How to deal with sceptics
There are those who will scupper any plans to change the way they write
Give them the evidence. It's the only thing that works. Take a sample of their writing and rewrite it
(or get me to).
Whatever your organisation, there will always be a few who will resist any change to the way they write. They will accuse you of dumbing down and over-simplification.
These people divide into three camps:
- There are those who feel that their livelihood depends on people believing that what they do is so complicated and impressive that what they do cannot be translated into plain English.
- Then there are those who won't admit it but don't understand what their colleagues do sufficiently well to write about it. It's far easier to create a fog of abstract nouns than it is to explain matters in words of one syllable.
- Then there are those who regard any form of writing as a perilous test of their ability to avoid saying anything that might return to haunt them. So they string words together in a way that says absolutely nothing.
Give sceptics the evidence, so they can see the difference.