Getting People in Your Organization to Write Better

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  Jillarie09/09/08 Report as spam
  1

  RE: Getting People in Your Organization to Write Better

  I think that should be "marshal," not "marshall."

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  jongreer09/09/08 Report as spam
  2

  RE: Getting People in Your Organization to Write Better

  Oy! I was so worried about using poor grammar or making a typo in that item because of the subject matter! oh well...

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  RakeshGupta09/09/08 Report as spam
  3

  RE: Getting People in Your Organization to Write Better

  No, Jillarie. Jon is right, when used as a verb 'marshal' means gathering all your resources, and that is what he means in the concerned sentence. Take heart Jon.

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  Jillarie09/10/08 Report as spam
  4

  RE: Getting People in Your Organization to Write Better

  Oh, I know that's what he means.
  It's not, however, what he wrote.
  
  And I just found it kind of ironic.
  
  I would have filled the post with misspellings, typos and general errors, just to see if anyone would notice.

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  jongreer09/10/08 Report as spam
  5

  RE: Getting People in Your Organization to Write Better

  For the record: I did write "marshall" and then changed it after Jillarie's comment to "marshal." I should have noted that in the post...

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  the limority report09/11/08 Report as spam
  6

  RE: Getting People in Your Organization to Write Better

  While the pointing out of various typos and errors may be well founded, with the best of intentions, all typos/errors aside, how about some commentary regarding the article's content/ issue/argument/intention (shall I continue???).
  
  I think Mr. Greer raises an issue here that deserves some attention beyond sentence-level mechanics. By solely focusing on trivial sentence-level typos or errors, we are minimizing what's at the heart of this article.
  As a college-level writing instructor and copywriter/-editor, content also makes one's writing effective. When we become so hyper-focused on errors and typos, our vision becomes narrow and we ultimately miss the point or the bigger picture.
  
  Some global-level commentary, anyone...
  
  P.S. It would have been quite humorous, and ironic, if the entire article was intentionally written with various errors! I bet that would have produced an overload of commentary!

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  mmello10/12/08 Report as spam
  7

  RE: Getting People in Your Organization to Write Better

  I'm in the management consulting industry, where good writing is all-important - though you may doubt it, judging by our infamous Powerpoint slides. Good writing is what produces good proposals and good reports, the key steps in sustaining a successful consulting franchise.
  
  I've been struggling with the problem of forming good writers for the best part of the last two decades, and the single most important lesson I've learned is this:
  
  There's no good or bad writing, but good or bad THINKING. In 90% of the cases, if someone can't write well enough, (s)he can't think well enough either. That's why it is so incredibly difficult and time-consuming to develop good writing skills in someone that has none of it.
  
  So one should consider very carefully if it is really worth the investment. Sometimes we delude ourselves into thinking that a person has "just a problem with writing", but will perform well in, for instance, an intensely analytical role, only to be disappointed, down the road, by the relentlessly unkempt work produced by that professional.
  
  Exactly the same thing applies for spreadsheets - intellectually robust professionals naturally produce well-structured, orderly, neatly edited spreadsheets, while a seedy Excel is usually a sure sign of a poor analyst.