MAD HATTER PAGE 4

 

 

A WORD FROM BILL BELL:
WRITING TO YOUR AUDIENCE

 

The publications produced by Douglas
College have a consistent problem
throughout and I don't mean to be
insulting to the various faculty who
spend a great deal of time writing
them, but many are not written for the
audience they are supposed to reach.

Now I don't claim to be perfect, far
from it, I remember that at one time
when I was the editor of a newspaper,
I would come under constant critic-
ism for my misuse of the english
language..."I was caught so many times
dangling my modifyer that I was busted
for an indecent preposition."

However, having started out writing
sports stories for various dailies
and weeklies, the one criticism never

- afforded me was my ability to write to

my audience..."Try not to write too
many three and four syllable words
will ya Bell," was the first advice

I received from my editor, "jocks just
won't read it."

Although Douglas College's appeal is
not limited to jocks, its appeal should
be such that highschool students are
not intimidated by it. So, who are
we presently appealing to? According
to a recent sampling, undertaken by
the Public Information Office, Douglas
College's Calendar is written for any-
one with a grade eight up to a Ph.D.
level of education.

"I never write metropolis for seven
cents a word because I can get the
same price for 'city'", Mark Twain
confessed. The late Robert Gunning
would probably agree. Gunning, famed
for his knack of making magazines and
newspapers more readable, invented a
a measurement of readability. It is
called the Fog index, and it is based
on the number of years of schooling
you need before you can understand

 

the piece of writing in question.

The fewer big words you use and shorter
your sentences, the lower is. the fog in-
dex of your writing. J.D. Salinger's
novel, The Catcher in the Rye, has an
index of six, very readable for almost
everyone.

The Wall Street Journal says of the
Fog Index, "People prefer to read well
below their education level, and at a
fog index of 13...even a Ph.D.'s eyes
may start to glaze abit. At 17 vir-
tually the whole audience has fled."

Other examples show that the Altantic
Monthly can be readily understood by a
12th grader, Harper's, llth; Time, 10th;

Readers Digest, 9th and True Confessions,

ven.

What about Douglas College? Not to em
barrass anyone, but a sample of 10 dis-
ciplines and programs showed a range
from 8 to 18.6 or a graduate student
nearing completion of his doctorate.

Some suggestions to follow when you are
writing copy for publication:
1) Identify your audience.

2) Ask yourself how familiar the audience

is with the program or course you are
writing about.

3) How much information do they really
need? De not try to give a course
in the course description.

4) When possible try and give concrete
examples and be specific.

5) Try to give the reader something vis-
ual that they may identify with.

6) Try not to use passive verbs.

And a final note, according to the Bul-
letin of the College Public Relations
Association of Pennsylvannia, in acad-
emic journals .the fog is intentional:
A researcher at the Wharton School
found that academic researchers write
in an incomprehensible form because