Better Technical Writing for Everyone with Pam Hurley, PhD
Summary
Scott Hanselman welcomes Dr. Pam Hurley, founder of Hurley Write, to discuss the challenges and misconceptions surrounding technical and professional writing. Scott opens by confessing his own doubts about his writing abilities after decades in tech, setting the stage for a conversation about what constitutes “good” writing.
Dr. Hurley argues that good writing is not subjective but a measurable skill rooted in strategy and critical thinking—effectively “problem solving on paper.” She critiques traditional academic writing instruction, particularly the rigid five-paragraph essay and linear outlining processes, which she believes fail to prepare people for real-world communication. The discussion covers practical starting techniques to overcome writer’s block, such as free writing, dictation, and brainstorming, emphasizing that the first draft should never be the final draft and that no writing is truly wasted.
The conversation shifts to organizational challenges, including multi-author documents and the importance of audience analysis. Dr. Hurley stresses the need for teams to collaboratively define their audience, purpose, and desired outcome before writing begins, advocating for the “80-20 rule” where 80% of time is spent planning. She also addresses the role of tools like Grammarly and ChatGPT, viewing them as potential aids but not replacements for human critical thinking and brand voice.
Finally, they explore the broader ecosystem of communication, including presentations and document reviewing. Dr. Hurley highlights the need to train reviewers as well as writers to break cycles of learned helplessness and poor feedback. The episode concludes with Scott sharing a positive organizational practice of dedicating meeting time to silently read documents, ensuring shared understanding and valuing the written word.
Recommendations
Books
- A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving — Referenced by Dr. Hurley as an example of reverse-engineering a narrative; Irving starts his novels with the last sentence and works backwards, a technique she recommends for planning documents.
People
- John Warner — Mentioned by Scott as someone who believes the five-paragraph essay has ruined writing for a generation, a view with which Dr. Hurley strongly agrees.
Podcasts
- The Writing Podcast (by Hurley Write) — Dr. Hurley’s own podcast, mentioned in the conversation. Scott notes he listened to an episode from July, and Dr. Hurley mentions an episode about ‘your brain on writing.‘
Tools
- Meadow IoT Platform — Promoted by Scott in the introduction as a platform for .NET on microcontrollers, featuring secure over-the-air updates and enterprise integrations.
Topic Timeline
- 00:01:22 — Introduction and the Subjectivity of Good Writing — Scott introduces Dr. Pam Hurley and immediately questions whether good writing is subjective or measurable. Dr. Hurley argues it’s not subjective; it’s based on strategy and critical thinking. She criticizes how writing is often taught and reviewed based on personal pet peeves rather than objective standards.
- 00:03:00 — Overcoming Writer’s Block and Starting Techniques — Scott describes the common problem of staring at a blank page. Dr. Hurley strongly endorses his advice to “just start slapping the keyboard.” She advocates for pre-writing techniques like mind mapping, clustering, and free writing, separating the act of generating ideas from creating a polished draft.
- 00:04:44 — Debunking Rigid Writing Methodologies — Dr. Hurley criticizes the standard academic teaching of writing as “garbage,” particularly the enforced linear process of outlining first. She supports using dictation or any method that works for the individual, agreeing that formulaic approaches like the five-paragraph essay have harmed a generation of writers.
- 00:08:20 — Audience Analysis and Multi-Author Documents — Scott describes the chaos of a 40-person, 40-page “pillar document.” Dr. Hurley emphasizes the critical importance of knowing your audience and suggests starting multi-author projects with a collaborative brainstorming session to define the reader, purpose, and usage. She argues writing should be treated as a collaborative deliverable, not a siloed activity.
- 00:10:19 — The Difference Between English Degrees and Technical Communication — Scott asks about the distinction between a BA in English and a doctorate in technical communication. Dr. Hurley explains the deeper focus on theory and rhetorical analysis in advanced degrees, which translates to practical application. She also notes that being a good writer doesn’t automatically make someone a good teacher or reviewer of writing.
- 00:14:12 — Daily Practice for Better Writing — Dr. Hurley recommends a minimum of 15 minutes of reading and 15 minutes of writing daily to improve skills, stressing that this should be deliberate practice, not just writing emails. She encourages writing about anything to build the habit and let the brain solve problems through the writing process.
- 00:17:06 — Email as a Communication Tool — Both agree that email is where “keystrokes go to die.” They discuss reader expectations for brevity in email and recommend attaching or linking to longer documents instead. Dr. Hurley points out that clichéd openings like “hope all is well” can undermine your professional image.
- 00:18:58 — The 80-20 Rule and Reverse Engineering Documents — Dr. Hurley introduces the concept of spending 80% of your time planning a document and 20% writing it. She advocates for writing an “outcome statement” first—knowing your conclusion—and then reverse-engineering the document, similar to how author John Irving writes his novels. This focus prevents including unnecessary information.
- 00:21:29 — Tools, Fancy Words, and Preparing for the Workplace — Discussing his son’s college essays, Scott notes the overuse of tools like thesauruses to pick fancier words. Dr. Hurley critiques academia for rewarding this and failing to prepare students for real-world writing. She references Einstein’s idea that if you can’t explain something simply, you don’t understand it.
- 00:23:02 — The Role of AI and ChatGPT in Writing — Scott asks about the impact of ChatGPT. Dr. Hurley believes it can be a useful tool for prompts but currently produces robotic text lacking a unique human or brand voice (citing Chobani’s high-paid copywriter as an example). She predicts people will become savvier at differentiating between AI and human writing.
