When Trying To Make A Point or Sell Something
One of the best pieces of advice I've ever received is to state things simply and clearly whenever possible.
This advice does not apply to all situations. If you are writing a novel, poetry or a Scholastic Article do not follow this advice.
I'm talking about a situation where you want a lot of people to understand a point.
If you are relaying important information.
If you are trying to sell someone your idea
Avoid words with ambiguous meanings, avoid Internal Jargon, and use technical terms only where needed.
If you have something important to say and you want people to comprehend it. This is not the time to show off your fabulous vocabulary and yet, I watch people do it every day.
Generally speaking, I find people who use too many words to make a simple point are:
- Trying to baffle with bullshit
- Are nervous what they are saying isn't enough
- Have developed a bad habit.
There is no need to talk past your point.
Yes, I do it too. I was so wordy and careful not to hurt people's feelings when I was younger, that everything I wanted to say was lost in a sea of words.
I once had to fire someone and I was trying to be nice and I was nervous. I babbled on about how this might not be working out for about a 1/2 hour. I was so bad at delivering a message that the person showed up for work the next day. :) True story. Very Awkward.
The average person on the street has an 8th-grade education.
If people have to work to understand what you are saying they miss the message.
Just say it. Instead of finding the most complex words, find the simplest ones.
The message isn't about your ego or your vocabulary, it is about someone else being able to understand what you say.
To give a perfect example I'm going to tease SteemIt Inc. a bit. I've heard several people in their organization use the words. Reduce Cognitive Overload. It cracks me up every single time. Obviously, they do not understand their own goal. It means... Make it easy to understand.
Before you tell me they are just that smart, I have never questioned their intelligence, but I do question their wisdom.
Feel free to use "Reduce Cognitive Overload" in your internal meetings, but don't communicate like that to an International community with varying degrees of ability to read and understand English.
Just use the KISS Model.
Keep it Simple Stupid.
Could you please post this to me, as a daily reminder?( along with the 'upvote yourself, you idiot' )..
Thanks
postmodernism, postmoderism everywhere.
Lol
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....are you flirting with me again, john/andy/t...?
I didn't expect you to appreciate some class a comedy of your nauseating rhetoric regarding just about everything, ak "postmodernism, postmoderism everywhere".
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A lot of people need to try to remember this. Like when writing books to teach people how to do something. Sometimes learning a new skill is mostly just cutting through people's bullshit to figure out what they're saying.
But what I say personally is usually straight from my mind. I don't think over what I say. Most of what I say is a direct line to my brain. Sometimes I use big words...but that's my natural voice.
If you were VERY awkward, you would have kept paying them.
I write from my head too. If it is for a casual audience, I don't even proofread.
In a formal situation, I would never publish anything without a proofreader.
My punctuation and sometimes verb tenses can get pretty messy. I also can't spell. Sigh.
I was talking about speaking. Though with casual typing I do kinda the same, with perhaps a minor amount of extra filtering, unless I'm intentionally freewriting on here. In a professional setting, I would do a hell of a lot of proofreading and rewriting of any report. I can kinda get by with my own proofreading...but depending the situation, I might ask for someone else to do it.
Can't disagree with what you've said here, @whatsup. I guess I don't read so many posts, outside of the steemitblog or Steemit folks as you mentioned, who actually go the high falutin words route.
I suppose I could be accused of doing it from time to time, because I like words and using the vocabulary I still have from time to time, but I've never used the phrase reduce cognitive overload. :)
Moral of the story is to get to the point as directly, succinctly and adequately as possible. Got it. :)
Absolutely.
I just finished editing someone's book proposal and sample chapters last week... it was... odd.
The two guys collaborating on the book both have degrees in creative writing, but they are writing a "how-to" book about certain aspects of the legal cannabis industry. I spent a lot of time removing florid language from their text...
haha! And they will not appreciate it. Guessing.
Sometimes I use big words I don't understand; because it makes me sound more deciduous.
haha.
Even better if you then can beat people at Scrabble with them!
"Trying to baffle with bullshit"
Haha I have done this to great effect in the past. It got me through a great many low energy class presentations when I was still in school. Lol
I love this!
i love to listen to him, not even the jokes (they are great) but the way that he spoke.
Agreed.
I don't speak smart -- I am not smart. I speak and understand common sense. I kinda fell into this trap years back. I used to read the dictionary. To find new ambiguous smart words to use and feel good about myself. I even learnt a fake accent I cannot get rid of now. But like they say, as you get older you tend to worry about less ( I am 24+ by the way)
The communication process entails encoding and decoding. The message must be put in such a way it is easily understood or it fails to meet its purpose.
I don't know about steemit. I am becoming a bit carefree about things here. I just want to utilize this platform and do what I enjoy doing. Minding my business(which is an impossible task)
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Well you are very wise if you are already learning that lesson!
I am so known for this at work as I often cut half hour meetings to 10 minutes just to get to the point and move on! It is all about how to say it for sure!
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