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Lauren wrote:
> Successful writing is not about the writer or the content, it
> is about writing what the reader wants. It doesn't matter if
> the reader wants poor quality, the reader is the customer and
> the customer is always right.
God help us!
My job is to understand what the reader is attempting to do and to give them
the resources that best help them do that task. Often, what best serves the
reader and what he says he wants are incompatible.
My value to the companies I work for is in my ability to understand the
reader's goals, to devise the most effective strategy to help readers
achieve their goals, and to produce whatever deliverables are necessary to
fulfill that strategy.
Writing proper English is little more than a prerequisite. But it is
required. Poor quality writing forces the reader to disengage from the
message of the writing to figure out if they misread or if the writer
blundered. Anything that forces the reader to step away from the message,
even briefly, represents a communication failure.
But this discussion is really comparing apples to oranges. Writing to
communicate and writing to bait search engines are two very different tasks.
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