In this episode we welcome Pam Hurley, the founder and president of Hurley Write Inc., who specializes in professional writing and communication training. Pam discusses how proper writing can lead to more effective professional communication in life sciences, and how precision and confidence in writing can help professionals achieve their goals.
She highlights the importance of clear and concise communication, especially in regulatory submissions, research publications, or internal communications. Delving into the common writing challenges, Pam mentions the lack of understanding of the outcome and disregarding reader's readability and understanding as some. She concludes by highlighting the crucial role of effective writing in business and organizational decision-making and shares tips for enhancing writing skills.
LinkedIn.com/in/Hurleywrite
00:40 Meet the Guest: Pam Hurley
02:14 Pam's Journey into Professional Writing
04:06 The Impact of Effective Writing in Life Sciences
08:15 Common Writing Challenges in Professional Settings
16:16 The Role of Writing in Decision Making
17:50 The Future of Writing: AI and Beyond
19:12 Pam's Favorite Writers and Reading Habits
21:42 Closing Remarks and Contact Information
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Music by keldez
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Hi there! Welcome to the FromLab to Launch podcast by Qualio,
where we share inspiring storiesfrom the people on the front
lines of life sciences.
Tune in and leave inspired tobring your life saving products
to the world.
Meg Sinclair (00:17):
Hi, everyone.
And thanks for tuning in to FromLab to Launch by Qualio.
I'm Meg, your host.
I'm glad to be here and reallyexcited about today's episode.
Before we get started, we'd loveit if you rated the podcast.
It's easy to do and share itwith any of your science nerd
friends.
We know you have some.
If you'd like to be on the show,please see the show notes for an
application.
(00:40):
Today we're joined by PamHurley, a distinguished figure
in the world of professionalwriting and communication
training.
Pam is the founder and presidentof Hurley Write Inc., a firm
that has carved out a niche foritself by providing top tier
writing courses tailored to theneeds of businesses, technical,
and scientific professionals.
With a client roster that readslike a who's who of global
(01:05):
corporations, including lifescience giants like Pfizer and
Genentech, Pam brings a wealthof experience in enhancing the
clarity, impact, andeffectiveness of professional
communication.
Her work is about empoweringprofessionals to convey their
ideas effectively, engage theiraudiences, and achieve their
goals with precision andconfidence.
(01:26):
For anyone in the life scienceslooking to elevate their
writing, whether it's forregulatory submissions, research
publications, or internalcommunications, Pam's, Pam's
insights are invaluable.
Her approach, focusing on clear,concise, and targeted documents
and presentations, promises toleave you with strategies that
will immediately improve yourwriting and communication
(01:47):
skills.
Given how much writing anddocumentation takes place in
launching any regulated product,we thought Pam would be a
wonderful addition to thepodcast this
Pam Hurley (01:56):
year.
I'd refer you to Salesforce,Meg.
Oh, great.
That's it.
That's it, everybody.
We're done.
Meg Sinclair (02:03):
That's it.
We're done.
So for more of Pam's work, checkout the show notes, but let's go
ahead and get to it, Pam.
Welcome to the show.
Pam Hurley (02:11):
Thank you very much.
I'm excited to be here.
Terrific.
Can you give us some
Meg Sinclair (02:14):
background on how you got into your writing career
and running your own
Pam Hurley (02:18):
practice?
Yeah, absolutely.
So, um, I started in academia.
Um, back in the day, andactually, it was interesting
because, um, I was teaching inacademia and I realized that
what I was teaching in academiawas applicable to a lot of
professionals.
(02:38):
So, I don't know if you everlisten to me on LinkedIn, I have
this series called Pam's rants,and I'm consistently ranting
about the poor, the poor jobthat academia doesn't train
people how to write for the realworld.
And so I called a local isactually a pharma company.
They're still in business.
I called them and I said, hey.
(02:59):
Um, I'm teaching this class.
I think your folks could benefitfrom it.
I called him for a solid year.
They finally hired me.
And, um, when they hired hiredme, they hired I worked for them
for about 10 years trainingtheir existing folks and also
training their, their, uh, youknow, onboarding their new folks
(03:20):
to teach them the, the way thatthe company wanted them to
write.
