How To Emphasize Clarity In Your Writing

Understand the ladder of abstraction

Grab your laptop, phone, or pen and paper. You’re good to write. No other tools are necessary for what you want to do.

An author is a blend of one of the most straightforward occupations and the most complex activity you can imagine. Note how the name author lends itself to someone with an impressive source of knowledge. Note also, the word association with being authentic, having authority over the written word.

No doubt you think the job is easy. So easy, in fact, anyone can be a writer.

However, it isn’t a straightforward job, nor is it possible for anyone to be an author or writer.

The tools a writer needs are much more than implements. The writer needs practice, a guiding alliance, and sensitive evaluations. Writers need patience, especially when re-writing because it’s never finished; never polished enough.

And the writer needs a method.

Roy Peter Clark, Vice President, and Senior Scholar, teaches writing at Florida’s Poynter Institute. He’s also the author of Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies For Every Writer.

Clark updated his book recently to 55 strategies/tools, disputing the belief that writers make-do with a minimum number of trade tools.

One tool featured in his book is the writing tool #13: Show and Tell. In this chapter, he explains the ladder of abstraction, made popular by philosopher and linguist S.I. Hayakawa, through the 1939 book Language in Action.

Clark says, “the ladder of abstraction is one of the most useful models of thinking and writing ever invented.” It helps us to think and express what we mean. At the bottom of the ladder are specific “things” we can touch, feel, measure, and name.

At the top are abstractions, the higher meaning of our writing, such as “freedom,” “legacy,” and “betrayal.” Good writers learn to move up and down the ladder of abstraction. For example, consider this lead Clark gives, written by Jonathan Bor:

“A healthy 17-year-old heart pumped the gift of life through 34-year-old Bruce Murray Friday, following a four-hour transplant operation that doctors said went without a hitch.”

That heart is at the bottom of the ladder — there is no other heart like it in the world — but the blood that it pumps signifies a higher meaning, “the gift of life.” Such movements up the ladder create a lift-off of understanding, an effect some writers call “altitude.”

If your reader doesn’t see or understand what you write, it could be because you’re caught halfway up the ladder. Halfway is often the bureaucratic “speak” found in organizations, which need clarity in a more concrete and familiar language.

Look at the following example Clark gives us. An elementary school mission statement reads:

Our mission is to improve student achievement and thereby prepare students for continued learning in middle school and high school. This learning community will accomplish this mission by developing and implementing world class learning systems. Alignment will be monitored by continual application of quality principles and responsiveness to customer expectations.

Really? And the revised version — “Our mission: learning to write, writing to learn.”

Practice using the Ladder of Abstraction

Use the ladder in interview situations, in work presentations, and your writing. Practice with this tool by using the zoom in or zoom out technique. Focus on the specific detail or expand to the “bigger picture.”

A good tip is to use “for example” to move down the ladder to define concrete details. Explain by using sensory language. Tell anecdotes or personal stories. Ask “how” questions and offer explanations. ‘How does this work? Let me show you the benefits.’

To move up the ladder, focus on “why” questions. ‘Why is this important?’ When presenting data, move up the ladder to an explanation of the value of the data. Look at the bigger picture. “Here’s why that data matters.” You can supply charts and diagrams to show trends and to place the data into context.

Method

I drilled down a little further on the information from Clark. I found this link to an article written by a university student. Clark suggests reading it first and then read his review. I agree with Clark. It’s a powerful story that moves up and down the ladder of abstraction.

See it up close in Clark’s review as an appeal to the senses.

“He knelt in the back alley, one hand steadying, the other scrubbing. As he worked, the bristles of the plastic brush turned red.”

We can see that as a detail in a movie. But we can hear it as well. The words scrubbing, bristles and brush all make a sound, an echo of what we would hear if we were on the scene.

And see it again from a wider camera angle.

It was the stain of two nights of rioting and police confrontation that overshadowed daytime peaceful protests.

Then come back to Clark’s review. A practical learning tool as he breaks it down into a thoughtful analysis. Find the student’s article here.

Clark ponders on what word characterizes the effect the story has on him. It wasn’t a voice, tone, or theme. He found it was the “spirit” of the story that appealed. Clark compared it to the impact he experienced from the late Jimmy Breslin, who covered the burial of the assassinated President John Kennedy. Breslin interviewed the gravedigger for his famous and unusual story.

Polish your writing so the spirit of the story shines

Clark offers valuable advice to writers with examples throughout his review of the student’s article. These are glorious reminders to apply in your writing and useful author’s tools to add to your kit.

• Save the most potent thought for the shortest sentence. Here Clark mentions a brief quote with a ‘ring of gospel truth.’
• Play the endgame, he urges. Our writing doesn’t have to punch only at the beginning. There’s a place for an emphatic word or phrase at the end. William Strunk Jr. says this place is at the end of a sentence, the last sentence in a paragraph, the last paragraph in a story.
• Use dialogue as action, rather than quotes, as they can hamper the narrative. “Quotes are about the action. But dialogue is the action,” Clark says.
• Slow the pace for emotional effect. Repetition and shorter sentences will slow the action and slow the reader at the end of each sentence. Use this technique when you want to show clarity, suspense, or emotional impact.
• Feel the rub by placing interesting and odd details next to one another. “This friction creates heat, which we hope creates light. That’s what I see here, the little girl’s bright dress against the boarded-up background of fear and destruction,” Clark notes.
• Remember, an outstanding argument and a robust rhythm will balance your speech or your writing between the top and the bottom of the ladder. Spend time in the middle of the ladder only if you believe it’s needed.

Understanding and using the ladder of abstraction can emphasize your message and offer more clarity for your audience at all levels.