Check for Clarity - Part 1

Articles In This Section:

· Check for Clarity - Part 1

· Check for Clarity - Part 2

· Check for Clarity - Part 3

· Check for Clarity - Part 4

Now let's check for clarity. Let's see if your audience will understand what you are saying. Perhaps your speech reads beautifully; perhaps the English is excellent. You've used the proper words in the proper places. Then, as you rattle it off, the sound of your voice may fascinate you. But will your audience understand what you mean?

Here is a paragraph I copied from a talk given by a sales-manager friend of mine:

Today we enjoy a favorable position in this business. But there is danger that we may have grown too complacent. Knowledge that stems from experience warns us that even today we may be jeopardizing our position, through stultifying inaction. Considered from the objective viewpoint, there is no primrose path ahead. To preclude disaster, we need an active prosecution of the business from all angles.

That sounds good, doesn't it? I know the fellow who used that and I'll bet he went to a dictionary and dug up some of those words. And what was the result? Fog, and more fog.

Let's analyze that paragraph and try to determine what the speaker meant: He had a number of ideas that he put together. Let's list them:

1. His company had a favorable position in the business.

2. They might grow complacent.

3. Some past experience warned them that because they were
doing nothing, they might be jeopardizing their position.

4. There was no primrose path ahead.

5. They had to start after business.

Even when the five thoughts are written out in simple sentences the idea is still not clear. You may say, "It is a poor paragraph." I admit that it is. But it is out of a speech, and it illustrates the kind of stuff so many speakers write into speeches. It might be made much clearer by this revision:

We are leaders in this business. And we didn't get to be leaders by doing nothing. But that's what we are doing now—not a thing. And what happens to any company that does nothing? They start slipping. Even now we may have started to slip. And there's only one way to stop that slipping. We have to realize the days of milk and honey are over. We've got to get to work. We've got to work hard. We've got to work every angle—go after the business with all we have and all we know.