Becoming a better communicator

[Fawkes]

So, I've discovered that I'm a really poor communicator. No matter how hard I try, I always end up writing either incredibly long, run-on sentences or really short and abrupt ones. Not only do I do that, I also have a tendency to use "academic" or less common words even when I try not to. I speak in much the same way whenever I'm saying something that's actually serious.


I think part of my problem is in an overuse of adjectives, but there's also a part of me that justifies that as just being descriptive and detailed. (see, just used two words when one probably would've worked). It's almost like whenever I say/write an adjective I immediately follow it with "and" or a comma, as if the one is never enough.

Obviously the most sensible solution is to just use less adjectives, less academic words, and more concise sentences, but that obviously ain't working. Anyone know of any good strategies to use to improve communication skills? (and I use "to" too much. I could've just said "strategies for improving", but noooo......)

[praxis1966]

I wish I could help more but I trend toward similar problems. Split infinitives and dangling participles are going to be the death of me. I'll be damned if I don't love extraneous punctuation as well, lol. I had a frickin' college English professor who used to give me Cs and Ds constantly. Her primary criticism was that I too often substitute diction for coherence. In other words, she had to use a dictionary in order to understand my writing and didn't like it... I didn't figure I had to "dumb down" my work for someone who supposedly had a master's degree, lol.

Anyway, personally I say fuck it. There's only ever going to be one Ernest Hemingway. What's the point in everyone trying to imitate him? Not only that, but I see no reason why we always have to pretend like we're writing for USA Today (whose style sheet explicitly states that its writers must not write above a 6th grade reading level). My primary advice would be just to know your audience and work from there. Something you're writing for public consumption is necessarily going to have vast differences from something written for academia, ie college assignments.


I think part of my problem is in an overuse of adjectives, but there's also a part of me that justifies that as just being descriptive and detailed. (see, just used two words when one probably would've worked).

Yeah, you're right. That is a borderline, if not full blown, tautology.:lol:

[o well this is ok I guess]

It's important to find real life substitutes for your academic words.
You might not be able to do it with species-being, but I not longer have any reason to say "praxis" apart from on university papers.