Success Through Writing: Read This Book

Allow me to share advice: Learn to write well.

Students ask teachers for tips on career success all the time. I would like to relay what prospective employers tell me. The great failing among new graduates of law school, lamented by firms, government agencies, and non-profit groups that would like to hire them, is that they do not write well. Everywhere I travel, I am told this same criticism, and I am exhorted to address it, above all else, in the curriculum.

Even those who have fancy credentials seem incapable of sharing thoughts in a coherent manner. They are descriptive or expressive, not analytic. Words do not form sentences; sentences, paragraphs; paragraphs, a document.

I have a hypothesis about how this happened. Some will blame grade school. They want us to diagram sentences again. I don’t object. I was among the last generation subjected to the discipline, which has gone the way of cursive penmanship.

My concern is greater than that though. We have divided our mental responsibilities in a misleading manner. Our favorite false dichotomy distinguishes theoretical from practical.

It isn’t merely that we have lost the technical proficiency of recognizing subjects, objects, indirect objects, and predicates. It’s worse that we have lost an appreciation of the utility of rhetoric.

I wouldn’t blame students at all. They have been counseled to avoid what is theoretical (the liberal arts, English as a major) in favor of what is practical (STEM fields). They have concluded that an ability to communicate belongs to the former rather than the latter. It does not offer enough “return on investment” to warrant bothering with.

Or if they have been persuaded there is value in writing, they have deemed it a bonus. It isn’t intrinsic, but extra. There is the content — a body of knowledge such as for lawyers statutes and case law — and then there is the packaging — the writing. The writing is decorative.

The consequence is that as a society we are losing the most important skill. Society depends on it: the means by which we relate with one another using language. (It isn’t all we have: there are images and physicality; they are not trivial modes of interaction, but they receive enough emphasis in contemporary culture. Numeracy is as important as literacy; that is a subject for another blog.)

My own livelihood has been based on words, nothing but words. I am so besotted with words, I even read about writing.

So I offer a recommendation. The best book on writing, at once highly theoretical and highly practical, presents a compelling case for the very process of stringing together words to form an argument. Entitled Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose, it has been issued in a second edition. The authors, Francis-Noel Thomas and Mark Turner, a professor of humanities and cognitive science, respectively, propose:

Writing proceeds from thinking. To achieve good prose styles, writers must work through intellectual issues, not merely acquire mechanical techniques. . . When style is considered the opposite of substance, it seems optional and incidental, even when it is admired. In this way of framing things, substantive thought and meaning can be prior to style and completely separable from it. . . Whether style is viewed as spiritual, fraudulent, or something-in-between, any concept of style that treats it as optional is inadequate not only to writing but to any human action. Nothing we do can be done “simply” and in no style, because style is something inherent to action, not something added to it. In this respect, style is like the typeface in which a text is printed. We may overlook it, and frequently do, but it is always there.

Writing is the means by which we take abstractions in our own heads and apply those thoughts to the world around us. Anyone who wishes to be a professional of any type will be a professional writer in a sense. In occupations that do not require much writing, an individual will be superlative if she excels in writing. It is more, not less, important for the person who perceives herself as not a writer to develop this competency. She will stand out.

Writing well in a business setting calls for understanding the purpose of the document, organizing the material, being as concise as possible, and meeting a deadline. The act of writing deserves study and requires practice.

What is wonderful is that writing is available to all of us. We only need to desire to improve.