Coco Chanel reportedly advised women to look in the mirror before they left the house and take off one piece of jewelry.
What if we communicators followed a similar rule refashioned for the written word?
Take this paragraph:
In 2000, the ASPCA, Animal Welfare Institute, Fund for Animals and Tom Rider, a former Ringling Brothers barnman, sued Feld Entertainment, Inc. (FEI), the parent company of Ringling Brothers circus, under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), which prohibits the "taking" -- defined as "harming," "wounding" or "harassing -- of any endangered animal. The suit accused Feld of violating the ESA by striking elephants with bullhooks and keeping them chained for days at a time. The case, which would last for 14 years, was dismissed in 2001 by Judge Emmet Sullivan, who wrote that the plaintiffs couldn't prove they’d been injured by Ringling's treatment of its elephants and thus lacked legal standing to bring the suit. In 2003, an appellate court reinstated the case, affirming that Tom Rider indeed had standing to sue (although it did not address the standing of the organizational plaintiffs). But in December 2012, Sullivan dismissed the suit a second time, once again ruling that the plaintiffs lacked standing. He also granted FEI's request for legal fees.
(I wrote this some years ago and am combining multiple paragraphs here to make my point. Still, the original was pretty turgid, too.)
Without looking back, what do you remember?
Probably not details so much as the general outline: Animal organizations sued Feld Entertainment because its handlers were mistreating its elephants and the legal proceedings stretched out over years.
We humans can take in only so much information at a time, especially if we’re unfamiliar with the subject matter.
Given the amount of information that barrages us every day whether we like it or not, we don’t always need more.
Instead, help us make sense of the information we already have.
Give us context, analysis and meaning.
And think about taking off that last strand of pearls you just put on.
As always, thanks for reading!