- 00:26:26 — The Three-Legged Stool and Training Reviewers — Scott notes the connection between writing, presentations, and verbal communication. Dr. Hurley agrees and expands on the importance of also training document reviewers. She criticizes the common practice of rewriting others’ work, which creates learned helplessness, and advocates for teaching reviewers to give constructive feedback.
Episode Info
- Podcast: Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman
- Author: Scott Hanselman
- Category: Technology Science Education How To
- Published: 2023-09-28T21:00:00Z
- Duration: 00:29:52
References
- URL PocketCasts: https://pocketcasts.com/podcast/b9630eb0-30de-0132-be16-5f4c86fd3263/episode/8df7f856-40a6-4ba9-9149-aeed566aae7d/
- Episode UUID: 8df7f856-40a6-4ba9-9149-aeed566aae7d
Podcast Info
- Name: Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman
- Type: episodic
- Site: https://www.hanselminutes.com
- UUID: b9630eb0-30de-0132-be16-5f4c86fd3263
Transcript
[00:00:00] Hey friends, I wanted to turn you on to a particular thing that I’m passionate about.
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[00:00:59] Check it out at wildernesslabs.co.
[00:01:15] Hi, I’m Scott Hanselman.
[00:01:17] This is another episode of Hansel Minutes.
[00:01:18] Today, we’re talking with Dr. Pam Hurley from Hurley-Wright.
[00:01:22] She’s a doctorate in technical communication from the University of South Carolina.
[00:01:26] How are you?
[00:01:27] I’m doing great.
[00:01:28] How are you?
[00:01:28] I am very excited to talk to you because I’ve been talking to a lot of folks in the technical
[00:01:33] writing and documentation space, and I’m starting to realize that after almost 32 years in tech
[00:01:38] that I may not be a very good writer.
[00:01:40] Well, it’s interesting how so many people will say, hey, I’m a great writer, and then
[00:01:45] you actually look at their writing and it’s like, maybe not.
[00:01:50] And good writing is relative, right, depending on the organizational standards and expectations
[00:01:54] and things like that.
[00:01:56] Is good writing an objective thing?
[00:01:58] Like, is it one of those things where you, Dr. Hurley, say, you know, Scott, I don’t think
[00:02:02] you’re a very good writer?
[00:02:03] And I say, well, says you, or can we measure it and actually indicate whether or not someone
[00:02:08] is a good writer or not?
[00:02:09] Or is it really just an opinion?
[00:02:11] No, I think it’s interesting because in academia, we’re kind of taught to believe that it is
[00:02:16] subjective.
[00:02:17] And a lot of that is mimicked in the workplace as well.
[00:02:20] For reviewers, for instance, they will focus on pet peeves or focus on it wasn’t written
[00:02:25] the way that I would have written it, and then it becomes subjective when it’s really
[00:02:29] not.
[00:02:29] It can be measured because good writing really boils down to strategy and critical thinking.
[00:02:36] And so if you can think, you can write.
[00:02:39] But unfortunately, that’s not the way that we’re taught.
[00:02:43] And in academia, we’re often taught that it’s a very linear process where, oh, you do an
[00:02:48] outline, and then you do a draft, and then you’re done, instead of thinking about it
[00:02:52] as a problem that we’re trying to solve.
[00:02:55] And that really is all it is, is writing is just problem solving on paper.
[00:03:00] I have been on a number of calls today at my day job talking with people of varying
[00:03:05] levels of their career, some early in career, younger people, and some people who are a
[00:03:08] little farther along, like myself.
[00:03:10] And the one thing that I found is that a lot of them are looking at an empty page, and
[00:03:15] they stare at this empty page, and they’re overwhelmed.
[00:03:18] Yes.
[00:03:18] And then they start to doubt themselves, and it’s this spiral.
[00:03:21] And I always tell them, just start slapping the keyboard.
[00:03:24] It doesn’t matter.
[00:03:24] But if you sit there, you’re…
[00:03:25] You’re hurting yourself.
[00:03:26] Is that good advice?
[00:03:27] That’s great advice.
[00:03:29] That’s absolutely right.
[00:03:30] It’s like anything else, getting started.
[00:03:32] Writing, unfortunately, in the workplace, people treat it as something personal, as
[00:03:37] though they’re looking at your diary or something like that, instead of thinking about it as
[00:03:41] just put something down.
[00:03:43] Your first draft should not be your final draft anyway.
[00:03:47] And one of the things we talk about in our courses is this idea of pre-writing, whether
[00:03:52] that’s mind mapping, or whether that’s clustering, or whether that’s brainstorming.
[00:03:55] Or whether that’s free writing.
[00:03:58] Yeah, just put the words out there and see what happens.
[00:04:01] And it may be total garbage.
[00:04:02] That’s okay.
[00:04:03] But the garbage is out there, and you can dismiss the garbage.
[00:04:06] But if you make the garbage the first draft, that’s a problem.
[00:04:09] So that’s fantastic advice.
[00:04:11] Just start writing.
[00:04:13] This is good.
[00:04:14] Okay, cool.
[00:04:15] So let me ask you another one, because this is all real.
[00:04:17] These are all real things that are happening to me every day.
[00:04:19] You know, you have like the dictation on your phone, and you have like Siri.
[00:04:23] You can talk to it.
[00:04:24] You can push the microphone button.
[00:04:25] You can start talking.
[00:04:25] I had to drive to Seattle to go to the home office.
[00:04:29] I had a four-hour drive.
[00:04:31] So I just hit record.
