion that the subject as written is no more vague than the thought behind it.)

And how about the verb, "manifest themselves"? Does the writer mean that these undefined aspects of inefficiency will occur, or that they can be imagined, or that they may occur under certain conditions? Do they lie exclusively in the application of the directive or in the directive inherently? Really, one can form in his mind no exact thought, because the writer has not expressed one. And yet the sentence is grammatically complete; it has a subject and a verb. Compare the sentence with a more exact one (note subjects and verbs): "If we adopt this directive, we shall have to clear every job analysis with two more officials, and this will cut our output at least 10 percent."

Over the years, jargoneers have developed a style which makes it perfectly simple to write a sentence without saying a blessed thing. Such sentences seem to declare that subjects which the writer does not at this time choose to disclose are performing actions of a completely indefinite sort, with results firmly declared to be not unrelated to certain concepts which it is perhaps not wise at this time to divulge too clearly. Such sentences love phrases like "definitely not without," and "may under certain circumstances," and "particularly those features related to optimum goals," and "with due regard to relevant concepts,” etc., etc.

But always the reader, like the famous examination question, wants to know, "Who did what to whom how many times around where?" (Answer: Achilles chased Hector three times around the walls of Troy.) In more general terms, we must learn from every sentence "Who or what is doing what?" or "Who or what is having what done to it?" or "What

is declared to be equal to what?" These three statements are the only kinds we can make with an English sentence. No matter how elaborate syntax may become, no matter how many elements may compose the structure of the sentence, these are the key questions. No sentence is any good which fails to answer them clearly.

An Analogy

Visually, the relationship of subject and verb may be expressed by comparing the subject (the thing, the substantive) to a loaded freight car, and the verb to the engine. Efficiency demands that the "freight car" be explicitly labeled as to contents. If it holds 50 pressure-treated telephone poles, the label should not read, "Material not unconnected with the communication system." If the engine is strong, it should say something exact, like "Must be unloaded by Monday," not "must be dealt with in such manner as is consistent with storage space and loading schedules." Unlabeled cars and feeble little engines can wreck a transportation system.

Yet we constantly read sentences which make us guess what they are about and which only faintly suggest what action is involved. When the reader has read the subject of a sentence, he should know exactly what is the most important substantive in the thought. What are we to guess is the real subject of a sentence which begins, "Measures reasonably to be expected to reduce certain difficulties. . ."? Even the verb does not help us, as the sentence runs on: ". . . have been herein modified to the extent deemed necessary by current problems." Now, there is a freight car labeled "Guess what?" and in front is a poor little engine ("modified"), so anemic that it cannot get up enough steam to toot its whistle. Such a sentence does not make a statement; at best it helps slightly to create the context which we must often use as our real source of meaning.

One last example of a mist-enshrouded subject and a weak verb: "It may be assumed that a search of appropriate sources will reveal pertinent data." (No wonder we say we must "read between the lines"; there is often more meaning there than anywhere else.) Such a sentence seems to say something, yet when we "translate" it we find it announcing that the material we want will be found in the place where we find itprobably.

It is this lack of a hard core of real meaning which infects so much. Government (and business and educational) writing, and which makes the citizen-recipient of official letters stand in the middle of the country