Reading Respectfully

Good writers only come into their own in the hands of a good reader. But very often, writers remain insulated from their readers. They send their piece into the world, never knowing where it will end up or if it will be understood once it gets there. That has changed for those writers who've taken on blogs. The opportunity to post comments makes plain the ability of writers and readers, and problems are exposed that never used to come to light.



If you're reading a blog and you think the writer is good, remember that they have carefully chosen their words. So read slowly and before you make a comment, read their post again. Look for things like qualifying statements or places where they might've been blunt, but chose instead to use softer words.

Let me give you an example. In my last post, 'Evangelical and Pentecostal Churches,' I had a couple of explicit qualifying statements - "I have more experience with evangelicalism than pentecostalism, so please forgive me if I get it wrong" and "This is not to say that either group rejects or fails to practice any of what I have written for the other one, just that it’s not their primary emphasis". My first paragraph also served as an implicit qualifying statement. My aim was to dispel any assumptions that I was out to attack.



I also chose my words carefully. For example, the second dot point I made for evangelicals was that they desired to "know God better", and for pentecostals that they desired to "experience a closer personal relationship with God". In a way, I was saying the same thing, but I wanted to emphasise that for the evangelicals, it's about knowledge, personal knowledge, like the way you get to know a friend or your wife over time. For the pentecostals, I wanted to emphasise that it's the felt experience of a closer relationship that matters. What this will look like is less specified than it is for the evangelicals.



So what can writers do to reduce misunderstanding? Get better! Aim to explain things clearly enough for all your readers to understand. But also accept that not everyone will understand. Cut your readers some slack - reading well is perhaps as difficult a skill as writing well.