[00:04:32] I’m driving.
[00:04:33] I’m on Bluetooth, and I’m doing speech-to-text.
[00:04:36] And I ended up with two pages of absolute trash.
[00:04:40] But there were a couple of pretty good paragraphs in there.
[00:04:43] Is that a way to start?
[00:04:44] Absolutely, right?
[00:04:46] So, I mean, one of the things we need to understand, and again, I used to be an academician,
[00:04:51] so I can say this.
[00:04:51] The way that writing is taught in schools is garbage.
[00:04:55] It’s trash.
[00:04:56] And the reason I say that is because it’s taught as one, there’s only one way to do
[00:05:00] things.
[00:05:01] Again, you outline, then you write a graph.
[00:05:03] Instead of thinking about there are lots of different ways that people learn, and there’s
[00:05:07] lots of different ways that people approach tasks.
[00:05:09] I hate outlining.
[00:05:11] I remember when I was in high school, the teacher said, well, you have to write an outline
[00:05:14] and then write the paper.
[00:05:16] I’m no good at outlining.
[00:05:17] I wrote the paper, and then I went back and wrote the outline, because that’s not the
[00:05:20] way that I learned.
[00:05:21] That’s not the way that I think.
[00:05:22] And so there’s lots of different ways to approach writing.
[00:05:25] So if dictation works for you, try it.
[00:05:29] If rewriting works for you, do that.
[00:05:32] Brainstorming, mind mapping, a variety of these strategies can work.
[00:05:36] But to just assume that there’s only one way to do things is erroneous and doesn’t do anybody
[00:05:41] any good, to be quite honest.
[00:05:43] That is really interesting, because I was talking with John Warner, who believes that
[00:05:46] the five-paragraph essay has basically ruined writing for an entire generation.
[00:05:51] Totally agree.
[00:05:52] It’s ridiculous.
[00:05:53] I mean, in what other world is there?
[00:05:55] That it’s just, oh, it can only be five sentences.
[00:05:58] That’s it.
[00:05:59] And then what happens is people will focus on, well, I have four, so I’m going to take
[00:06:04] this good sentence and make it into two sentences, which makes it harder to read.
[00:06:09] And, you know, another thing that we hear oftentimes is that brevity is created via
[00:06:13] short sentences.
[00:06:15] Totally incorrect.
[00:06:16] As long sentences can be just as readable as a short sentence, right, depending on the
[00:06:21] complexity of the sentence.
[00:06:22] And you have to always understand who you’re writing for.
[00:06:25] What do they expect?
[00:06:27] I agree.
[00:06:27] These formulaic responses or formulaic ways of teaching writing are just ridiculous.
[00:06:34] And it’s incredibly unfortunate, because a lot of folks hang on to these.
[00:06:38] Once they graduate from college and they get into the workplace, they’re still hanging
[00:06:42] on to these antiquated, ridiculous methodologies.
[00:06:47] Okay.
[00:06:47] So I’m hearing that we are aggressively in agreement.
[00:06:50] Yes.
[00:06:50] That way we’ve learned how to write is problematic at best.
[00:06:54] I’ve heard they both.
[00:06:55] I’ve heard both that learning styles are a thing.
[00:06:57] I believe that they are.
[00:06:58] But I’ve also seen research recently that said, yeah, that whole learning style thing,
[00:07:01] everyone, this person’s an audio learner.
[00:07:03] This one’s a visual learner.
[00:07:04] Now they’re telling me it’s not a thing.
[00:07:06] But what I’m hearing you say is try stuff until it works.
[00:07:09] Be intentional and don’t try to fit into somebody else’s box.
[00:07:13] That’s exactly right.
[00:07:14] And I think a lot of people, especially the professionals we work with, don’t like to
[00:07:19] write.
[00:07:20] And when you don’t like to do something, you try to find the quickest and easiest way to
[00:07:25] accomplish that task.
[00:07:27] And so for a lot of them, they don’t try other things.
[00:07:30] The other issue that a lot of organizations have is, you know, we have a lot of clients.
[00:07:35] We have a lot of organizations that pay a lot of lip service to how important writing
[00:07:39] is, but they don’t give their writers the time and the space to try various things and
[00:07:45] to really write.
[00:07:46] And we hear all the time, well, I’m, you know, I don’t have much time to write.
[00:07:50] I can’t do this.
[00:07:51] I can’t do that.
[00:07:51] I can’t do the other because I don’t have the time.
[00:07:53] And it’s like, well.
[00:07:55] And organizations, if they want their writers to produce better documents, must give them
[00:08:01] the time and the space to do that.
[00:08:04] They give them time to practice other problems and to solve other problems.
[00:08:07] They don’t expect a problem to be solved in 15 minutes.
[00:08:11] But oftentimes with documents, that’s exactly what happens.
[00:08:15] Yeah, we have a document we have to write every couple of months for some vice presidents,
[00:08:20] and it’s called a pillar document.
[00:08:22] And it’s one big giant pile where…
[00:08:25] 40 people are in a 40-page document, and we try to have one voice.
[00:08:29] And I get overwhelmed with the, who is the audience?
[00:08:33] Who’s reading this thing anyway?
[00:08:35] Are we writing this for one person?
[00:08:36] Are we writing this for everyone?
[00:08:38] Is this a document that lives for a month?
[00:08:39] Or is it a document that actually, you know, is something where people will use as a reference?
[00:08:44] How important is thinking about my audience for writing?
[00:08:48] Incredibly important.
