Practice won't make you perfect.

Practice makes perfect, but no one is perfect. These, I think, are two contradicting quotes, which encourage practice and continuous learning from mistakes.

Our instructor in most of our Technical Communication courses told us that there is no good writing, only good rewriting. It is true that when we write we are very prone to make mistakes because we share our thoughts, and we open it for other people's criticism. 

I know it feels scary because I really don't know how people would take my writing. I can't also control the way people would criticize my writing, so I usually just expect harsh comments. However, I also learned that I shouldn't really be scared to write because the more I practice, the more I will know what my mistakes are. It is normal to feel bad sometimes, but we shouldn't just end there. We should take each editing session or activity as an opportunity to learn and correct our mistakes. We shouldn't just correct the mistakes and comments in order to satisfy the reader or editor for that one piece of writing. We should understand the comments and corrections, and apply it to our next writing.

Practice may not make us perfect, but at least it will make us better.

Think in English to write in English

To speak or write in English, I have to train myself to think in English. 

What thinking in English are you talking about, Danica?

Yes, there is such a thing as thinking in English, especially for immigrants like me.

Only having English as my second language sometimes becomes a challenge for me in writing and speech. Before speaking or writing, I form my thoughts using my mother tongue. Then, in my mind, I translate it to English before writing or saying my opinion. Honestly, this takes more time. 

So what do I to make me think or respond faster? Eat more salt for iodine? No.

I still think in Filipino. What I learned in several projects we’ve done in class is that as a writer, I have to learn the culture of the people I write for. I also have to process the information in English, so I could quickly respond. 

Thinking in the language we are writing in is more than just being quick in responding during conversations or writing. This applies even if it is not for the English audience. It helps us get our ideas across and prevents us from offending our audience just because we didn’t think that a word we used is offensive in their culture.

Thinking in a different language doesn’t mean we have to change our beliefs. For me, it is more of being extra careful with what words I use, what topics I write about, and how I structure my ideas.

How do we develop ourselves to think in a different language? Use the language more. Listen, read, and speak that language. Practice.

I still have to learn a lot about the Canadian Culture. How about you? Have you tried thinking in a different language or culture?

Who do we write for?

I think it is normal to find days when all our ideas just flow out of our mind and we just freely transform it into a piece of writing. Writing is a way of expressing one's thoughts and emotions. We can write about the things that we want in the way that we want it. 

When we do this, we express ourselves, but are we communicating? Maybe. 

How do we know if we are communicating? Let's try searching for the phrase "models of communication process" in Google. You will notice that all models terminate in a so-called Audience or Destination. It just shows that whatever we write about, we should always remember to ask ourselves, "Who is my audience?” A complete communication process starts with a sender and should always have a connection to a receiver, audience or destination. 

It is good that we can express ourselves in writing but we should always aim for others to find use in what write. 

Editing can save and bring money to your business.

I saw this sign during one of my trips to a grocery store. I stopped to think whether it made sense for the business to post it or not. Most likely, it was just a mistake; however, can you imagine how many people saw this sign?

Errors are made. It may be true that it is not the end of the world when you make a mistake; however, errors can cost you a lot of money. Imagine if there were 150 people who changed their mind about buying the product just because they saw the sign, that will be a few dollars of sales lost.  If you think that a loss of few dollars won’t greatly affect a company, think of a business handling a billion-dollar contract making an error on the terms of the contract. It would definitely cost a lot of money to have a contract corrected or they can even lose the contract because of an error.

It is important to always proofread business documents.Editing brings a lot of benefits to businesses. An error-free business document

• Signifies credibility.
• Increases the chances of having happy customers.
• Saves the business some money on addressing this type of issues.  

Whatever type of document you are working on, you should never forget to edit. And that was my two cents.