{"id":688,"date":"2012-11-18T12:42:40","date_gmt":"2012-11-17T23:42:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=688"},"modified":"2012-11-24T12:40:20","modified_gmt":"2012-11-23T23:40:20","slug":"its-the-writers-responsibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=688","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s the writer\u2019s responsibility"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A few years ago, I was approached to edit a report prepared by what turned out to be a decidedly dodgy investment company.<\/p>\n

\u2018At the moment, it\u2019s too easy to understand,\u2019 the CEO told me.\u00a0 \u2018It needs to be more weighty, more, umm, opaque.\u2019<\/p>\n

I declined the opportunity to contribute to the ignorance of his \u2018investors\u2019.\u00a0 But it did confirm something which I had long suspected: some writers simply do not want their readers to understand what they are saying.\u00a0 (If you have ever begun to read the Agreement to which you must agree before you can load a piece of software, you will know what I mean.)<\/p>\n

Effective written communication is not just about the writer\u2019s writing.\u00a0 It also involves the reader\u2019s reading.\u00a0 If the reader doesn\u2019t take out what the writer thinks<\/em> he or she has put in, the attempted communication has failed.<\/p>\n

And, as much as some writers might like to think otherwise, the responsibility for the communication rests squarely with the writer.\u00a0 If the intended reader can\u2019t follow what the writer has written \u2013 or can\u2019t be bothered reading what the writer has written \u2013 it is usually not the fault of the reader.\u00a0 There is little point in saying \u2018Well, it was all in the document\u2019 if the reader finds the document unreadable.<\/p>\n

In a recent online discussion, a reader who had had his fingers badly burned by a dodgy fund manager asked \u2018the expert\u2019 what he could have done to avoid this happening.\u00a0 In reply, the expert said that \u2018notwithstanding the relevant statutory compliance on the part of the fund manager or any person acting as a duly authorised agent of the fund manager, it is beholden on a person with investible funds \u2026.\u2019<\/p>\n

And there was more too.\u00a0 But, by then, I had fallen asleep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few years ago, I was approached to edit a report prepared by what turned out to be a decidedly dodgy investment company. \u2018At the moment, it\u2019s too easy to understand,\u2019 the CEO told me.\u00a0 \u2018It needs to be more … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,6,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=688"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":692,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688\/revisions\/692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}