[00:08:48] And all those questions that you just asked are questions that should be asked of the
[00:08:52] group.
[00:08:53] Because what happens with a…
[00:08:55] The author document oftentimes is, it’ll be a sign.
[00:08:58] So you take this, and you take that, and you take the other instead of, let’s all get together
[00:09:03] at the beginning, and let’s brainstorm.
[00:09:05] Who are you writing for?
[00:09:06] What do we know about them?
[00:09:08] How are they going to use the document?
[00:09:09] All of those are incredibly important questions.
[00:09:12] Now, it may seem like an extra step in the process to take that brainstorming session
[00:09:17] happen, but you’re going to save a tremendous amount of time and energy.
[00:09:20] Because it’s impossible for 40 people, or however many it is, to write in one voice.
[00:09:25] But if everybody’s starting from the same page, then that’s going to be much more likely.
[00:09:30] The other thing we advocate with multi-author documents is that you meet throughout the
[00:09:35] writing of the document to make sure everybody’s on the same page and everybody’s aligned.
[00:09:39] It’s just kind of incredible that we treat writing oftentimes as a siloed activity that
[00:09:45] every person does individually instead of treating it as the document is the deliverable.
[00:09:51] So whether your name is on it or not, every document that’s written in every,
[00:09:55] every organization has everybody’s name on it.
[00:09:57] And so everybody should be involved in making sure that it’s the best that it can be.
[00:10:01] Then it’s an accurate reflection of the organization.
[00:10:06] I was trying to explain to my now senior 17-year-old son that life is just a big group
[00:10:10] project and you’re going to have to get used to it.
[00:10:13] I like that.
[00:10:14] That’s awesome.
[00:10:15] Now, I want to talk a little bit about your bona fides because I feel like everybody at
[00:10:19] work who I end up bumping into who has a BA in English feels like they can really criticize
[00:10:23] my work.
[00:10:24] No disrespect.
[00:10:25] No disrespect to any of our friends that have BAs in English, but help me understand
[00:10:27] the difference between a BA in English, which a lot of people have, and a doctorate in technical
[00:10:32] communication because you’re taking it to another level.
[00:10:35] And I assume that there’s quite a bit of rigor that’s more formal than a typical English
[00:10:39] degree.
[00:10:40] Yeah.
[00:10:40] We learn a lot more about the theory of writing.
[00:10:43] And I know a lot of people are like, oh, theory.
[00:10:45] You don’t need to know theory, but you do need to know theory.
[00:10:47] And the theory is based on this idea of who are you writing for?
[00:10:51] And so a lot of people, you know, say, well, who’s your audience?
[00:10:54] Okay.
[00:10:54] Well, my audience is Joe.
[00:10:56] Well, Joe, just saying your audience is Joe doesn’t tell you anything.
[00:11:00] But if we do a deep dive, if we do a rhetorical analysis, which is what we’re talking about
[00:11:05] when we talk about a doctorate, you do much more in terms of theory.
[00:11:09] And that theory can turn into practical application.
[00:11:13] A BA in English is going to give you the basics, if you will.
[00:11:17] And basics is not the right word, but it’s just going to give, you know, you take literature
[00:11:20] classes and writing fundamentals.
[00:11:22] Yeah.
[00:11:23] I mean, fundamentals is a better word.
[00:11:24] You take a lot of literature classes and things like that.
[00:11:28] English majors, in my humble opinion, are some of the smartest people on the planet
[00:11:31] because they’re thinkers.
[00:11:32] You have to be able to analyze and think and those kinds of things.
[00:11:37] The other thing that I will say about that is that just because you can write well doesn’t
[00:11:42] mean you can teach writing and doesn’t mean that you’re a good reviewer.
[00:11:46] So I would just put that out there because a lot of organizations will say, oh, Sue’s
[00:11:52] got a BA in English.
[00:11:53] So she can.
[00:11:54] She can review her work and edit it and all that kind of fun stuff.
[00:11:57] And it’s like, yeah, probably not.
[00:11:59] Maybe.
[00:12:00] I don’t know.
[00:12:01] Well, it puts a lot of pressure on folks like that because that absolutely does happen.
[00:12:04] We’ve all been in organizations where they have, oh, here, the English major will then
[00:12:07] be our copywriter or our reviewer.
[00:12:10] And that doesn’t lift the entire organization up.
[00:12:12] And I know that a big part of your company and your goals are to not just make one person
[00:12:16] a better writer, but to make an entire organization a better writing organization.
[00:12:20] That’s exactly right.
[00:12:21] One of the things that we have instituted lately.
[00:12:24] It is a communication audit where we go in, we try to understand what are the root causes
[00:12:30] of some of the communication problems you’re having.
[00:12:32] For instance, you might have person A who reviews and turns back documents with tons
[00:12:39] of comments on them.
[00:12:41] Some of them pet peeves, that kind of thing.
[00:12:43] You might have person B who returns documents with useful, thoughtful comments that really
[00:12:48] improve the document’s value.
[00:12:50] So we do that.
[00:12:51] We also have a standards class.
[00:12:53] And the standards class is for.
[00:12:54] Stakeholders so that they have a good understanding of what we’re going to teach in the class
[00:12:59] and the why behind it.
[00:13:00] Why are we teaching so that they can support the folks they put through the class long
[00:13:04] term.
[00:13:05] So we try to present an entire package, not just a writing course.
[00:13:09] And you have experience in different genres of writing.
[00:13:13] Like you developed a course, a graduate level course at Duke on scientific writing.
