Dale Carnegie explains how empathy helps writers connect with their readers

Author and lecturer Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) frequently discussed empathy in his self-development books and courses.

For example, in his bestseller* How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), he quoted Henry Ford: “If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.”

Mr. Carnegie commented, “That is so simple, so obvious, that anyone ought to see the truth of it at a glance; yet 90 percent of the people on this earth ignore it 90 percent of the time.”

As an example of ignoring empathy, he analyzed a letter from an advertising agency executive to the managers of radio stations. Mr. Carnegie interspersed his (probably dramatized) reactions to each paragraph. Here is a sample:

Mr. John Blank,
Blankville, Indiana

Dear Mr. Blank:

The _______ company desires to retain its position in advertising agency leadership in the radio field.

[Who cares what your company desires? I am worried about my own problems. The bank is foreclosing the mortgage on my house, the bugs are destroying the hollyhocks, the stock market tumbled yesterday. I missed the eight-fifteen this morning, I wasn’t invited to the Jones’s dance last night, the doctor tells me I have high blood pressure and neuritis and dandruff. And then what happens? I come down to the office this morning worried, open my mail and here is some little whippersnapper off in New York yapping about what his company wants. Bah! If he only realized what sort of impression his letter makes, he would get out of the advertising business and start manufacturing sheep dip.]

This agency’s national advertising accounts were the bulwark of the network. Our subsequent clearances of station time have kept us at the top of agencies year after year.

[You are big and rich and right at the top, are you? So what? I don’t give two whoops in Hades if you are as big as General Motors and General Electric and the General Staff of the U.S. Army all combined. If you had as much sense as a half-witted hummingbird, you would realize that I am interested in how big I am – not how big you are. All this talk about your enormous success makes me feel small and unimportant.]

We desire to service our accounts with the last word on radio station information.

[You desire! You desire. You unmitigated ass. I’m not interested in what you desire or what the President of the United States desires. Let me tell you once and for all that I am interested in what I desire – and you haven’t said a word about that yet in this absurd letter of yours.]

And so on.

Mr. Carnegie wrote those words 75 years ago. It is tempting to assume that, in our “non-judgmental” era, readers are more tolerant of writing that lacks empathy.

In fact, the opposite is true: Readers are less tolerant than ever. As direct-response marketers have confirmed by test after test, the average reader spends about four seconds deciding whether to read your letter** or drop it into the wastebasket.

That means the average reader (230 words per minute) will give you only 15 words to get him interested in what you have to say.

Now then. How many words are you willing to waste talking about yourself before you directly and clearly tell the reader what’s in it for him?

The Takeaway: Empathy is the first thing a writer needs. Discipline is the second. Everything else is a detail. Here are links to ten of my posts about empathy:

Puerile writing vs. grown-up writing (1)
Avoid being too academic – even if you’re an academic
If you want to build trust, don’t use jargon
Readers can't help judging you by your writing
“The Gobbledygook Manifesto,” by David Meerman Scott
When a reader says your writing is not clear
Empathy for the non-technical reader
Writing can make or break the sale
Empathy always matters – sometimes a lot
The greatest error: failure to empathize

*The title, which suggests psychological manipulation, was chosen by the publisher over the author’s protests. It is grossly inaccurate. As those who have actually read the book are aware, Mr. Carnegie based his advice on sincerity, not manipulation.

**That’s for a paper letter. For an email, it’s 3 seconds or less.

See disclaimer.

Mantra overload (7) – Oprah Winfrey on Jonathan Franzen

Mantra overload – the excessive use of trendy, vague expressions – is a widespread habit among celebrities. Impresario Oprah Winfrey is an example.

Here is the statement she issued when, in 2001, she disinvited novelist Jonathan Franzen to appear on her show (color added, to highlight mantras):

“Jonathan Franzen will not be on the Oprah Winfrey show because he is seemingly uncomfortable and conflicted about being chosen as a book club selection. It is never my intention to make anyone uncomfortable or cause anyone conflict.”

I count 4 mantras in 38 words.

The Takeaway: If you intend to write clearly, do not mimic celebrities. With rare exceptions, their speech and writing is superficial or evasive – and loaded with mantras. In writing, and especially in formal writing, use mantras sparingly or not at all. Keep asking yourself, “What do I really mean?” Over time, this diligent habit will make your writing more precise and more honest.

See disclaimer.

Grammatical parallelism, parallel structure, parallel construction, parallel form (4)

Grammatical parallelism is also called parallel structure, parallel construction, and parallel form. It is the use of equivalent syntax to array equivalent ideas. Parallelism makes writing easier to read; faulty parallelism makes writing harder to read.

An example of faulty parallelism

Consider the following list of “13 Horrific Social Media Practices.”

1. #Placing a #hashtag #before #each #word of a #tweet

2. Ensuring that every tweet includes an @reply with your name. Nope that doesn’t increase your Klout…

3. Arbitrary people @replying you in their tweets trying to sell you something…très annoying

4. Complaining about your job , bosses, relationships and life in general day after day after day…Get over yourself

5. Providing sage quotes as your status updates daily…yes you’re clever, very clever

6. Faceless, nameless entities commenting on blog posts with the line “Great Post/ Great Content…I found it useful” and leading back to some dodgy link. Thank goodness for askimet and by the way we know you are a bot.

