Non-professional writers

August 20, 2024

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Nobody asks you to design a bridge, write a sonnet or do open heart surgery. We leave these essential tasks to trained professionals.

But many job descriptions carry the unstated addendum, “and write.” Write memos, proposals, and even instruction manuals.

The local supermarket is reducing its hours for the summer (well deserved). The sign they put on the door to announce this is 100 words long.

The folks who manage the building where I work regularly send complicated and off-putting emails and texts to residents, when simple and powerful language is just a few keystrokes away.

There are two options:

The first used to be the only one. Get better at writing. You might not think you’re a professional writer (you’re a doctor! you’re a manager! you’re a teacher!) but if it’s an important part of your job, you are a professional, or at least we expect you to be.

Now there’s a second option. If the writing you’re doing doesn’t need to be in an idiosyncratic voice, take your memo, paste it into claude.ai and say, “please rewrite this to make it clear, cogent, positive and concise.”

And now you can go back to work.

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