So that kind of propelled us,uh, to the, uh, to stardom, if
you want to think about it thatway.
Meg Sinclair (03:35):
Awesome.
So just cold calling got yourfoot in the door.
Yeah, I
Pam Hurley (03:40):
mean, back in the day, you could, you know, you
could get people on the phone.
I don't think it's that wayanymore.
But back in the day, you surecould.
And so yeah, and then, and thenfrom there, I just kept calling
companies.
And, you know, now we have ateam of probably seven, we have
a team of seven, um, you know,very talented, uh, very talented
(04:01):
instructor, instructor.
So yeah, it's been great.
Meg Sinclair (04:05):
Terrific.
So how can effective writingtransform the life science
industry?
Pam Hurley (04:11):
Oh, let me count the ways.
Um, so one of the things we findwith life sciences companies Uh,
is that they're oftentimes theyhave incredibly smart people,
they always have incrediblysmart people, but these folks
don't necessarily know how towrite and how to write well, and
how to write in such a way thatthe information appeals to and
(04:36):
can be read and understood bytheir targeted readers.
And so, especially if they comefrom academic backgrounds, they
oftentimes tend to write inacademic speak, which is not the
way that they, um, that theyshould be writing.
And as you know, in lifesciences, they're so
documentation heavy.
I mean, everything from, uh, youknow, taking notes at meetings
(05:01):
to protocols to FDA submission,the list goes on and on and on,
uh, deviation.
We do a lot of work with, with,uh, companies on their deviation
reports.
Um, and it's just, you know,there's a, a lot of time and
energy wasted on poor writingand and so, you know, what we
(05:24):
find oftentimes is that people.
In the, in, in the lifesciences, right?
And then there's, there's,there's a lot of revision and
things like that.
And there's a lot of feedbackand there's a lot of back and
forth.
And so it takes longer for, youknow, products to get out the
door, takes longer for things tobe approved and massive amounts
(05:45):
of money.
Right.
So I'm not telling any of thelife sciences folks anything
that they don't, don't alreadyknow.
That's a lot.
It's a lot of time, a lot ofwasted time and energy on poor
writing that can really beeasily solved.
Do you have an,
Meg Sinclair (06:02):
excuse me, do you have a specific example of how
improving those writing skillshas.
impacted a deviation process ata
Pam Hurley (06:09):
company?
Yeah, so we're working with acompany right now and their
deviation reports are written insuch a way that it's very
difficult for management tounderstand what they're supposed
to do and how they're supposedto fix the issue.
And so what we help them work onis getting to the point more
(06:30):
quickly, because oftentimes withdeviation report, you know,
they're in chronologically 1st,this happened and there's all
this stuff happens.
And then by the end, they'relike, oh, and so what we think
what we're teaching them to dois to rethink.
How they, how they strategizeand how they organize these
kinds of reports for theirparticular readers, because
management, you know, what arethey, what are they mainly
(06:53):
interested in?
Right?
And so teaching people, writersin the life sciences to really,
and we hear this all the time,you've got to focus on, you
know, who are you writing for,who are your readers?
But the problem with that isthat most of the time people
don't know how to do that.
So they'll say, Oh, I'm writingfor Meg.
Okay.
Well, okay.
(07:14):
You know, and then you have,well, Meg likes bulleted Meg,
Meg, Meg likes bullets and allher documents.
Okay, and so then, you know whatI mean?
So it's just this kind ofsuperficial kind of thinking
about who they're writing for,and everything that we teach is
based on readability studies.
So it's not grammar, or we'regoing to do this because we
(07:36):
think it sounds okay, we'regoing to do this because this is
what we know about how readersread.
And so a lot of it is, thesefolks just don't have the tools,
and I'm deviating from what yourquestion was.
But but a lot of times it's it'snot that they are poor for
communicators is that they don'thave the tool they don't.
So we just kind of do thisbecause this is what we think we
(07:57):
should do.
And this is the way we're taughtin academia.
Instead of there are real waysto solve the writing problem.
So it sounds
Meg Sinclair (08:07):
like knowing your audience and that readability
and understanding thatreadability are two common
challenges.
Are there other common writingchallenges that professionals
face in their day to day
Pam Hurley (08:19):
work?