[00:13:17] I assume that scientific writing is different than the kind of technical writing that I
[00:13:21] as a programmer think about or writing documentation and things like.
[00:13:24] Yeah, absolutely.
[00:13:26] So the fundamentals of writing are the same.
[00:13:28] The foundations, knowing who you’re writing for, all those things you talked about earlier.
[00:13:32] But when you talk about scientific writing, it’s a lot more detailed than, for instance,
[00:13:36] business writing, which business writing is going to be primarily about, you know,
[00:13:40] emails and memos and things like that.
[00:13:42] When you think about technical writing, it’s going to be about user manual, standard operating
[00:13:47] procedures and those kinds of things.
[00:13:49] But yeah, a lot of it just depends that we do a lot of work with pharmaceutical organizations
[00:13:53] who are writing for the FDA.
[00:13:54] That’s a totally different thing than helping an organization who is, we do a lot of work
[00:14:01] for environmental consultants.
[00:14:02] You know, that’s a different kind of writing than writing for the FDA.
[00:14:07] Is a good way to be a better writer to read more and to find things you admire and read
[00:14:12] them?
[00:14:13] Absolutely.
[00:14:14] And read a variety of things.
[00:14:16] I mean, we find a lot of professionals we work with, they tend to read the same things over
[00:14:20] and over and over again, instead of reading novels.
[00:14:24] And short stories and newspaper articles and those kinds of things, because, and this is
[00:14:30] borne out by research.
[00:14:31] This isn’t something that I’ve made up or that you’ve made up, but research bears out.
[00:14:36] If you do a minimum of 15 minutes of reading a day, you’ll be a better writer.
[00:14:39] And along those same lines, you should do a minimum of 15 minutes of writing every day.
[00:14:45] So both of those things hand in hand will in fact improve one’s writing.
[00:14:49] And it’s common sense.
[00:14:50] I mean, it makes perfect sense that that would happen.
[00:14:52] And I want to actually agree with you.
[00:14:54] And say, yes.
[00:14:55] And because I’m going to say writing email doesn’t count.
[00:14:58] That’s not the kind of writing you’re talking about.
[00:15:00] I agree with that.
[00:15:01] No, I’m talking about 15 minutes of uninterrupted writing, regardless of, and to your point
[00:15:07] earlier, people get overwhelmed by the blank page or the blank screen, you know, just sitting
[00:15:12] there writing about anything.
[00:15:14] We tell people all the time, start out writing, you know, today I had coffee for breakfast
[00:15:18] and see where it takes you.
[00:15:19] I mean, it may take you on a great journey and you end up talking about something that,
[00:15:23] you know,
[00:15:24] you have some really great ideas or it’s again, as we talked about earlier, maybe total
[00:15:28] bar, but that’s okay too.
[00:15:30] It seems to me like you don’t think that there’s any wasted paragraphs, even a paragraph that
[00:15:34] gets written and immediately deleted.
[00:15:36] There was not a waste in that motion.
[00:15:37] No, not a waste at all.
[00:15:39] Everything you write is valuable in some way, shape, form, or fashion.
[00:15:42] I would much rather see people produce five pages of total junk than sit there for hours
[00:15:49] and hours and hours and hours to produce two paragraphs that probably still need to be
[00:15:53] rewritten.
[00:15:54] We have a great podcast and one of the podcast episodes is about your brain and your brain
[00:15:59] on writing and how your brain works when it writes.
[00:16:02] And it is, it is just problem solving.
[00:16:04] And if you’re sitting there constantly trying to figure out the perfect solution to the
[00:16:07] problem, you’re never going to do that.
[00:16:10] But if you let your brain solve the problem through the writing process, you’re going
[00:16:16] to come up with a great solution.
[00:16:18] It works.
[00:16:19] Again, research bears this out.
[00:16:20] It’s not just me saying this.
[00:16:22] And that’s your podcast.
[00:16:23] The writing.
[00:16:24] It’s on Docs, correct?
[00:16:25] That’s on Spotify.
[00:16:26] That is correct.
[00:16:27] Yes.
[00:16:27] Have you listened?
[00:16:28] I have.
[00:16:29] I listened to the one from July.
[00:16:31] Nice.
[00:16:31] Thank you for doing that.
[00:16:32] My pleasure.
[00:16:33] I got to do your research, right?
[00:16:34] Whether you’re writing or whether you’re having a podcast like me, you got to do your research.
[00:16:38] That’s right.
[00:16:39] Here’s the thing though.
[00:16:40] You say that there’s no wasted keystrokes, but I think writing emails is a huge waste.
[00:16:45] So I’ve been telling people for years, rather than writing an email, write a document and
[00:16:50] then send a link to the document in email.
[00:16:52] Because the email will be long forgotten.
[00:16:54] But if they can get to the Google Doc or the SharePoint site or whatever, that document
[00:16:59] will live on and they can put their comments in the document.
[00:17:02] They’re never going to find anything.
[00:17:03] Email is where keystrokes go to die.
[00:17:06] But documents get shared.
[00:17:08] Totally agree.
[00:17:09] This is a vendor a few years ago and his emails were so long.
[00:17:13] Every time I got one, I just wouldn’t read it.
[00:17:15] So we have to think about expectations.
[00:17:17] What do readers expect?
[00:17:18] So if I hand you a newspaper or a magazine article, you have a certain expectation when
[00:17:23] you sit down to read that.
[00:17:24] That’s a good thing.
[00:17:24] That it’s going to be this or that or the other.
[00:17:26] And it’s going to be a certain length.
