After reading a comment on Mr Wang’s post The Silent Singaporean referencing my earlier post on the nonexistence of singaporekini.com, it suddenly dawned on me that I had entirely omitted the issue of literacy from the discussion of why Singaporeans don’t blog more. In retrospect, it’s so obvious! The typical Singaporean has only a functional grasp of English, which may be sufficient to fill out paperwork or even write a passable ‘O’ level composition, but it’s certainly grossly inadequate if one chooses to articulate one’s ideas in English.1

Thankfully, one’s command of English can be improved, often dramatically. One merely needs to be committed to doing it. To blog is to write, and to write is to communicate. The following is essentially a reproduction of my comment on Mr Wang’s blog on what I think is important as far as good writing translates into good blogging.

  1. Have a clear, logical outline of what you want to communicate. If you have a very complicated idea, break it down into smaller pieces. Lists can help. If you have problems with rambling, avoid digressions. Stick to the point; omit anything that isn’t immediately relevant. Be alert for logical fallacies: know what are straw men, false dichotomies, appeals to anquity and non sequiturs.
  2. Be concise, but avoid ambiguity. Use words that are as simple as possible, while retaining the desired level of precision in meaning. If your writing is too vague, improve your vocabulary. Read more. Observe the subtle nuances in meanings with choices of words and contexts.
  3. To communicate an abstract concept, bring it down to earth by telling a story, giving a concrete example and citing evidence to back it up. Pure abstractions bore people. As a practicising scientist, I know a lot about abstract ennui and abstraction-induced boredom.
  4. Be a merciless editor and your worst critic. Imagine you are a mean English teacher and you are marking your own blog post with an evil red pen. Ask yourself if you really need every word and punctuation mark to make your point. Use correct grammar, consistent tenses, and consistent concord (plural nouns can’t go with singular verbs). But don’t sweat the small stuff like splitting infinitives, “correct” irregular conjugation2 or worrying about using the part participle tense instead of the past perfect tense, although you definitely get bonus points for doing so!
  5. Always check your spelling. With automatic spell-checkers, there is no excuse for unintentional misspellings! Be alert for misspellings that result in other valid English words, such as there and their, dine and dime and its and it’s. Pedants like me will be grateful. Really.
  6. If you really have time, write multiple drafts. Wash and repeat; you will probably converge toward something well-written.
  7. Blog often. Practice makes perfect! Edison didn’t invent a practical light bulb the first time either.

There are many books out there on improving one’s writing and communication skills, and I would recommend reading a few and do whatever makes sense to you. Here are some techniques that worked for me:

  • Write an outline or draw a mind map. I find mind-mapping helps me connect ideas. Outlines help me figure out if a particular way of presenting those ideas makes sense.
  • Imagine you are talking to someone else: a coworker, friend, enemy, significant other, or family member, etc. After writing every other sentence or so, I go back and ask myself, “Would this make sense to someone else? If not, how can I rephrase this sentence so that it would make sense?”
  • Write up something, put it aside and do something else and read it again later. If what you wrote 2 hours ago or last night doesn’t make sense to you anymore when you read it again, chances are no one will get it either.
Footnotes
  1. In some cases, such as Rockson Takumi Tan and the Void Deck, bloggers can still be successful while writing in pure Singlish. Let that be inspiration for future Singlish blogs lah!↩
  2. My favorite examples: apex-apices, octopus-octopodes, datum-data, lemma-lemmata, cherub-cherubim, opus-opera, insigne-insignia. Who even uses ‘datum’ nowadays?↩