Yes, a big one is not knowingwhat the outcome is.
Right, and so what I mean bythat is don't write without
understanding, you have to knowwhere you're going to get there.
And so 1 of the things we talkabout in our classes is reverse
engineering, right?
So if you start with whereyou're going, then you can
(08:41):
better chart that path.
But what people do is they juststart writing and writing and
writing and write some more andthen I'm going to, you know, I'm
going to hope for the best orthey use someone else's report
or something like that withoutgiving any real thought to what
is it that I'm trying toachieve.
And so that oftentimes is why ittakes.
(09:02):
You know, when you're reading,it takes so long to figure out
what the point is, becausepeople just write, and they just
write, and they write, and theyjust, gosh, I really hope it
works this time, without havingany real, um, you know, we talk
a lot about outcome statement,reverse engineering the
document, know where you'regoing, and then you can, you can
chart the path to get there.
(09:22):
But if you don't know whereyou're going, or you have a
vague idea of where you'regoing, it's going to be much
more difficult for you.
Meg Sinclair (09:29):
That's great advice, and I pet peeve reading
something and being like, what
Pam Hurley (09:34):
was the point?
And you're reading it and it'slike, okay, and any minute now,
I'm going to be able to figureit out.
It's just kind of amazing.
You know, it's interestingbecause writers don't Most of
the folks we work with hatewriting.
They just don't like it.
I don't want to do it, but it'sso interesting because they
(09:54):
spend all this time doing whatwe call overriding.
Right and it's just this kind ofgoing to throw words on a page
and hope for the best and thenthey spend all this time on the
back and where if they, if theytook a minute to take a minute
to plan.
They wouldn't, you know, they,they could, they could, they're
writing tasks would be so muchshorter and they would write
(10:17):
more cogent documents.
Right out of the chute insteadof this kind of, you know,
another thing about it is, is,you know, the writing, the
reports, whatever the, whateverit is they're running.
That's, that's the deliverable,right?
That is the deliverable.
It's not what you do in the labor what you do behind the
scenes.
(10:38):
It is the document, becausethat's how people decide, you
know, is the FDA going toapprove it?
Approve, you know, what is thedeviation?
Can it be fixed?
How do we fix it?
You know, whatever it is, butpeople, you know, companies are
guilty of not giving writersadequate training or adequate
(10:59):
time to write, which is veryinteresting because the document
is the deliverable.
I mean, so there's that.
It's a great point.
Thanks.
Yeah.
Um,
Meg Sinclair (11:16):
all the time spent and not planned out well.
Pam Hurley (11:20):
Yes.
It's amazing.
And companies oftentimes don'tsee that ROI, you know, they
just know that, um, think,think, you know, things aren't
going well, but they don't knowwhy and they don't know how to
fix it.
And they don't ever look to thewriters and lots of times hate
(11:40):
to say this out loud, but a lotof times it's the reviewers as
well, who are who are thebottleneck and they're making
comments that nobody understandsand it's just, it's just kind of
this.
We're kind of situation insteadof everybody, everybody being
aligned and everybody have tohave a have the same
(12:01):
understanding or this is whatwe're looking for.
This is what we're going toreview for.
Right.
Instead, it's a surprise.
Oh, today, or, you know, it'skind of weird.
It's a power thing to, I mean,it's, let's be honest,
unfortunately, going
Meg Sinclair (12:19):
back to the readability studies.
Can you elaborate more on theconcept of those studies and how
it forms the foundation of yourteaching methodology?
Pam Hurley (12:27):
Yeah, absolutely.
As I said, we don't teachgrammar.
So what we, what we do is we, welook at and so what readability
studies are obviously are howreaders read, because if you
don't have our readers read,what is the point?
You're guessing, right?
So I'm going to write for theengineer or the scientist in the
next cube instead ofunderstanding how readers read.
(12:49):
So readers pay attention tosentences in a certain way to
paragraphs that are writtenwritten in a certain way.
There's strategies involved inlength, the length of a
paragraph, the length of asentence.
You know, people say, Oh, yeah,I'm actually actually have one
one client.
We've been doing this for 35years.
So I've pretty much seen it all.
