How business writing could be improved, based on results from a 2016 survey

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I saw an interesting article by Josh Bernoff in the Harvard Business Review on September 28, 2016 titled Your writing isn’t as good as you think it is. It discusses a survey of 547 people on twelve topics he did for his 2016 book Writing Without Bullshit – boost your career by saying what you mean. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As shown above in a bar chart, the top five problems in material people read were that it was: Poorly organized (65%), Too long (65%), Unclear (61%), Not precise enough (54%), and used Too much jargon (54%).  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A second bar chart shows problems in material people write were that it was: Too long (45%), Not direct enough (37%), Not precise enough (32%), had Too much passive voice (25%), and used Too much jargon (24%).  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are large discrepancies between what people read and what they write, as shown by a third bar chart for differences. 65% thought what they read was poorly organized versus just 16% for what they write – a difference of 49%. The difference for Unclear was 43%, for Too much jargon 30%, for Not precise enough 22%, and for Too long 20%. In the Harvard Business Review article Joel notes we think writing quality problems are someone else’s fault. He also asked people how effective what they read was on a scale from 1 to 10, and the answer was just 5.4, but for what they write it instead was 6.9.   

 

The image of a woman reading was adapted from one at Wikimedia Commons.