Saturday, March 27, 2021

My advice to a friend who repeatedly asks me to proofread his letters to important people

Dear RJMV, 

There are a few style errors and maybe a few grammatical errors in your letter to MS. But to be honest, for a change, I liked it. I don't think I should correct it and inadvertently cause it to dilute it's genuineness through the insertion of my changes. It is a good letter and I believe MS will like it although he may not reply to it directly to avoid being trapped with evidence and for plausible deniability.

One example ... 
"I was as a Human Resource / Recruitment person in Falana

could be corrected as 

"I was working as a Human Resource Manager and Recruitment professional in Falana"

You seem to be in a hurry to mention many things as fast as possible to get on with it. Either this is not important to the subject at hand but mentioning it is unavoidable OR you are irritated that you have to perform the niceties and rituals common in some forms of human communication. One sentence will not always poison the reader's mind but several doses of such impatience and irritation in a letter will begin to have a slow arsenic like effect. Unless you want to delay things or create plausible deniability, I suggest you save everyone a lot of time and get to the point - as soon as possible.

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Another example ...
"After leaving my job as a Human Resource Manager from Falnana, I settled back in Koalam in 2011

could be corrected as 

"After leaving my job as a Human Resource Manager in Falana, I returned to Koalam in 2011"

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Your impatience is one big problem. You are slightly irritated that the reader (or the rest of the world) doesn't know about the situation (or not enough since you have the broader vision and keener insight) and you have to undertake the burden of explaining the situation. You should rewrite your "first draft" 4-5 times yourself. The above simple errors are examples that you could correct yourself with your knowledge of the language instead of lazily outsourcing it to others. By doing this outsourcing not only are you depleting goodwill but also preventing the development of your brain both in terms of language skills but also in terms of conceptual rigour and emotional control.

Another problem is that you often get inspired to add new points every time you redraft it. This is not altogether a bad thing. But at some point when you have run out of ideas you should accept that there will be no more dopamine hits and stop waiting for the inspiration which not come anymore. Effort ridden and tedious as it sounds, that is when you should get down to the boring task or actually just finishing off the letter.

What exactly are you looking to write or convey ? Are you looking to write a short message or a short letter or a long letter or a pamphlet or a manifesto or a white paper or an application or a petition or a death threat or a short story or a novel ? You need to decide an overall tone for the communication you wish to send and then also strictly decide a word limit based on the categories mentioned in the previous sentence. And then stick to it. There are no 2 ways about it.

Even if I correct  it, you will still add your masala at the end and kolammaakkify (ruin) it. So when you have finished your "last draft" be disciplined enough to not add any new points and ONLY focus on IMPROVING THE LETTER in STYLE, GRAMMAR, and SPELLING but not in CONTENT.

Also try to arrange the points in a structurally logical way to help the reader understand the story you are presenting as it unravels itself. The aim should not to be to burden the reader with your confused and disorganised ideas but to make it easy for them to understand without too much effort on their part. You presently not only outsource this task to me but also to your target reader. And therein lies your failure as a communicator both in the past and the future.

Also, if possible even remove some points.  This is a guideline. It is not the answer to your request. You are still avoiding the use of your inter-ear-muscles. The points that you need to remove will become apparent to you only after several redrafts - which is something you are trying to avoid by asking me to do it without trying it yourself a few times.

Last but not the least, you have not decided what the ultimate aim of your letter should be. Are you trying to offer solace, encouragement, criticism, advice, ideas, help, or even deliver a threat ? What do you want the person to ultimately have in his head after he reads your letter ? What do you want him to think ? What do you want him to think about you?