[00:17:27] And there’s going to be headings in it and that kind of thing.
[00:17:29] The expectation for an email is that it’s going to be short and easy to read.
[00:17:34] And so when you have something extra, put it to your point.
[00:17:39] Put it in as an attachment or make it a link to a Google Doc and make the email short and
[00:17:44] to the point.
[00:17:45] One of the things that drives me crazy is people writing email now, they start every
[00:17:51] email with, oh, hope all is well.
[00:17:52] I’m just like, ah, stop.
[00:17:53] Ah, stop.
[00:17:55] But this is what people do.
[00:17:57] Or these out-of-office messages, I’m currently out of the office.
[00:18:00] Well, we know you’re out of the office because we got your out-of-office.
[00:18:03] My point is the word currently isn’t necessary.
[00:18:05] Think about what it is you’re trying to achieve.
[00:18:08] If I start an email and you go, well, I’m trying to be polite when I start with hope
[00:18:12] all is well.
[00:18:12] But everybody else does that too.
[00:18:14] So how are you presenting yourself?
[00:18:17] Right?
[00:18:18] So it’s that kind of thing.
[00:18:19] And if you overwhelm somebody with a lengthy email, what are you telling them?
[00:18:23] Right?
[00:18:24] So it goes back to the image of, you know, people judge you based on the documents you
[00:18:29] write, whether you like it or not.
[00:18:30] That’s what they do.
[00:18:32] So I have always been a big fan of deliberate practice and intentionality.
[00:18:35] And anytime I get overwhelmed, I just stop and I go, what the heck am I doing here?
[00:18:40] What am I doing?
[00:18:40] What is my goal?
[00:18:41] Who is the audience?
[00:18:42] Why am I doing this?
[00:18:43] And if I need to go for a walk, I go for a walk.
[00:18:45] However, how do you take the kind of intentionality that you’re telling me to apply to my writing
[00:18:49] and not turn that into analysis paralysis?
[00:18:54] Oh, exactly right.
[00:18:54] Well, I think one of the ways that you do that is one of the things we talk about in
[00:18:58] all of our classes is the beauty of planning.
[00:19:00] You should apply the 80-20 rule.
[00:19:02] 80% of your time should be spent planning and 20% should be writing.
[00:19:06] Most people don’t do that, right?
[00:19:08] They start writing and hope for the best.
[00:19:10] They send it out for review and it gets back and whatever.
[00:19:13] But if you spend the time planning, you know, who is your reader?
[00:19:16] And when I talk about planning, I’m talking about planning on paper.
[00:19:19] I’m not talking about planning in your head because you’ve got a million things going
[00:19:22] on.
[00:19:23] You’ve got a million things going on in your brain all the time.
[00:19:25] So doing that deep dive into who your readers are, what do they expect, right?
[00:19:28] As we talked about with emails, what do they know about the topic?
[00:19:31] One of the things we see so often is a document where there’s so much background information
[00:19:38] that the reader already knows that you wasted the reader’s time trying to go through that.
[00:19:43] Planning, we call it the outcome statement.
[00:19:46] And the outcome statement is simply a roadmap.
[00:19:49] You know, what’s your roadmap?
[00:19:50] How are you going to get to your conclusion?
[00:19:53] I always bring up the, are you familiar with John Irving, the author John Irving, A Prayer
[00:19:57] for Owen Meany?
[00:19:58] Oh, yeah.
[00:19:58] I love Owen Meany.
[00:20:00] That’s one of my favorite books.
[00:20:01] Love that book.
[00:20:02] But he starts his novels with the last sentence and then he works backwards.
[00:20:08] But people don’t do that when they write.
[00:20:10] They start from the beginning and they feel like it’s a linear process that they start
[00:20:14] at the beginning and work to the end.
[00:20:16] Whereas if they knew where they were going, right?
[00:20:18] If I write that outcome statement and I know where I’m going, it’s going to be much easier
[00:20:21] for me to take that journey.
[00:20:23] If I’m visiting the big ball of yarn in Kansas, I’m not going to just get in the car and drive.
[00:20:28] I’m going to plan the route.
[00:20:29] I’m right.
[00:20:30] So we talk about that a lot.
[00:20:31] Reverse engineering the document.
[00:20:34] That is so obvious, but probably not something I’m ever doing because in meetings, we start
[00:20:40] meetings with, all right, folks, why are we having this meeting?
[00:20:42] What’s our goal here?
[00:20:42] What’s the, what’s success look like for this meeting?
[00:20:45] But now I’m not staring at that white page wondering what’s the success look like for
[00:20:50] this document.
[00:20:50] And I should.
[00:20:52] Exactly.
[00:20:52] Exactly.
[00:20:52] Everybody.
[00:20:53] We should.
[00:20:53] Most people, if they started there, they would be more successful because what that does
[00:20:58] is it automatically limits the kind and the amount of information that you can include.
[00:21:02] Because if my goal is to get the reader to do X, then there’s only a certain amount of
[00:21:06] information that I can include.
[00:21:08] But if I start at the beginning and I don’t know where I’m going, then obviously I’m going
[00:21:13] to include a lot of unnecessary information, which we see a lot.
[00:21:16] I mean, professionals across the board, unnecessary information is probably one of the worst things
[00:21:23] things they do.
[00:21:24] Speaking of unnecessary, as my 17-year-old is starting to write his college essays, I
[00:21:29] am noticing that because he’s an emerging young person, he’s not quite plugged in, he’s
[00:21:36] unfortunately leaning on tools like Grammarly, the Thesaurus in Word, and he’ll pick a word,
[00:21:42] which is a perfectly cromulent word, and then he’ll pick a fancier word because it felt
[00:21:46] fancier.
