Four ways to help boost your writing skills

Continuing on our series theme in August on how to improve Kenyan writing standards up to international levels and write like bosses, today we investigate four powerful writing techniques: active, action, transitions, and capitalisation.

Like stated before, us Kenyans need to lift our professional writing abilities to match our mathematical and inter-personal prowess.

So, remember the paragraphs that you wrote last week. Or, if you did not write a paragraph before, please take a moment and write some type of company announcement about an upcoming change initiative.

Active voice versus passive voice

Often times in verbal English, people utilise lazy passive voice language. However, such passive sentence construction should not allow itself to creep into our writing.

An example: “Ugali is eaten by Kenyans” might stand as a common phrase. Do you like how it sounds when you read it? If you heard it audibly, you might not think twice. Nonetheless, viewing the example in writing does indeed seem odd.

What better way might you phrase the sentence to show active voice, not passive voice? If you chose to rephrase the sentence and write “Kenyans eat ugali”, then go grab some chai and mandazi because you earned an award on your path to better writing skills.

When you write a sentence, the object of your sentence should receive the action. So, which sentence is correct? The first: “Everybody eats nyama choma” or the second: “Nyama choma is eaten by everyone”.

The first sentence’s object, nyama choma, receives the action, instead of the subject receiving the action in sentence number two. Therefore, the first sentence stands correct.

One more practice, choice number one: “The citizens are led by President Uhuru”, or choice number two: “President Uhuru leads the citizens”.

Notice that the second choice provides more direct and clear sentence structure. Please reread your written paragraph now and change any passive voice sentences to reflect choice number two.

No simple actions

Many Westerners learn at early ages to avoid over utilising easy simple verbs. As a writer myself and to keep my research publishing as well as the Business Daily more interesting, I actively avoid the use of boring verbs.

Remember from primary school that verbs show action, such as: swim, climb, study, and walk.

However, the important feature of verbs that we do not learn often in Kenya: our choice of verb matters tremendously. Choose a verb that shows action and makes the sentence interesting.

So, instead of stating “I will try”, write “I endeavour to”. Likewise, rather than a simple “We are good”, write a deeper “Optimism fills the company”.

Avoid using simple linking verbs: am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been, do, did, does, may, might, etc. Now practice rewriting your own paragraph to eliminate such easy verbs.

If you customarily utilised linking verbs before today, then inserting substitute verbiage and changing around sentence structures should prove challenging for two to three days.

By the end of the third day of intentionally avoiding poor verb choices, your writing shall begin to flow more professionally.

Which verbs should you incorporate into your written vocabulary instead of linking verbs? Try: intend, energise, and smash, to name a few. Instead of “the car was crashed”, state “the car hurtled unexpectedly forward and smashed into the wall”.

Eliminate as many simple verbs as possible and replace them with powerful action verbs that bring out the depth of your thinking.

Transitional cues

Ever read an article, project, or communication that rambles on and then turns topics without you knowing?

Suddenly, you realise that the writer changed the subject entirely without you realising it and you cannot grasp the exact subject in the new sentences and paragraphs.

Many writers in Kenya jump around various topics in one paragraph, thus leaving the reader utterly dismayed and confused.

Just putting all the words on paper does not pass for professional writing. Structuring your sentences to easily allow the reader’s eyes to glaze comfortably through the sentences and topics leaves you with optimal professional readability.

As an example, perhaps you desire to communicate that your human resources department intends to delay raises by two months due to a shortage in company liquidity. Utilise the transitional cue “however” to show a shift in thinking during the paragraph:

“The firm recognises the hard work put in by employees over the past fiscal year. Commensurate with the outstanding performance, the Company intends to offer a 15 per cent raise for all staff. However, due to a temporary cash flow shortage at a main client, the salary increase shall commence in November rather than September.”

As a professional writer, help move your readers’ eyes down the page similar to how you might incorporate hand gestures during a verbal conversation to notify your listener to shifts in topic or direction.

Transitional cues you can use: additionally, therefore, however, inasmuch, on the other hand, etc.

Capitalisation

One particularly common writing mistake here in Kenya that foreigners love to laugh at us behind our backs involves our love of capitalising words in sentences that should not be capitalised.

Kenyans often capitalise words that sound like the most important words in a sentence. As a professor, I often see executive-level students writing such sentences: “Following my Masters Degree, I desire to enter the Finance field”.

However, both “masters degree” and “finance” should not receive capitalised treatment.

Capitalisation must only occur when the word appears at the very beginning of a sentence or when the word is a proper noun, such as a name. So, “masters degree” and “finance” are not names unless the word finance in a sentence refers to a department, then “Finance Department” could be utilised.

Then, Kenyans often fail to reread paragraphs to ensure that their written thoughts present clearly. The failure to re-check writing, leads many to then not capitalise words that should otherwise enjoy upper case status.

One often observes writers forgetting to capitalise the “r” in the “republic of Kenya”. A foreigner finds such anomalies incomprehensive since so many wrong words get capitalised in Kenya.

However, for us Kenyans, the word Kenya seems more important than republic, so we often neglect to think through it. However, our Central African brothers and sisters capitalise even every word that looks important, as well as most important, and for emphasis.

A Central African written sentence might read: “We would like to Strongly emphasise our passion for Peace throughout our Beautiful region.” So, let us avoid under or over-capitalisation and focus on following the rule.

As technology proliferates, we must separate lazy writing from professional writing.

Certainly simple text messages to our husbands and wives do not require the same level of scrutiny. Professional writing, on the other hand, makes or breaks careers and directly impacts your pocket over time.

Prof Scott is the Director of the New Economy Venture Accelerator (NEVA) at USIU’s Chandaria School of Business and Colorado State University and may be reached on: [email protected] or follow on Twitter: @ScottProfessor.