Are you a little shaky on writing statements? If so, keep these lessons by your desk.
Start fresh. Past statements were written by people with outdated information, rushing on deadline to do just enough to ship the bare minimum. They didn’t know all the organizational context you know in this instance, and besides, the entire issue driving this statement is unique to today.
Know what you want to achieve. A statement is a form of communication. If you’re communicating, it’s for a purpose. What is the purpose? Before you write, build an outline in support of this purpose. Then stick to it.
Own the action. Writing instructors and editors talk so much about using active voice, I believe anyone who still doesn’t do it doesn’t know what “active voice” actually means. First step, read up on it with this handy U.S. government website. If you still aren’t getting it, here’s a re-framed way to think of it: own the action. Instead of softening the language in order to maintain a false sense of defensiveness (such as, “U.S. forces conducted an operation to raid a building,”), make the same content sound authoritative (“U.S. forces raided a building.”)
Challenge every word. Who said that? Where did you get that? Why did you use that word instead of another one? Each word is a deliberate choice, so be deliberate. Get a stack of highlighters, and go through your entire statement. Every word from an operational report in one color, and other colors for words from declassified intelligence assessments, open source information, commander’s guidance, etc. What’s left? Where did those words come from? If you can’t back them up or attribute them to something substantial, you may need to lose them.
Write less. Studying journalism in college, we learned to lead an article with the most newsworthy information, then work our way down until we either ran out of information or space. Treat statements differently, and four paragraphs should do the trick 90 percent of the time. The less you write, the less chance you’ll make simple grammar mistakes like incorrect second references, or spelling the same word multiple ways.
Articles and complete sentences. I don’t know what’s the deal with the military, but I see too many people who want to write in fractured sentences, and omit simple articles like “the,” “a,” and “an.” These failures are a sign you aren’t reading your work out loud, and you’re probably copy-and-pasting content from a product not originally written for release.
Read it out loud, slowly in your spokesperson voice. Can you speak with authority, without complex phrases, jargon or run-on sentences? Do you feel like you’re commanding an audience, or just “getting through it?”
Double down. Rather than a simple copy edit, our team gets a second set of eyes on written products to strengthen the language. If time permits we’ll do it at the white board. Take a hard look at your draft, and ratchet up the language while staying accurate and on-message. Does the U.S. “operate against militants?” Maybe we “hunt and strike fanatical terrorists.”
Read statements. Read the news. Read fiction. Get used to the way real people communicate via printed word. You’ll become more adept at spotting inconsistencies in your own writing.
(Photo by Seaman Tiana Coots, DVIDS)
