Communicating With Clarity And Precision Quotes

being good at explaining is about learning skills but also about being sure to keep sharpening them. I still keep my lists of things to check to hand and hopefully this is one you can use too. 1. SIMPLICITY Is this the simplest way I can say this? 2. ESSENTIAL DETAIL What detail is essential to this explanation? 3. COMPLEXITY Are there elements of this subject I don’t understand? 4. EFFICIENCY Is this the most succinct way I can say this? 5. PRECISION Am I saying exactly what I want to communicate? 6. CONTEXT Why does this matter to the people I’m addressing? 7. NO DISTRACTIONS Are there verbal, written or visual distractions? 8. ENGAGING Are there moments when attention could waver? 9. USEFUL Have I answered the questions that people have? 10. CLARITY OF PURPOSE Above all else, what am I trying to explain?

When you are listening to people on your team, take on the responsibility to understand—to actually listen—rather than putting the burden to communicate onto them. But when you are helping them prepare to explain their ideas to others—whether they are peers or cross-functional colleagues or executives—it’s your job to push your direct reports, and yourself, to do a better job than Keynes did. You need to push them to communicate with such precision and clarity that it’s impossible not to grasp their argument.

Speaking multiple languages equips you with effective communication skills, enabling you to express yourself with clarity, precision, and cultural sensitivity.

make them progress more smoothly. As you write, be sure that the transitions between one idea and another are clear. If you move from one idea to another too abruptly, the reader may miss the connection between them and lose your train of thought. Pay particular attention to the transitions from one paragraph to another. Often, you’ll need to write transition sentences that explicitly lead the reader from one paragraph to the next. Clarity Perhaps the fundamental requirement of scientific writing is clarity. Unlike some forms of fiction in which vagueness enhances the reader’s experience, the goal of scientific writing is to communicate information. It is essential, then, that the information is conveyed in a clear, articulate, and unclouded manner. This is a very difficult task, however. You don’t have to read many articles published in scientific journals to know that not all scientific writers express themselves clearly. Often writers find it difficult to step outside themselves and imagine how readers will interpret their words. Even so, clarity must be a writer’s first and foremost goal. Two primary factors contribute to the clarity of one’s writing: sentence construction and word choice. SENTENCE CONSTRUCTION. The best way to enhance the clarity of your writing is to pay close attention to how you construct your sentences; awkwardly constructed sentences distract and confuse the reader. First, state your ideas in the most explicit and straightforward manner possible. One way to do this is to avoid the passive voice. For example, compare the following sentences: The participants were told by the experimenter to press the button when they were finished (passive voice). The experimenter told the participants to press the button when they finished (active voice). I think you can see that the second sentence, which is written in the active voice, is the better of the two. Second, avoid overly complicated sentences. Be economical in the phrases you use. For example, the sentence, “There were several different participants who had not previously been told what their IQ scores were,” is terribly convoluted. It can be streamlined to, “Several participants did not know their IQ scores.” (In a moment, I’ll share with you one method I use to identify wordy and awkwardly constructed sentences in my own writing.) WORD CHOICE. A second way to enhance the clarity of one’s writing is to choose one’s words carefully. Choose words that convey precisely the idea you wish to express. “Say what you mean and mean what you say” is the scientific writer’s dictum. In everyday language, we often use words in ways that are discrepant from their dictionary definition. For example, we tend to use theory and hypothesis interchangeably in everyday language, but they mean different things to researchers. Similarly, people talk informally about seeing a therapist or counselor, but psychologists draw a distinction between therapists and counselors. Can you identify the problem in this

Mastering punctuation is more than just a grammar lesson. A simple possessive apostrophe can lack clarity if not used with precision. Learning how to use them unlocks the power to communicate with intention.