[00:21:47] How do we keep people from using these tools as a crutch?
[00:21:50] Yeah.
[00:21:51] You know, and unfortunately…
[00:21:53] And again, I’m going to say this because I used to be an academician, but that’s what
[00:21:58] the academy wants.
[00:21:59] That’s what schools want.
[00:22:00] They want people to use big words.
[00:22:03] They want them to write 10 pages when they could.
[00:22:06] And I’m guilty of that, too.
[00:22:08] I used to get my freshman to write a 10-page paper.
[00:22:10] Now, the thinking behind it was rational, right?
[00:22:13] I want you to stretch yourself and that kind of thing.
[00:22:16] But then when you take that information and they apply it in the workplace, it just doesn’t
[00:22:21] work.
[00:22:22] So we do.
[00:22:23] We have a really poor job of preparing people for the workplace.
[00:22:27] Colleges don’t do a good job in terms of writing.
[00:22:29] I’m not saying other subjects, but in terms of writing, most schools do a poor job.
[00:22:35] Most students have to take two semesters.
[00:22:36] That’s it.
[00:22:37] And I’ve had engineers say to me, well, I didn’t know I was going to have to write so
[00:22:40] much when I got into this job.
[00:22:43] Well, and why?
[00:22:45] Because universities don’t prepare them for it.
[00:22:48] So there has to be a change in the academic world.
[00:22:52] For things to change.
[00:22:54] And I don’t foresee that happening anytime soon.
[00:22:57] Well, sorry to take that downer statement and maybe make it a bigger downer.
[00:23:02] But now we’ve got things like ChatGPT, which are just the thesaurus on steroids with a
[00:23:08] little statistics sprinkled in for good fun, where this very large language model is effectively
[00:23:13] just picking the next obvious word and kind of running downhill without a plan.
[00:23:19] What’s your feeling about that?
[00:23:20] Is it just going to continue to make people poor writers?
[00:23:22] Or can it be used as an effective tool for some reason?
[00:23:25] I think it can be used as an effective tool.
[00:23:27] I do think, you know, since it’s in its infancy, I don’t think that we have wrestled with that
[00:23:33] enough.
[00:23:33] I do know that I have read things that were written by humans versus ChatGPT, and I can
[00:23:38] tell the difference.
[00:23:40] It’s very robotic.
[00:23:42] And the other thing about writing is, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Chobani is hiring
[00:23:46] a copywriter, $300,000 a year.
[00:23:49] Chobani the yogurt?
[00:23:51] Yogurt.
[00:23:52] Yogurt.
[00:23:52] And people are going berserk.
[00:23:54] But when you think about it, Chobani has a unique brand voice, and ChatGPT just isn’t
[00:24:01] going to be able to capture that.
[00:24:03] Now, maybe five years from now or 10 years from now, it will.
[00:24:06] But I think what’s going to happen, and I don’t know this, obviously, because I can’t
[00:24:10] predict the future, but I think what’s going to happen is that people are going to become
[00:24:14] much more savvy in terms of being able to differentiate between the human touch, if
[00:24:21] you will.
[00:24:21] And ChatGPT, I do think it can be used as a tool for prompts and things like that.
[00:24:28] But as a substitute for writing, we’re not there yet.
[00:24:31] The way I was trying to explain to my kids was that it’s fun, and it’s exciting, and
[00:24:35] it’s a burst of serotonin to eat a bunch of gummy worms.
[00:24:38] But the payoff is usually a tummy ache, and you kind of go, oh, I’m filled with regret.
[00:24:42] The same thing happens when you write an essay with a very large language model.
[00:24:47] Protein and a balanced diet and a book where you go, oh, man, what a great word.
[00:24:51] That was the perfect word.
[00:24:52] I love that the, like, I’m a highlighter.
[00:24:54] I highlight stuff.
[00:24:55] And I have all my highlights from all my Kindle books when I like, oh, that isn’t just a good
[00:24:59] thesaurus word, but they picked the perfect word, that Hemingway-esque word where you
[00:25:04] go like, oh, that word scratched a neuron.
[00:25:07] I want to be that kind of a writer, not the kind of like, oh, I picked, I said melefluous
[00:25:12] because it was, it felt good in my mouth.
[00:25:15] Right.
[00:25:16] And we have that, we have that all the time, and people just try to use the biggest word
[00:25:20] they possibly can.
[00:25:21] And I’ve been thinking, you know, it makes me look smarter.
[00:25:23] And one of the things I’ve tried to explain to the professionals we work with, it really
[00:25:27] doesn’t.
[00:25:28] What makes you look smart is if, and I think it’s Einstein who said this, I don’t know,
[00:25:31] it’s probably been attributed to other people other than him, but if you can’t explain it
[00:25:35] simply, then you simply don’t understand it.
[00:25:38] And so when you think about who your readers are, you know, are there readers other than
[00:25:42] a primary or they’re secondary or they’re non-technical readers, as you pointed out
[00:25:46] earlier, the longevity of the document is somebody, you know, language change is so
[00:25:51] rapidly, is somebody going to be able to pick up your document five years from now and
[00:25:55] understand it.
[00:25:56] So, you know, we always have to think about these things.
[00:25:59] It’s not just the word of the day that we should be using.
[00:26:02] We have to think about the longevity and multiple readers and things like that.
[00:26:06] You also do courses on giving great presentations.
