It’s dead winter, the height of cold and flu season. I’d just signed in behind a patient who left the front desk of the doctor’s office, sniffled and went on a coughing jag. Why hadn’t I used my own pen? When the receptionist called me back up to get insurance information, I spied the hand sanitizer on her desk and requested a squirt in my palm.
That’s when I thought of hand antiseptic as an editor, eliminating the bad, and increasingly, with added skin moisturizers and conditioners, enhancing the good. The palms and fingers, nails and knuckles remain along with the bones and muscles on which the hands rely. Only the nasty germs are gone. The fungi are finished.
Successful editing leaves great structure alone. It eliminates elements that threaten the transmission of the message, recasts unclear or awkward phrases, and enriches the underlying work.
Used correctly, hand sanitizers can keep disease at bay, leaving your body healthy. Editing, when well applied, not only makes a document readable, clear and accurate, but enhances your reputation as someone who cares about the facts, the message and the best way to convey them.
Clean up the germs that make your writing feel sluggish and under the weather. The health and well-being of your enterprise may depend on it.
Yours in communicating clearly,
Marilyn J. Shaw, MBA
Well Put LLC