Words represent concepts and the concepts build on one another. Each concept word or phrase is like a cell in a spreadsheet. You want to have accurate numbers in every cell of a spreadsheet so you end up with accurate totals.
If the reader does not understand or misunderstands one concept word or phrase, the conclusion he or she comes to may be off or completely wrong.
Labor
$43,798.00
Maintenance
$ 3,425.00
Utilities
$12,241.00
Insurance
$ 3,403.00
TOTAL
$62,867.00
As a result, make sure that the reader understands every new concept word or phrase you write. Don't go on until you have integrated the new concept word or phrase with previous concepts. Build your message very carefully so at the end of it, the reader has come to the conclusions you wanted.
This sample introduces new concepts without explaining them or integrating them. You can analyze the sample by locating each key word representing a concept and looking for the definition and integration.
The Creative Briefing Process
Clients employ and pay our advertising company to solve brand problems and exploit brand opportunities. That requires a functional instrument designed to achieve specific objectives. A very essential and important part of the advertising campaign is the information that is presented to the client to help the client make decisions about the advertising. The creative brief is an introduction to the advertising plan. The creative team and the client discuss the ways the campaign can proceed to make sure the client is in on the planning and has ownership of the process. A good outline should be simple and to the point. A layman should be able to understand it. A good brief promises a good ad.
Analysis of the Concept Words
An analysis of the concept words in the text follows. In this explanation, the original text is in black, and key words are in red. Our explanations of how the key words are presented are in blue.
Isolating the key words and following them through helped the writer see that the concepts are not explained and integrated:
Clients employ and pay our advertising company to solve brand problems and exploit brand opportunities. That requires a functional instrument designed to achieve specific objectives.
By the end of the second sentence, the writer has introduced four concept words or phrases without integrating any of them. The two in the first sentence are fairly clear by themselves. However, then the writer goes on to use the words "functional instrument" without explaining what that means or how it fits with "solve brand problems" or "exploit brand opportunities." That confuses readers. The writer ends with "specific objectives," which could refer to "solve brand problems" or "exploit brand objectives," but he or she has not made that connection clear.
Readers are pretty tolerant because they're accustomed to reading bad writing. They are willing to hold the four concepts suspended until the writer brings them all together. Unfortunately, the reader's patience will not be rewarded in the sentences that follow.
A very essential and important part of the advertising campaign is the information that is presented to the client to help the client make decisions about the advertising.
The writer has used the key phrase "advertising campaign," introducing a new concept. This new concept is not related clearly to the previous concepts. The writer then introduces the client, another new concept. We may be able to surmise the relationships, but readers should not have to do that. It makes the text tedious to read and increases the likelihood that the reader will come to the wrong conclusions.
The creative brief is presented to the client as an introduction to the advertising plan.
The writer introduces "creative brief" and "advertising plan" without defining them or integrating them with the previous concepts. That leaves readers with a large number of concepts suspended in his or her mind with no connections.
The creative team and the client discuss the ways the campaign can proceed to make sure the client is in on the planning and has ownership of the process.
This sentence by itself makes sense. However, it is not integrated with even the concepts in the previous sentence ("creative brief" and "advertising plan"), let alone the earlier concepts such as "solve brand problems" and "exploit brand opportunities." Those concepts, presented in the introduction, have been completely lost in the text that follows. The reader may assume that "the process" refers to the "advertising plan," but that is not clear.
A good outline should be simple and to the point. A layman should be able to understand it. A good brief promises a good ad.
The writer introduces a new concept, "outline," without explaining whether that is an outline of the brief or other document. The writer ends by returning to "brief" and "ad," but by this time, the concepts have been so lost in the text that the sentence simply stands alone as a single statement at the end that makes sense in itself: "A good brief promises a good ad." The writer could have made that statement without any of the preceding text with no loss of information because none of the preceding text was integrated with it.
Rewritten version
This is the same text with the key concepts defined and integrated. Notice that "creative briefing" and "process" are used throughout. They are key words that unify the message.
The Creative Briefing Process
Clients use our advertising company to develop advertising campaigns that solve brand problems and exploit brand opportunities. We present our plans for the advertising campaigns in creative briefs. The creative brief is a description of the types of advertisements, their placement, and the process by which they will be created. Producing the creative brief is called the creative briefing process.
We involve the client in a creative briefing process so the client is in on the planning and has ownership of it. In this process, the creative team and the client discuss the parts of the creative brief to be sure everyone agrees the advertising campaign will accomplish the client's goals of solving the brand problems or exploiting the brand opportunities. The resulting creative brief should be simple and to the point so even a layman can understand it. A good brief promises a good ad.
Analysis of the Rewritten Version
An analysis of the rewritten version follows. In this explanation, the original text is in black, and key words are in red. Our explanations of how the key words are presented are in blue.
Notice that the explanation chains the concepts to one another. The writer states a concept, defines it if necessary, and introduces the next concept by chaining the previous to it.
The Creative Briefing Process
Clients use our advertising company to develop advertising campaigns that solve brand problems and exploit brand opportunities.
The writer has chosen to use the key concept, "advertising campaigns," early in the text to link it to "solve brand problems" and "exploit brand opportunities."
We present our plans for the advertising campaigns in creative briefs.
In the second sentence, the writer repeats the key concept words "advertising campaigns" to link them to the new concept, "creative briefs." That begins the chaining process.
The creative brief is a description of the types of advertisements, their placement, and the process by which they will be created.
The writer defines the key concept, "creative brief," to be sure the reader understands the concept.
Producing the creative brief is called the creative briefing process.
