About Tim Albert Training

The curse of
the red pen

This article appeared in the Spring 2003 edition of Short Words, the newsletter of Tim Albert Training. It was written by Tim Albert.

How do you stop others ruining what you have written

Tim Albert has some suggestions

I spoke recently with someone who had been on a course a few years ago. 'The next thing I wrote was much better written', she told me. 'Then I showed it to my chief executive - who changed it all back into gobbledegook'.

This reinforced my belief that so much writing is unintelligible because other people jump on it - and ruin it.

Health service documents end up being written for health service managers rather than users; journal articles end up being written for the senior professor rather than the editor; letters end up being written for the institution, not the recipient.

This puts a great responsibility on the writer, whose role becomes that of reader's advocate. Here are some tips on how to perform this duty well.

1. Agree on the target reader. Most writing fails because the writer has tried to please several audiences at once. Stick to one - and get everyone to agree. If you need to address several audiences, write a separate piece for each.
Keep reminding those who look at your draft who the audience will be; otherwise, they will be unable to give you informed feedback.

2. Agree on the purpose. One of the easiest things in the world is to find fault with a piece of writing. But if everyone has a clear and shared idea of what that writing is trying to achieve, you will be able to choose which 'corrections' are going to be helpful, and which should be ignored.

3. Avoid power struggles. Changing the writing of others is a great way of showing power. Don't get drawn in. If someone is more important than you, accept their changes wherever possible. (For exceptions, see below…)

4. Fight the big battles. When your colleagues and bosses start suggesting changes that you know will make it difficult for your writing to succeed (see 1 and 2 above) then you have a duty to negotiate.

5. Use evidence. If you think that the changes are harmful, show why. Find documents that have worked, and follow that style. That will give you guidance on issues such as length of sentences, complexity of words, and whether to use the passive voice.