Monday Mastery: Upholding the integrity of your written words
Eliminating friction for more trustworthy writing.
A prelude and a plea
As I type this, the state where I was born and raised is on fire. The media is saying that these fires around Los Angeles are already the fifth most devastating fires on record in California history … and containment is still in the single digits.
For a while now, I have been feeling pulled to do work in the climate space. I began my college career in environmental studies — and frankly it’s been calling me back.
I’m not a biologist or an engineer or a nonprofit leader — I’m a writer and communicator. And I’ve been praying and journaling until my fingers bleed, trying to figure out how to leverage the skillsets I have to make a bigger difference in the world.
What I’ve come to is this:
I would like to donate a percentage of my time to advising technology companies trying to solve climate and environmental challenges.
Messaging, marketing campaigns, research-backed content, sales enablement, and thought leadership writing are where I have the deepest experience, but I would be happy to advise pro-bono on any communication challenge where the goal is deep connection with the audience.
My plea: If you know a founder or leader in envirotech, greentech, cleantech or climatetech, please send them my way at jessica (at) horizonpeakconsulting.com.
And now, onto Monday Mastery!
Welcome to Monday Mastery, a series designed to shift your perspective, teach you new techniques, and help you become a more effective writer, one tip at a time.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been accused of being “the grammar police” by friends and family … yet I never correct people’s grammar unless I’m being paid to edit their work.
I think it speaks more to my values than my habits, honestly. People who know me know that I value integrity and effective communication above almost everything else.
When writing has errors, it calls into question the integrity of the writing and of the author. And the effectiveness of the written communication becomes questionable too.
Not that we don’t all make mistakes in our writing. I’m the first to read a text message I just sent, and immediately follow it with a correction. (Ask my friends and family how often I correct myself, and that may also explain why I’m known as the grammar police.) But when the mistake is in public-facing communication, like a published book or a press release, it creates a small moment of friction.
Friction that makes the reader stop and wonder if they can trust what they’re reading.
Sometimes, that moment of questioning is completely subconscious. The reader doesn’t realize it’s happening.
But it’s happening.
Maybe we need more grammar police
Last week, a friend forwarded me an article about how the entire editorial staff at a prestigious science journal had walked off the job. The editors were protesting against a collection of leadership decisions that had, over the years, created an environment where the editors couldn’t do their jobs.
The journal’s leadership eliminated the budget for copyeditors, leaving the editorial board doing this work.
They eliminated expert associates, leading to editorial board members editing papers well outside their areas of expertise.
And then the company began using AI, without informing the editors. The AI reversed approved edits in some cases.
All of this lead to published issues with embarrassing errors.
This happened the same week I found huge mistakes in a book I bought from a Big 5 publisher, written by an author I know is incredibly smart and well-researched. I know the errors (not grammar slips — factual errors) were not the author’s fault. I’ve edited books for a mid-size publisher, I can tell where most errors come from; and these were very likely due to a lack of internal editing by the publisher.
In both cases, the readers of these publications could easily question the integrity and effectiveness of the writer … even though it wasn’t completely the writer’s fault.
The lesson for you today
My point isn’t to make you paranoid or make your inner perfectionist go wild, here.
My point is to remind you that your words matter, and how you write them matters. As my friend James Turner of Turner Creative and One Creative Moment said to me last week, “AI slop is the term people seem to have landed on” for the flood of poor writing we are all drowning in right now. And AI isn’t responsible for all the slop, I’m afraid.
So do that one last pass of edits before you hit publish.
Have that writing group read your first draft before you send it out on submission.
And yes, run that article through AI for a final set of “eyes” before you send it out.
Your readers want to read your thoughts and ideas, and connect with you as a human — friction free.