The writer chains "creative brief" to "creative briefing process." That integrates the two concepts. The writer has decided that the reader does not need a definition of "creative briefing process," although an added sentence would have clarified that if he or she believed it was important: "Producing the creative brief is called the creative briefing process. In it, the creative team and client meet to discuss the types of advertisements, placement, and process by which they will be created."
We involve the client in a creative briefing process so the client is in on the planning and has ownership of it. In this process, the creative team and the client discuss the parts of the creative brief to be sure everyone agrees the advertising campaign will accomplish the client's goals of solving the brand problems or exploiting the brand opportunities.
The writer chains involving the client with the concept of the creative briefing process. He or she then defines the creative briefing process and chains it to the concepts introduced in the introduction, "solving the brand problems" and "exploiting the brand opportunities." Tracking the key words in this way helps the writer make sure that every loose end is tied up. The key concepts in the key words that the writer introduced in the introduction should be brought back into the explanation at some point. This is an appropriate place.
The resulting creative brief should be simple and to the point so even a layman can understand it. A good brief promises a good ad.
The writer ends with a chain reference back to the process in "the resulting" and to the product in the "creative brief." That prepares the reader for the final statement, "A good brief promises a good ad." That simple sentence is full of meaning now. All of the points made about the creative brief, the creative briefing process, and involving the client are wrapped up in that statement now because the writer chained all of the concepts together.
Avoid writing strings of concepts.
Writers who don't know their subject well or who don't understand the relationships among the concepts in the subject write in strings of concepts. The strings give readers the impression the writer is rambling. Sometimes the strings are in a reasonably satisfactory order, but much of the time they are in no order the reader can follow and are presented as fragments, independent of each other.
These are the characteristics of disjointed strings of concepts:
The writer doesn't explain how new ideas fit with previously presented ideas. Every time you change concepts or the viewpoint about a concept, you must make sure the reader knows you're changing and how the new information fits. That doesn't mean you must write something at every change of thought; but it does mean you must know for certain that the reader will know that the change that has taken place. If you are unsure, then you must write an explanation guiding the reader through the change.
The sections of the message contain few or no references to the central idea.
The writer introduces a series of new concept words or phrases.
The writer uses vague words that don't show the relationships among ideas, such as "topic," "thing," "area," or "concern." Example: "The first topic is how do we find satisfactory managers." The writer knows she wants to explain the difficulty in finding satisfactory managers, but doesn't know how to introduce that. She has the concept words, "how do we find satisfactory managers," in her mind and needs some filler around the words to make a complete sentence.
Instead, the writer should think through the relationships she wants the reader to understand and state them explicitly: "We must identify a way to find satisfactory managers," or "The most feasible way to increase our production is to hire satisfactory managers," or something that states the critical ideas. "The first topic" doesn't communicate anything of value to the reader.
The writer uses words such as "is essential," "is critical," "important point," and so on that don't explain what makes the concept essential, critical, or important. The superlatives are filler the writer uses to allow him or her to state the concept words in the sentence.
Example:
Having enough ball bearings in stock is a critical action. Inventory records sometimes don't show all the items we have. Systems have limitations from the storage capacities. Creating columns with enough size is essential.
The readers will find themselves hopelessly lost in four short sentences. The writer begins with the concept words "having enough ball bearings" and to finish with a complete sentence has to add, "is a critical action." Those final words are meaningless. The writer then introduces more concept words, "inventory records," and a statement about them, "don't show all the items we have," without explaining how that concept and explanation fit with "having enough ball bearings."
The writer has presented one unexplained concept and then added another unexplained concept, doubling the confusion. The reader can't fit the second with the first and then can't fit the third with either of the other two. Here, "systems have limitations from the storage capacities" is a new concept added to the previous concept, "inventory records sometimes don't show all the items we have," which the reader didn't understand because it was not related to the first concept, "having enough ball bearings in stock."
When the writer then adds still another concept, "creating columns with enough size" and the meaningless filler words "is essential," the reader is left bewildered. The reader doesn't understand the relationship of that concept to the previous concept, which is unclear anyway because it wasn't related to the concept previous to it, which was unclear because that concept wasn't related to the concept previous to it.
Such strings of unrelated concepts give readers migraines.
Your writing must explain every concept as it is introduced. It must be clear to the reader how every new concept is related to the previously explained concept and the central idea of the message. Use the words and phrases as your guides. Each time you introduce a new concept word or phrase, think about whether the reader will know how it fits with previous concepts and the main idea. If you have doubts, explain the relationship. Always err on the side of being too clear.
We must have enough ball bearings in stock to avoid running short. Inventory records sometimes don't show all the items we have, so we may believe we have enough ball bearings but end up running short because the records showed more than we actually have. The reason the inventory records have errors is that our inventory systems have limitations on their storage capacities, so we created shortened fields that sometimes don't accept the inventory numbers. To avoid this problem in the future, we must create fields with enough size to store the accurate amounts.
The writer has explained the relationships among the ideas. She explains new concepts so the reader understands them before she presents the relationships. The writer uses the same key words throughout. Transition words show how each idea fits with the others.
This is another example of a string of concepts with filler words:
Knowledge and insight about the schools, the criteria the admission committee considers, and the time frame and fees associated with an application are all important factors.
The writer wants to present three considerations in applying to schools, so he lists them. Since he has to finish the sentence with something, the writer finishes with "are all important factors," which is essentially meaningless. This would be better: "To apply for admission successfully, you must know about the schools, the criteria the admissions committee considers, the time frame for applying, and the fees associated with applying."
If you don't explain the concepts clearly and show how they relate to one another, you will not be able to organize or explain the message clearly. However, if you explain the relationships clearly, the organization should be a natural consequence.
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