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Entries Tagged as 'Clarity'

Just a Little Bit More (Being Too Helpful)

February 5th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Loving and caring people want to help others. So we put one more thought into the writing and one more statement into the speaking. Delete those. Here are tips on editing writing that don’t need much thought, but hold true about 98.6% of the time: Get the idea? Loving and caring people […]

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Tags: Brevity · Clarity · Communication · Writing

The Most-Heard Sermon of All Time

December 25th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Three generations ago, an eight-year-old told us the reason for the season. The most-heard sermon of all time was delivered by an 8-year-old boy voicing a cartoon in 1965. Christopher Shea spoke the words below in A Charlie Brown Christmas. That sermon has been heard by millions or hundreds of millions of […]

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Tags: America · Authentic · Brevity · Christmas · Clarity

Mean What We Say and Say What We Mean

December 21st, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Let us mean what we say and say what we mean. Sometimes that requires too much effort. The effort is worth it if we want others to take us seriously. You know what I mean, huh? You get my drift, right? Just go along with me on this one. And then one […]

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Tags: Brevity · Clarity · Communication · Competence · Culture · Thinking

Jargon

December 14th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We continue to use too much jargon. Are we illiterate or just too lazy to type words? I am reviewing materials for a certification. Gosh, I am too old for this, but whatever. I won’t mention the name of the certification. I you continue reading this post, you can probably guess which […]

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Tags: Brevity · Clarity · Communication · Conversation · Word · Writing

An Educated Guess

November 27th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes it is worth the effort to identify the noun and the adjective. This is an educated guess. The word “guess” is a noun. The word “educated” is an adjective. Nouns are usually facts (a tree is a tree). Adjectives are usually chosen by a person and are subjective (what is a […]

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Tags: Clarity · Language · Logic · Reframe · Talk · Thinking · Vocabulary

50% of 50%

October 26th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Let’s pay attention to some basic math. We don’t like that, but we are adults, so let’s behave accordingly. In some respects, asking, “What is 50% of 50%?” is silly. Ask a mathematician that question. I did recently and the response was a laugh. The answer is 2,500%%. Huh? Everyone knows that […]

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Tags: Adults · Approximation · Clarity · Communication · Data Science · Knowledge · Science

Did My Words Make Sense?

September 4th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips To write is to be misunderstood. Gosh, not very optimistic but it is realistic. We should constantly ask, “Did my words make sense?” “Never mind what it says, we know what we mean,” said an optimist about something we were reading. Yes, we did know what it meant. We read it half-a-dozen […]

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Tags: Change · Clarity · Communication · Improvement · Resources · Time · Writing

The Screen Still Isn’t Big Enough

August 14th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We seem to think that everything will be on the screen and we don’t need to use pieces of paper. Years ago, we didn’t have the computers we have today. How many years ago? Twenty? Ten? Two? Years ago, some of us would take great pains to put lots of information on […]

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Tags: Clarity · Humility · Information · Knowledge · Notebook · Technology

Abbreviations

June 19th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips This is another fundamental of written communications that we seem to have forgotten—the humble abbreviation. Let’s abbreviate: The last item in the list is confusing, but given the context we always know what that means, right? Sorry, we don’t. I contend that we should not use abbreviations any longer. 98.6% of the […]

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Tags: Brevity · Clarity · Tools · Work · Writing

Too Simple

March 13th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We tend to want complex things. Too simple shows that we didn’t work hard, right? No, that is usually wrong. It happened again at work this week… Someone wanted a couple of sentences that summarized a project. The project had been running for ten years and is a success. Lots of people […]

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Tags: Brevity · Clarity · Communication · Simple · Writing