Donovan-Wright Associates

Everywhere you look and everything you read is all about how critical good writing skills are in this age of digital communication. In business, the memo is passe, replaced by email, now the mainstay of communication. Instant messaging is used in some environments, but it is being replaced by text messaging. Websites, blogs, forums — all demand good writing skills. Then there are reports, PowerPoint presentations, proposals, and letters — more traditional formats, but writing intensive as well.

Regardless of whether you own a small business or are an employee in a large corporation, you need to be able to write and to write well.

Most of us know about, and we English types shudder at, the general demise of the English language from its pure and correct form. The causes are rampant and many, hailing from all ages and all segments of society, but the effect is the same: the “almost” acceptable use of the plural pronoun (they, them) with a singular antecedent (student, customer), use of big words and complex sentences to appear “important,” sentence fragments, run on sentences, and the list goes on.

But recently I’ve run into quite a conundrum. In my attempts to “market” using the many social networking vehicles out there, I’ve come across many English as a second language business folks trying to do business with US-based customers. Opportunity! I approached several such folks and offered my services as teacher and editor/writer. Understandably, many either did not reply or politely declined. However, one individual did respond and took me up on my offer to edit for him. Only ….

Without giving details, the problem in this instance, and in many others, is that some ESL people either are not aware of, or refuse to admit to, their inabilities to write correctly in English. Granted, English is a nasty language to learn — right up there with Russian, Chinese, and Arabic. But to do business in this culture requires an ongoing commitment to learn the language and write it well.

What to do when you are an expert, in this case — writing — and an English as Second Language (ESL) comes along and says you can’t write? I should have known when he criticized my first submission and I couldn’t find anything wrong. Right then and there it should have been exit stage left. But retrospect is golden.

The plot thickened when I edited a 16 page, horrible document that he wanted in three days. He also wanted me to do it using Word’s Track Changes feature. And so I did. However, as I went on, his meaning was so obscure that I did what I could highlighting those areas in yellow. As I trudged on, I told him that we would definitely need to make another pass because of the number and complexity of changes.

Let me add that also in the course of this business liaison that this creep had one of his employees get into my computer (admittedly I did allow it), but the guy wreaked havoc with it and now it has been in for repair for two days. The repair techs tell me the problems are a direct result of what they did.

Back to the 16-pager. On a Saturday evening, while relaxing with my family, I got an absolutely unbelievable email ripping my work apart. I ran his email by my partner and several friends and they were, as I, appalled.

Okay — examples, buddy, I want examples! I got the examples and I flipped out. There was nothing wrong with two of them — he said they were wrong, and the third was an error on his part in downloading and dealing with the Track Changes feature.

So, here’s the deal, I think we writers should test clients before we take them on. And especially beware of ESLs who think they know it all.