I remember as a teenager lying in bed reading the Surfer magazine at a time when I had just begun to surf at Fish Hoek beach, Muizenberg beach and Long Beach in Kommetjie.
Next to my bed I had a pile of Surfer magazines my father gave to me. He was an editor on the local morning newspaper in Cape Town. He knew I had caught the surfing bug and would appreciate the magazines. At that time he was very much involved with the False Bay Surfriders Association and used to write a surf report.
What I enjoyed most about the surfing magazines were the photographs and the stories about surfing adventures at different surf breaks in the United States and elsewhere in the world.
The words and pictures gave me inspiration to go try out some of the surfing manoeuvers and to learn as quickly as I could. I also learned from other young surfers by watching them and talking to them.
Looking back, the thing that stands out for me was how well the articles were written – they were always clear and without mistakes. The magazine must’ve had some pretty good writers on their staff.
Writing to be understood involves making yourself clear in expression and the thoughts you want to get across to your reader.
Clarity in your communication has become far more important with the daily onslaught of emails, reports, messaging and other correspondence.
Some businesses writers unfortunately think that they are being clear in their writing and then wonder why people don’t understand them.
Muddled writing leads to confusion, frustration and in severe cases to alienating the reader who simply gives up and deletes your message.
Writing to make yourself clear requires an understanding of fundamentals such as the words you use, sentence construction, paragraphing and having a clear purpose before you write.
All these important fundamentals are covered in the Better Business Writing course I have developed after many years of business writing. The course is available online on the ideaaccelerator.co.za website as well as on teachable.com.
If you are interested about writing so that you can be clearly understood, go to these websites now and enroll.
Warm regards
Chesney
