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Failures to Communicate
Nov. 21st, 2008 09:16 pmLately I've been noticing people who cannot communicate certain things to me in their own native language.
One example is someone who says she added a list when actually she added an item to a list that was already there. If I just need to know if she had to do anything, then that's good enough: yes, she did. If I have to know if there was a good list there already for her to use or whether she had to create her own, I will get the wrong impression.
Another example is someone who says you can't get credit for more than one of the following classes: A, B, and C. Now if I just need to know whether the courses are related in any way, that's good enough. But if I need to know that actually, you can get credit for both B and C but not for both A and B and not for both A and C, then there is no way I would ever guess that. Especially when they also say that A was replaced by B but in fact A was replaced by both B (the first half of A) and C (the second half of A).
I even had to tell a programmer today that updates are much easier to understand if the report generated says that a course has been changed (and then tells me it how has changed) than if it says that a course has been dropped and a new course has been added (and then it turns out the two courses are exactly the same in every way but one). A programmer. A good programmer, even, who has just been complimented on his ability to code reports with very crazy requirements. So it's someone who likes problem solving and knows that details are important.
These three people (and more) do actually know what they're trying to say well enough to make good decisions themselves based on that knowledge, but they just can't think of how to say it. I've sat next to two of the people while they tried several different ways. And then I say, "Well, if you say that, then it sounds like you mean this." And finally I just say, "I would say [whatever I would say]." Even if I say, "I would say something like [general idea of what to say]," some people refuse to try to make up their own sentence and just type in a word or two and sit there stumped until I make up the rest of a nice-sounding version myself and dictate it to them.
How do people grow to adulthood and even middle-age-hood and not know how to say things that they actually understand? I understand that some things are complicated and the first try might not be close enough, but to just not even have any idea of how to proceed? Or to write something that clearly means something else? On specific forms they know people will be using to make decisions about things?
Is there a good way to teach people how to form sentences that mean what they want them to mean? I can't even imagine.
The sad thing is I do the same thing myself (see blog entries that haven't been proofread well enough). But when I re-read it later or someone points out how it could be misleading, I can then think of another way to say it. Maybe it requires a general problem-solving mentality that some people don't like.
Whoever thought that writing and problem solving could be so connected?
Or maybe some people just aren't used to having to be precise? If you mostly communicate orally, you can be very lazy because the other person can keep asking you questions until they figure out what you mean.
How can you train yourself to notice whether the first thing you spewed actually means what you hoped it would mean? If you get too good at this do you automatically become an editor Nazi?
Getting other people to edit my work definitely helps me. It has taught me that I use too many pronouns. The pronouns make sense while I'm writing them but later I can see that I never made some of the antecedents clear.
Frustrating.
One example is someone who says she added a list when actually she added an item to a list that was already there. If I just need to know if she had to do anything, then that's good enough: yes, she did. If I have to know if there was a good list there already for her to use or whether she had to create her own, I will get the wrong impression.
Another example is someone who says you can't get credit for more than one of the following classes: A, B, and C. Now if I just need to know whether the courses are related in any way, that's good enough. But if I need to know that actually, you can get credit for both B and C but not for both A and B and not for both A and C, then there is no way I would ever guess that. Especially when they also say that A was replaced by B but in fact A was replaced by both B (the first half of A) and C (the second half of A).
I even had to tell a programmer today that updates are much easier to understand if the report generated says that a course has been changed (and then tells me it how has changed) than if it says that a course has been dropped and a new course has been added (and then it turns out the two courses are exactly the same in every way but one). A programmer. A good programmer, even, who has just been complimented on his ability to code reports with very crazy requirements. So it's someone who likes problem solving and knows that details are important.
These three people (and more) do actually know what they're trying to say well enough to make good decisions themselves based on that knowledge, but they just can't think of how to say it. I've sat next to two of the people while they tried several different ways. And then I say, "Well, if you say that, then it sounds like you mean this." And finally I just say, "I would say [whatever I would say]." Even if I say, "I would say something like [general idea of what to say]," some people refuse to try to make up their own sentence and just type in a word or two and sit there stumped until I make up the rest of a nice-sounding version myself and dictate it to them.
How do people grow to adulthood and even middle-age-hood and not know how to say things that they actually understand? I understand that some things are complicated and the first try might not be close enough, but to just not even have any idea of how to proceed? Or to write something that clearly means something else? On specific forms they know people will be using to make decisions about things?
Is there a good way to teach people how to form sentences that mean what they want them to mean? I can't even imagine.
The sad thing is I do the same thing myself (see blog entries that haven't been proofread well enough). But when I re-read it later or someone points out how it could be misleading, I can then think of another way to say it. Maybe it requires a general problem-solving mentality that some people don't like.
Whoever thought that writing and problem solving could be so connected?
Or maybe some people just aren't used to having to be precise? If you mostly communicate orally, you can be very lazy because the other person can keep asking you questions until they figure out what you mean.
How can you train yourself to notice whether the first thing you spewed actually means what you hoped it would mean? If you get too good at this do you automatically become an editor Nazi?
Getting other people to edit my work definitely helps me. It has taught me that I use too many pronouns. The pronouns make sense while I'm writing them but later I can see that I never made some of the antecedents clear.
Frustrating.