Communication is a way of relating messages between people. It can be verbal or written. “Communication is a process that involves sending and receiving through the verbal and non-verbal methods.” Written communication is impactful. It leaves indelible marks; it stays on and lasts longer. Spoken words fly away, but written words remain. Written communication includes books, emails, text messages, blog posts, business letters, reports, etc.
The written communication involves content, style, and structure. Content is what is written, style is the way that content is written, and structure is how the content is organized and conveyed to the individual reader. Content is king, to borrow from Bill Gates’ words. He coined the phrase “Content is king”. Anyone aspiring to entice and inspire an audience ought to produce clear content. In other words, clear written communication must be employed. That is to say, the particular message generator needs to strive for clarity, unity, and coherence. Clarity is to be clear and concise in writing.
Utilizing plain language and clear sentences is the cornerstone of written communication. Staying away from complexity and ambiguity enables people to understand messages clearly and easily. Unclear, ambiguous messages obstruct meaning and cause confusion and a waste of time. It is part of clarity to tailor any piece of written communication to the individual, intended audience level. Different audiences demand different messages. The tone and style of the particular written communication should cater to that need.
Written communication immortalizes people’s history and stories. To reiterate, spoken words fly away, and written words remain. A history book containing three hundred pages is equivalent to 82,500 spoken words. Without having that written history book, who could keep track of those eighty-two thousand, spoken words? Nobody could. Everybody utters hundreds of words a day, perhaps thousands of words. However, the spoken words cannot be traced unless recorded. Conversely, any written word can be retrieved easily. Hence, through writing, nations retain knowledge and information and relate them to other nations and cultures.
Written communication is robust as it retains and retails information. Knowledge is retained through writing and related to other people by using one or more of the above-mentioned communication methods. In short, written communication is mightier than the spoken word.