No one wants to assume or to condescend to readers. But those errors may actually arise from poor advice in business writing.
Probably you have heard the advice that "ASSUME makes an ASS of YOU and ME."
As a result, some writers believe that they should never use the phrase "I assume that...". Not true.
When I announce what I assume, I am no longer assuming it. Feel free to write out your assumptions and label them as such. That way, if the assumptions are false or incomplete, someone can correct them. The discussion can proceed intelligently.
Another example of poor advice comes from one of the CRISP workbooks for writers, called Better Business Writing. On its pages 24 and 40, it labels as condescending the phrases "of course," and "as you can see." Yet they are the opposite. These phrases acknowledge the writer's previous knowledge--a gesture that is not at all condescending. If you eliminate such phrases you actually do risk condescending.
Don't buy instruction that just repeats folklore.
No comments:
Post a Comment