A ‘very important’ writing tip from C.S. Lewis

I just came across a real gem of a letter on Letters of Note (a blog that’s definitely worth a look), sent by C.S. Lewis to a young American fan in 1956.

Isn’t it lovely and quite remarkable that he replied to his fan mail in such a thoughtful and personal way?

Aside from that, though, this letter stood out to me because of a particular piece of advice shared in it, which I think all e-learning designers (indeed, all writers!) should be mindful of:

In writing. Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was “terrible”, describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, “Please will you do my job for me.”

How often do we make the mistake of telling our learners that something is ‘very important’ – especially in compliance courses? Are we guilty of laziness when we do this? Is it easier to just tell our learners that doing (or not doing) something is important and expect them to believe us, rather than illustrate consequences and impacts in such a way that they can infer the importance themselves?

Incidentally, the other four pieces of writing advice included in C.S. Lewis’ letter are equally valuable and worth bearing in mind – go and take a look.

Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Let’s get back to basics: why we should write more like we speak

It’s been a while since I wrote about language and tone of voice. But anyone who knows me well knows that this is a pet subject of mine.

I love words, and I love writing.

Talking, less so – but I do believe in taking inspiration from talking when writing.

Academia instills a different mindset, certainly in my experience, and so my undergraduate essays were formal in register and complex in sentence structure: that’s what was (rightly or wrongly) expected. But since entering the world of business communications, I’ve been converted. I now think that most situations call for a back to basics approach to writing.

I think it’s absolutely right that school teachers encourage pupils to find more interesting and descriptive replacements for ‘nice’ and ‘said’ and ‘get’. It builds vocabulary and encourages an appreciation for (if not necessarily a love of) creative writing. But while I’m all for e-learning scripting to be approached more like a creative writing exercise (within reason), I tend to think that in many – if not most – cases, those plain and simple words we were trained out of as children are just right for the job.

That’s why I was really interested by the results of a study by language consultancy The Writer. My impression is that this wasn’t a particularly extensive study (you can read more about how and where they gathered these results in their original blog post) but it’s interesting nonetheless. Essentially, the study supports The Writer’s belief that there are some words we use in written communication that just don’t crop up in speech. They compiled a short list of words that are found many more times in the written word than in the spoken word, and their counterparts that are much more commonly used in spoken English. Words like ‘purchase’, ‘obtain’ and ‘receive’ are replaced by ‘buy’ or ‘get’ in speech, for example.

What’s particularly interesting is that, as far as I can tell from The Writer’s summary of the study, this research is not based on any particular type of writing or speaking: it reflects global usage (global in the sense of genre, rather than geography). There’s no second list of the words most commonly used in spoken business situations, for example. This means that ‘get’ is used by speakers in situations ranging from playground chit-chat to board room presentations, and from dinner party conversations to politicans’ speeches. And if it’s good enough for world leaders, it’s good enough for learners.

So let’s get back to basics when writing for e-learning and close that vast, unnecessary divide between the way we talk and the way we write.

Image: sheelamohan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What do you want to know about storyboarding?

In a few weeks I’ll be delivering a short presentation at the next eLearning Network event in London, which is all about copy, storyboarding and scenarios. I’ll be tackling the storyboarding element, and I’ve got some ideas, tips and templates to share. But, in the interest of delivering something relevant and useful, I want to find out what the people who’ll be attending would like to hear about.

So, it’s over to you:

• What are the most common challenges or obstacles you encounter when storyboarding for e-learning?
• What aspects of storyboarding would you really like advice, tips or other opinions around?

I’m also interested to know if there are any approaches or tools which have really worked for you – or conversely any you’ve tried which haven’t worked for some reason.

Please let me know via the comments box below, or on Twitter (@StephanieDedhar), and hope to see many of you at the event!

Innovation and butterfly moments: evolution, not revolution

Last week I attended an LSG webinar given by James Cory-Wright from Brightwave on continuous design innovation. James set out 10 ways to improve the learner experience in e-learning, which I’ll recap in another post, but what really tickled me was the idea of ‘butterfly moments’.

Everyone has a slightly different understanding of what innovation is. For some people it’s about technology, for others it’s about design, for others it’s a combination of both and for yet others it’s about something different altogether.

But for many people, I think, it can be a slightly daunting prospect. It’s a bit like creativity – if you’re specifically charged with being creative, it’s just a matter of time until writer’s block (or the relevant equivalent in your line of work) sets in. Likewise, if you’re specifically charged with being innovative, it can suddenly seem that everything you come up with has been done before.

But innovation doesn’t have to be big bang stuff. As James explained, sometimes it’s the littlest things that have the biggest impact – just like the flutter of a butterfly’s wings on one side of the world can supposedly cause meteorological havoc on the other, hence James’ lovely little term: butterfly moments. Butterfly moments are the small tweaks and modest ideas that have a positive impact on the user experience.

This means that innovation isn’t always about coming up with something brand-new and ground-breaking. It also means that you shouldn’t be at all afraid of building on something that has been done before. For example:

• I remember a lecturer telling us about a paper she wrote and a subsequent review which declared that her paper had inserted ‘a sliver of originality’ into the area of study. She was disappointed, until she realised that actually that’s all any (well, most) of us can do, and that even a mere sliver of originality is valuable in moving things forward.
• The original iPod was undoubtedly one of those big bang innovations. But some of the features that have made the biggest difference to how we listen to music have been relatively small tweaks and updates along the way – like the shuffle feature.
• When I attend a conference or webinar or read a blog, I don’t expect revolutionary ideas every time. Instead, I look forward to a slightly new take on an old idea, or indeed the same idea just put a different way. Sometimes this is all that’s needed to help things click into place and spark a little creativity in my own mind.

When you look at it this way, innovation suddenly becomes much less intimidating and much more achievable, doesn’t it? Not just for us, but also for our users. Without the strong ‘pull’ factor of many products and services we use through choice in our personal lives, turning the whole model of e-learning on its head is likely to daunt and intimidate users. On the other hand, small and subtle modifications mean that users benefit from continuous innovation and improvement but are brought painlessly along on that incremental journey.

Yes, some of us probably are born innovators, able to revolutionise technology or learning or whatever it might be. But not all of us can be revolutionaries, and nor should we be. Evolution – incremental innovation – is every bit as important.

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Five days to better e-learning: a quick recap

If you were following last week’s series of blog posts about refreshing and improving an old e-learning course in five days, there was a lot to take in. If you were putting it into practice as you went, it will have been even more intense! So here is a quick recap of the key things we focused on.

We looked at everything from the big picture (learning outcomes, high level structure and flow, and overall character) to the detail (all components of interactions and specific wording choices). But each day we were working on things that one person with limited resources could do even with very little time.

We focused on one area each day for a week, making small changes that add up to a big overall improvement. I don’t know about you, but I’d be pretty proud if I achieved all that in a week!

Now you’ve had some time to digest, and perhaps even implement, my suggestions from last week, I’d love to know what you think. Does this framework work for you? Is it achievable with your resources? Is there anything you think I’ve missed?

If you missed any posts last week, here’s where you need to go:

• Day 1: Learning outcomes and structure
• Day 2: The right interactions at the right time
• Day 3: The Goldilocks rule and good feedback
• Day 4: Tone of voice, style and character
• Day 5: Sanity check!

Finally, I initially designed this content for a webinar for the IITT and a recording is available for members. I’ll try to pop the slides up on Slideshare sometime soon for everyone else.