A Paragraph by C J Werleman — Illustrates How to Make a Point before Losing Audience Attention
© 2014 Peter Free
09 May 2014
Citation — to the example
C. J. Werleman, How Hypocrisy Is Simply Not a Factor in the Right-Wing Mind, AlterNet (07 May 2014)
To communicate effectively — summarize your message in the first paragraph
Here is a brilliantly constructed introductory paragraph:
It takes a Republican to be pro-death penalty, pro-war, pro-torture, and pro-bombing, yet be “pro-life.” It takes a Republican to be down with the Bush administration’s $700 billion bailout of the big banks, but outraged when Obama offers a modest foreclosure relief bill for struggling families affected by Wall Street’s casino capitalism.
© 2014 C. J. Werleman, How Hypocrisy Is Simply Not a Factor in the Right-Wing Mind, AlterNet (07 May 2014)
Why is this paragraph (stylistically) worth thinking about?
Mr. Werleman’s paragraph demonstrates how to capture attention and make a meaningful point in just a few words, without wasting anyone’s time. Notice that his blurb contains an intellectual proposition, delivered in a briefly worded packet that begins to prove it by juxtaposition.
My point is not that Werleman is necessarily correct, merely that he brilliantly communicated his perspective — before most of us could lose even passing interest.
In contrast, the majority of what is written these days fails to make cogent points, much less list and support them at the outset. Journalistic writing is especially atrocious, being usually a meandering traipse into somebody’s stream of insignificant consciousness.
It is an infrequent piece of press that I bother to read (or listen to) beyond the first paragraph or two.
When writers are too lazy and too undisciplined to refine their thoughts into comprehensible messages, they are not worth our time.
The moral? — When communicating, consider the audience’s probably limited time and attention span
Make your points, understandably, at the outset. Incorporate proof, persuasion or manipulation in subsequent paragraphs.
Doing so requires that we refine and distill our themes repeatedly — until they become the product of intelligence, rather than narcissism, sloth or stupidity.