The dedication ceremony for the Gettysburg cemetery in 1863 included a keynote speaker, Edward Everett, who spoke for over two hours. Abraham Lincoln followed with an address that lasted two minutes. 

Writing is an intensely personal exercise in expression. Professional writing, however, needs to focus on your audience. While you don’t want to appear impersonal, your focus has to be on inviting your audience to engage with your message. My goal is to help writers apply the lesson from the Gettysburg Address to more successful communication experiences. Enjoy!

Know Thy Audience

Educational leaders need to write to meet the needs of myriad audiences with differing needs and attention spans. With every piece, remember this one critical truth: it’s not about you. If your audience isn’t engaged, your writing means nothing.

Stay Current

Language changes and so do grammatical conventions. Underlining went the way of the typewriter. So did the rule about two spaces after a period. Diaereses (reëvaluate) look cool but are essentially long gone, and we seem to have followed our germanic linguistic cousins in making compound words out of everything possible¹. Roll with the changes.

White Space

Open up a book and look at a page that has a solid block of text with no paragraph breaks. Now, find a page that is loaded with dialogue. Which one looks more appealing? Our eyes and brains love white space and find it much more inviting. Knowing that, keep your paragraphs short, preferably 2-3 sentences long (yes, I know this one is 5).

Be Direct

A landscape design principle dictates paving the shortest path between where people exit their car and the main entrance. If you don’t, they’ll take that route anyway. As writers, pave the path you want people to take. If possible, add lights. Get to your point quickly. A related process tip is that the first two sentences of any first draft will be awful. Expect to revise them.

Stay Strong

Avoid progressive verb tenses; they end in –ing and suggest a lack of confidence. Instead, use active verbs in present and past tense as much as you can. Also, every verb in our language suggests action except to have and to be, so look to propel your language with other verbs whenever possible.

Be Clear & Concise

It doesn’t matter if you know what you’re saying if your audience does not. One tip is to challenge yourself to use a noun after the word this. Another is to apply Stephen King’s logic that “the road to Hell is paved with adverbs.” If you use effective verbs, adverbs are unnecessary; to wit, consider the difference between “he ran quickly” and “he sprinted.”

Never Say Never

Avoid absolutes and other forms of limiting language. Never, always, everybody, no one, and the like tend to overstate and are rarely, if not never, accurate.

Simplicity Is Good

If you don’t know how to use a semicolon, then don’t. And don’t worry about it; few others know anyway. Simple punctuation, including avoiding unnecessary apostrophes, and language that doesn’t require a thesaurus are particularly helpful in writing to a wide ranging audience.

“You Never Get a Second Chance to Make a First Impression”²

Starting a piece isn’t easy, but remember that a lost audience rarely returns. I largely inhabit the email world and have some tips borne out of positive and negative observations. Inspired by a board member who reminds me of her affinity for bullet points, here are some tips on salutations:

• Begin with a salutation appropriate to the audience. Use “Dear” or, if you’d prefer to sound less chummy, “Good Morning.” Avoid “Hey” unless you want to sound chummy.
• Identify the person to whom the email is addressed. This point of clarification helps when multiple people are cc’d on an email and helps identify which recipients should respond. As a superintendent who is cc’d on 8,675,309 emails per day, I appreciate knowing when I’m expected to take action or simply nod appropriately.
• Punctuate correctly. A salutation of a more formal or rigid message should conclude with a colon. Otherwise, a comma is fine.
• Never, ever open with “Greetings and salutations.” To expand on that, never. I mean it. Never.
• Similarly, at the end, keep your signature brief. Guess who cares about most of the information listed after your name? Actually, don’t guess. It’s probably no one.

Break Rules Intelligently

I’m the youngest of three children who were born within 39 months³ so this principle of wise mischief has been the cornerstone of my existence, and it’s relevant to effective writing. Don’t use a fragment? Please. Can’t start a sentence with a coordinating conjunction? But it works. Just apply the paprika rule: a little can spice up a dish, but too much will ruin it.

It’s not really a rule, but I recommend having fun as well. Sometimes we have to write difficult messages or items that we just can’t phrase the right way. What’s helped me is to loosen up by taking a walk (get away from the piece), say out loud what you want to say and then jot some notes, and depend on the kindness of good colleagues (I have an English teacher friend who is fearless with his feedback). If your prose feels constipated, the reading experience will be similarly uncomfortable. I’m not going to extend that analogy, but will encourage you to relax and have an authentic voice. 

1. My favorite is the Dutch verantwoordelijkheidsgevoel (sense of responsibility) ↩︎
2. I’m pretty sure this line comes from an old Head & Shoulders commercial ↩︎
3. Yes, we’re of Irish extraction ↩︎