John Adair's 100 Greatest Ideas for Brilliant Communication

Idea 55: Some reading challenges

The problems facing the reader who wants a good, digestible meal are largely created by the poor culinary skills of the writer. They include:

• Poor structure
• Unattractive appearance and layout
• Turgid and repetitive style
• Unnecessary length
• Lack of examples or illustrations
• Obscure diagrams
• Dense or opaque thought processes
• Too much information
• Too little information
• Unpalatable tone

A good reader, in parallel with a good listener, will not be totally fazed by the surface phenomena, especially if he or she feels that gold lies beneath it. Like a gold prospector you may come away with some gold dust or even a nugget, even though the latter may, on later examination, turn out to be ‘fool’s gold’.

When you encounter the kind ...