[00:26:09] So there’s kind of like this three-legged stool.
[00:26:10] There’s the long form business or technical document.
[00:26:13] There’s the, you know, the PowerPoint, God help us, using PowerPoint as a word like Kleenex,
[00:26:17] even though we mean, right, presentations.
[00:26:20] And then there’s also the actual, you know, the PowerPoint, the PowerPoint, the PowerPoint, the
[00:26:20] PowerPoint, the PowerPoint, the PowerPoint, the PowerPoint, the PowerPoint, the PowerPoint, the PowerPoint, the
[00:26:21] PowerPoint, the PowerPoint, the PowerPoint, the PowerPoint, the PowerPoint, the PowerPoint,
[00:26:21] communication.
[00:26:22] You focus primarily on the written word, but isn’t that a three-legged stool?
[00:26:26] Oh, yeah.
[00:26:26] Without a doubt.
[00:26:27] We also do a, offer a reviewing class because one of the things that we found is if the
[00:26:33] writers are learning what they learned, but the reviewers are continuing to do the same
[00:26:37] things, then that’s a problem.
[00:26:40] And so we teach the reviewers how to review.
[00:26:43] One of the things we hear a lot is, well, I’ve made this comment on their documents
[00:26:46] 25 times and they’re not doing it.
[00:26:49] And then the other thing we hear is, well, I’m just,
[00:26:51] I’m not doing it.
[00:26:51] I just rewrite their documents because it’s, it’s just easier.
[00:26:54] And what that facilitates is this learned helplessness because why in the world would
[00:26:59] I want to improve my writing skills if I know you’re just going to rewrite it for me?
[00:27:03] I wouldn’t, right?
[00:27:04] Because I’ve got other things to do and that kind of thing.
[00:27:06] But yeah, I mean, a lot of the concepts are the same in terms of presentations.
[00:27:11] Who are you presenting to?
[00:27:13] How do you use PowerPoints effectively?
[00:27:15] I mean, PowerPoints to your point are the bane of our existence, I think, my goodness.
[00:27:19] And everybody complains, oh.
[00:27:20] That was death by PowerPoint.
[00:27:22] And then they go and they do exactly the same thing.
[00:27:25] We were working with an organization.
[00:27:26] This is about a month ago.
[00:27:28] And oh my gosh, their PowerPoints were, they were sales.
[00:27:32] And it’s just, they would have one PowerPoint slide with the same information represented
[00:27:36] three different ways.
[00:27:37] And I’m like, let’s just pick the simplest way and be done.
[00:27:40] Why are you doing that?
[00:27:42] I mean, but that’s the point.
[00:27:44] You have to have a why with whatever you do when you talk about writing, you have to have a why.
[00:27:48] And if you have a good reason for doing that,
[00:27:51] have at it.
[00:27:52] But if you don’t have a good reason, if there’s no why behind that,
[00:27:55] then you need to rethink what you’re doing.
[00:27:57] Yeah, this is great.
[00:27:58] We’ve actually been starting doing writing things down culture.
[00:28:02] You know, we hear a lot about Bezos and folks over at Amazon, how they really do less PowerPoints,
[00:28:06] no PowerPoints, and a lot more documents.
[00:28:08] One of our executives is now having people come to the meeting and we sit quietly in a room and
[00:28:13] we read the document so that this argument of like, I didn’t have time for the pre-read
[00:28:17] is not a thing.
[00:28:18] We’re all going to sit.
[00:28:19] Here’s a five-page document.
[00:28:20] We worked really hard on everybody.
[00:28:22] Shut up.
[00:28:22] We’re going to sit here for five minutes and quietly read it and then talk about it.
[00:28:26] And it’s been very effective.
[00:28:27] That’s awesome.
[00:28:28] No, I love that idea.
[00:28:29] That’s a great idea.
[00:28:30] Because I mean, people, you know, we talk about this in our classes too.
[00:28:33] If you send me a document and I know you’re a poor writer,
[00:28:37] I probably ain’t going to put your document at the bottom of the pile
[00:28:40] because people have to make decisions, right?
[00:28:43] We’re all time constrained and that kind of thing and bombarded with information.
[00:28:47] So I have to make good decisions about what I’m going to spend my time on.
[00:28:50] And people don’t think about that.
[00:28:51] They think, oh, if I write it, they’re going to read it.
[00:28:53] Well, not necessarily.
[00:28:55] Well, this has been a joy to chat with you.
[00:28:57] You are great fun.
[00:28:58] And I’m sure that the instructors at Hurley Write are just as much fun.
[00:29:01] They’re fabulous.
[00:29:02] I know you have self-paced courses for writing for engineers,
[00:29:06] which I’m really interested in.
[00:29:07] But you also do virtual training, on-site training.
[00:29:10] Anyone who wants to learn how to write can go and check this out at hurleywrite,
[00:29:13] H-U-R-L-E-Y, write.com.
[00:29:16] Right now, I’m at slash courses,
[00:29:18] and I’m reading all about the courses that are available.
[00:29:20] Thank you so much, Dr. Pam Hurley.
[00:29:23] Well, thank you very much.
[00:29:24] I appreciate it very much, Scott.
[00:29:26] Thank you for having me.
[00:29:27] This has been another episode of Hansel Minutes,
[00:29:29] and we’ll see you again next week.
[00:29:31] Thank you.
[00:29:32] Thank you.
[00:29:50] Thank you.
[00:29:51] Thank you.
[00:29:51] Thank you.
[00:29:51] Thank you.