7. The demise of Google Wave…I’m probably one of the few who will miss you.

8. Posting unflattering pics of yourselves and receiving “Wow…great photo…you look lovely” comments from friends. Note to you, they aren’t really your friends.

9. Friends tagging you in unflattering photos. Are these really your friends?

10. Not having the dsilike button on Facebook.

11. Having the dislike button but knowing I’ll never use it because “my friends” may be offended. I’m human after all , can’t live with… can’t live without

12. Fanpages that don’t allow fan comments by default.

13. Forums which insist that you must add their logo before you can participate /get an invite / use them.

Analysis of the example

This list rates a high 65.9 on the Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) test, because the sentences are short (average 12.5 words) and the words are short (average 4.6 characters). However, the list is not easy to read; the major reason* is faulty parallelism. The list contains four different grammatical structures: gerund; subject and participial phrase; subject and relative clause; subject and no phrase, clause or verb:

01 placing a hashtag (gerund)
02 ensuring that (gerund)
03 people replying (subject and participial phrase)
04 complaining about (gerund)
05 providing quotes (gerund)
06 entities commenting (subject and participial phrase)
07 demise of Google Wave (subject and no phrase, clause or verb)
08 posting pics (gerund)
09 friends tagging (subject and participial phrase)
10 having the button (gerund)
11 having the button (gerund)
12 fanpages that allow (subject and relative clause)
13 forums which insist (subject and relative clause)

Normally, readers expect to encounter only one structure throughout a list. So, each time the structure changes, readers are thrown off balance; they have to decode a new structure. The effect is cumulative; readers’ frustration increases with each change.

The Takeaway: Check your parallel constructions to make sure they really are parallel. This is one of the quickest fixes you can make during a copy-edit. Parallelism will make your copy easier to read. Your readers will notice and appreciate it.

*There are other types of errors in this list, but we don’t have the space to discuss them here.

See disclaimer.

More John Leo: good advice for young writers

Recently I recommended an essay by author John Leo, a man who has wisdom useful to young writers.

Here’s a longer piece by Mr. Leo. It’s a speech he delivered at Ursinus College in 2006. It combines good advice on the basics of writing and interesting background on how writing has changed over the last few generations.

As an example of change, the speech describes how the per-word pricing of telegrams inspired telegram senders to omit all unnecessary words. Occasionally, this “telegraphic” style caused amusing ambiguities, such as in this celebrated example:

When Cary Grant was abroad, a feature writer cabled him from New York to doublecheck his age. “How old Cary Grant?” asked the message. Grant cabled back, “Old Cary Grant fine. How you?”

The Takeaway: Read John Leo’s speech, “On Good Writing.” In only 3,250 words, it delivers a wealth of advice useful to young writers.

See disclaimer.

A readability example, before and after (1)

To produce clear writing, you need to produce readable writing. Readability is a prerequisite to clarity. Let’s take a look at a readability example: two difficult paragraphs and a rewrite of the same two paragraphs.

For the readability measurements, I used Flesch Reading Ease (FRE). FRE scores typically run from 0 (very low readability) to 100 (very high readability). Here are a few sample ranges of scores:

60s Reader’s Digest
50s Time magazine
40s The Wall Street Journal
30s Harvard Law Review; white papers
20s IRS forms; academic papers
10s Many high-tech web sites

Readability example: before

Here are two consecutive paragraphs from the web site of a technology company:

Maintaining compliance with the growing number of industry regulations can be an overwhelming, costly and time consuming effort for organizations. Additionally, the financial and legal ramifications of a regulatory violation could be enormous, not to mention the potential negative impact on an organization’s reputation. Assuring the integrity and privacy of financial and operational information is a necessity for an organization's risk mitigation and regulatory compliance strategy.

Today’s enterprise needs to comply with international, federal and state mandates, follow corporate best practices and maintain client and investor confidence, therefore organizations must have continuous auditing and compliance processes and controls in place to safeguard critical data.

The FRE score is 0.0 – harder to read than a tax form.

Readability example: after

Without losing any important content, you could quickly and easily revise it to this:

To comply with the growing number of industry regulations can be overwhelming, costly and time consuming. A single violation could be costly and legally complex. And it could damage your reputation. You must assure the integrity and privacy of financial and operational information. And you must make this assurance part of your risk mitigation and regulatory compliance strategy.

Today, you must comply with international, federal and state mandates. You must follow corporate best practices and maintain client and investor confidence. To achieve all that, you need to safeguard critical data. And to do that, you need to have continuous auditing and compliance processes and controls in place.

The FRE score is 40.5 – about as readable as The Wall Street Journal.

Whenever you write, be mindful of word length and sentence length. Whenever you edit, watch for long words that should be short words. And consider breaking up any sentences longer than 20 words.

For business writing, always try for a score above 50. Settle for 30 to 50 if the topic requires it (as I did here). But never go below 30. That’s where you start losing readers – and sales.

Readers of academic and scientific writing generally tolerate lower readability than readers of business writing. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you should strive for a low score in academic and scientific writing. All readers appreciate high readability, often unconsciously.

The Takeaway: Get in the habit of checking readability as you check spelling. Aim high. With continued practice, you will be able to attain high scores almost effortlessly.

See Disclaimer.