1 00:00:01,570 --> 00:00:05,170 When you've organized your document and feel that your scaffold is strong, 2 00:00:05,170 --> 00:00:08,920 then you need to go through your document sentence by sentence. 3 00:00:08,920 --> 00:00:13,820 First ask yourself, have I said exactly what I mean to say? 4 00:00:13,820 --> 00:00:17,560 Sometimes when we translate an idea from our mind to the page, 5 00:00:17,560 --> 00:00:19,480 we lose a little bit of our clarity, 6 00:00:19,480 --> 00:00:23,430 because we have context within our heads that our readers can't see. 7 00:00:23,430 --> 00:00:26,210 So you have to put yourself in your reader's shoes and 8 00:00:26,210 --> 00:00:31,150 really ask, if I'm coming to this document without the background that I have, 9 00:00:31,150 --> 00:00:33,100 does this make sense? 10 00:00:33,100 --> 00:00:37,240 Put yourself in your reader's shoes to always check for simplicity and clarity. 11 00:00:38,250 --> 00:00:40,850 Let's look at an example of what I mean. 12 00:00:40,850 --> 00:00:43,390 The sentence, while analyzing the data, 13 00:00:43,390 --> 00:00:47,850 the market plan emerged, might make sense from the writer's perspective. 14 00:00:47,850 --> 00:00:52,390 If you'd written it, you might be taking about how you're team's data analysis fed 15 00:00:52,390 --> 00:00:53,900 the marketing plan. 16 00:00:53,900 --> 00:00:57,550 But a new reader who doesn't have that context isn't going to 17 00:00:57,550 --> 00:00:59,340 understand what you're saying. 18 00:00:59,340 --> 00:01:01,940 They don't know who was doing the analyzing. 19 00:01:01,940 --> 00:01:06,770 In fact, the sentence technically says that the marketing plan emerged while it 20 00:01:06,770 --> 00:01:08,130 analyzed the data. 21 00:01:08,130 --> 00:01:10,130 The sentence has a misplaced modifier and 22 00:01:10,130 --> 00:01:12,590 a missing subject, as you've probably recognized. 23 00:01:13,730 --> 00:01:16,170 You'd need to rewrite this for clarity. 24 00:01:16,170 --> 00:01:20,370 The point I want to make in this video, however, is that you don't need to 25 00:01:20,370 --> 00:01:24,810 understand grammatical niceties, if you can put yourself in your reader's shoes. 26 00:01:24,810 --> 00:01:26,810 By reading through your reader's eyes, 27 00:01:26,810 --> 00:01:30,530 you can understand that you actually haven't written what you mean. 28 00:01:30,530 --> 00:01:32,370 And then you can correct it. 29 00:01:32,370 --> 00:01:37,400 Instead of writing while analyzing the data, the market plan emerged, 30 00:01:37,400 --> 00:01:41,310 you'd be much better off with, our team's analysis led to the marketing plan. 31 00:01:42,440 --> 00:01:45,640 That tells your reader exactly what they need to know. 32 00:01:45,640 --> 00:01:47,800 It gives them the context that you have. 33 00:01:48,830 --> 00:01:52,340 Once you've asked yourself if you said exactly what you want to say, 34 00:01:52,340 --> 00:01:54,490 then you want to go back through and read your sentence and 35 00:01:54,490 --> 00:01:59,830 say, have I expressed myself as simply and straightforwardly as I can? 36 00:01:59,830 --> 00:02:02,120 In a later lesson we'll cover generalities and 37 00:02:02,120 --> 00:02:05,000 jargon which can definitely hurt your clarity. 38 00:02:05,000 --> 00:02:09,940 But for now I don't want you necessarily to analyze the parts of speech. 39 00:02:09,940 --> 00:02:12,960 I just want you to ask yourself if you said things 40 00:02:12,960 --> 00:02:14,950 as straightforwardly as you possible can. 41 00:02:16,070 --> 00:02:18,720 Let's take this sentence as an example. 42 00:02:18,720 --> 00:02:23,180 Dave's band specializes in events of local scale that make use of extremely friendly 43 00:02:23,180 --> 00:02:26,400 environments and blues and gospel influence. 44 00:02:26,400 --> 00:02:27,890 Here's the band we're talking about. 45 00:02:28,940 --> 00:02:32,250 I can just look at this sentence and know I need to make it easier to read. 46 00:02:33,310 --> 00:02:36,039 I'm going to start by cutting and rearranging words. 47 00:02:37,050 --> 00:02:43,841 Instead of, in events of local scale, can't I just say, in local events? 48 00:02:46,617 --> 00:02:52,160 Then, blues and gospel influence, they really don't make sense where they are. 49 00:02:52,160 --> 00:02:54,440 They should describe Dave's band. 50 00:02:54,440 --> 00:02:58,410 So I'm going to cut influence, and move blues and gospel in front of band. 51 00:03:00,310 --> 00:03:04,400 Our current version of the sentence is, Dave's blues and gospel band 52 00:03:04,400 --> 00:03:09,360 specializes in local events that make use of extremely friendly environments. 53 00:03:09,360 --> 00:03:10,990 This is better, but still clunky. 54 00:03:12,300 --> 00:03:16,240 In particular, I'm thinking that extremely friendly environments 55 00:03:16,240 --> 00:03:17,970 can be replaced by casual venues. 56 00:03:19,760 --> 00:03:25,960 Couldn't I just cut events that make use of and just say, local casual venues. 57 00:03:25,960 --> 00:03:29,090 It says the same thing with fewer words, and it's more clear. 58 00:03:30,640 --> 00:03:35,060 Finally, specializes, that seems wrong for a band. 59 00:03:35,060 --> 00:03:38,282 Shouldn't I say plays, isn't that simpler and more clear? 60 00:03:38,282 --> 00:03:41,290 Then I can also cut in. 61 00:03:43,250 --> 00:03:44,750 And what about blues and gospel? 62 00:03:45,940 --> 00:03:48,920 Dave might disagree, but I think just blues will do. 63 00:03:50,290 --> 00:03:53,380 Then, maybe I want to stress that the band is successful. 64 00:03:53,380 --> 00:03:54,970 So I might want to add popular. 65 00:03:56,840 --> 00:04:00,180 All right, here's our first sentence. 66 00:04:00,180 --> 00:04:01,190 And then here's our rewrite. 67 00:04:02,200 --> 00:04:06,690 I've cut my word count from 20 to 8 words, and I've still gotten my point across and 68 00:04:06,690 --> 00:04:07,920 still represented the band. 69 00:04:09,010 --> 00:04:13,880 Think about undertaking that process for a memo that's say 500 words long. 70 00:04:13,880 --> 00:04:15,940 You might cut it by as much as a half. 71 00:04:16,980 --> 00:04:22,240 Think about how much more impactful and easy to read your final document will be. 72 00:04:22,240 --> 00:04:26,170 Revising for simplicity is such a useful editing tool. 73 00:04:26,170 --> 00:04:30,700 It helps you improve your writing without your having to know a single grammatical 74 00:04:30,700 --> 00:04:32,730 rule or really anything about syntax. 75 00:04:33,790 --> 00:04:36,910 It's a powerful technique, but it does take practice. 76 00:04:36,910 --> 00:04:39,589 The quiz that follows will help you get to work on this so 77 00:04:39,589 --> 00:04:41,990 that you can apply it to your writing right away.