kelley at pulpculture.org wrote:
At 06:26 PM 11/30/03 -0800, Miles Jackson wrote:
>>I have mixed feelings about this "clear writing" imperative.
>
>
As a writer, I've written material for the degreed upper echelons of Fortune 50 companies. Among other things, I translate complex technical material into material they can understand. <snip> To say that I have mixed feelings is an understatement. I don't want to be rude, but those who advocate clear writing may not be interacting with their readers very often. If you do, then you get a very clear sense of just how illiterate even the more educated folks are. You also get a sense of what we think of as clear writing isn't perceived that way at all. It's not about the words. It's about something else.
-------------- JC: Well, I've written reams of label copy for museum exhibits, explaining dioramas, objects, and so on. The rule of thumb one always hears is that this stuff should be written at the sixth grade level as measured by the Flesch-Kincaid test. In institutions where marketing departments are powerful, the sixth-grade rule tends to be strongly enforced, producing many conflicts between the marketers and more academically inclined curators.
Writing to the sixth-grade level is HARD. I usually find it fairly easy to reach eighth grade, but getting down those two extra grade levels can be painful as hell. When I'm writing label copy, I usually run a Flesch-Kincaid check, but I don't follow it slavishly, and in my present circumstances marketers aren't allowed to rap my knuckles over it.
"Visitor observation" is another thing that's frequently done in the museum world. They'll actually send observers out (often grad student interns) to follow people around through the galleries, note how much time they spend at the exhibits, and sometimes write down any overheard comments. More formal surveys--buttonholing people to ask them questions, or fill out a short survey form--are also common. I've done some of this myself. One thing I noticed, which seems pretty obvious now but was a revelation at the time, is that many people simply don't like to read. They're not necessarily dumb, but reading isn't their preferred way of acquiring information. I would guess that they feel the same way when confronted with a piece of text as I do looking at numbers and equations. I can decipher and interpret numbers and equations if I have to, but it's not very inviting to me. If I can get the same information in some other way, that's what I would prefer. There's a whole pedagogical literature on "learning styles," which I'm supposed to know better than I do, that discusses this topic at some length. There are apparently "visual learners," "tactile learners," "experiential learners," etc. etc.
Jacob Conrad