(13:09):
And the client was well, if asentence is over three lines.
It's too long.
Well, that's dumb.
It's just stupid because you canhave a sentence that's five or
five lines long and be perfectlyreadable.
And you can have one that's oneline long and not be readable,
but we get the, you know, peopleget caught up in these rules
overruling.
(13:29):
You cannot, you cannot be givena sentence with and or but, or
the world is just going toexplode.
I mean, it's crazy stuff.
So everything that we,everything that we talk about
is.
You know, a lot of writingreally is common sense, you
know, but people get reallywrapped up in the rules and the
(13:50):
rules.
So, so how you emphasize, howyou write for particular
readers, what type oforganizational strategy you use,
all that is based onreadability.
One of the things we know now isthat people don't read.
And so if people don't read, howdo you appeal to those to those
readers, or they may gloss overor they may skim, right?
(14:14):
People are much more likely toskim now than they were 5 or 10
years ago.
You need to know that you needto know that if you're running
the same way you did 5 or 10years ago, that document may not
be landing the way that it did 5or 10 years ago.
So what do you need to do?
Right?
And so that's how readabilitystudies can help us.
(14:34):
Evolve and think about differentand new ways and different
strategies to appeal to ourreaders and get and, and get the
job done.
Can you tell, I'm passionateabout this?
Can you tell I
Meg Sinclair (14:47):
I love it.
I love the passion.
Um, many of our professionalssee writing as a secondary
skill.
We see it on job applications,you know, have excellent written
communication.
But how do you help themunderstand the critical role it
plays in their
Pam Hurley (15:01):
success?
Oh, my goodness.
Well, here's the thing, and thishas been said by philosophers
for years and years and years.
If you can't explain it, youprobably don't understand it.
We also know that, and this isbased on studies, that people
who can communicate well aremore likely to be promoted.
(15:23):
They're more likely to be inleadership roles and things like
that.
People who can't communicate.
Well, I mean, another thing tothink about is this is that
people judge you based on thewriting you do.
And all of us have done it.
All of us have looked at thedocument and read it.
Not the sharpest tool in theshed.
We've all done it.
Right.
And so when we think about thedocument as the deliverable,
(15:45):
that's what I'm talking about.
Your image, right?
The way that you are perceivedis wrapped up in that document.
And so it's incredible.
How do you want to be perceived?
Do you want to be perceived assomebody who doesn't know
anything, disorganized becausethe writing is disorganized?
Or do you want to, excuse me, ordo you want to be perceived as
somebody who is incrediblyintelligent and thoughtful and
all those kinds of fun things?
(16:06):
I'm slipping out of my chair.
So excited.
So excited.
Falling out of your chair.
Sitting on my chair.
Yeah.
And
Meg Sinclair (16:16):
what are some insights you have on how
effective writing impactsdecision making in business and
organizational settings?
Pam Hurley (16:22):
Oh, I will give you a story.
So we have one, one client who,um, they're, these are engineers
and the writing was so poor, sohard to understand that
leadership was making wrongdecisions.
(16:42):
So.
multi million dollar incorrectdecisions based on the
information that they were, thatthey were given, right?
And then another example is theChallenger disaster.
If you've read anything aboutthe Challenger disaster, that
was a communication issue.
And so, you know, when you thinkabout those things, and maybe in
(17:03):
your business, Right.
Your business is not that big,not, not that big of a deal.
It won't have that much of animpact, but it could.
And so, I mean, businessesreally need to consider how
their communication is beingperceived.
And I will, and I'm going to saythis, a lot of new graduates.
(17:27):
don't have the same writingtraining that we did.
I mean, I'm old back in the daywe had, you know, we had a lot,
we had a lot, a lot more writingtraining.
And so there's an assumption,oftentimes that people who are
college graduates, masters, PhDsknow how to write.
And that's, that can be a reallypoor assumption to make.
Meg Sinclair (17:50):
Yeah.
And on the flip side, if theydon't know how to write, how are
they leveraging AI and, and asthose tools become more
prevalent, is writing trainingstill essential?
Pam Hurley (18:01):
Absolutely, because you still have to, you still
have to have, AI has not gottento the point where it can, it
can take the place of humanbeings and human thought and
that kind of thing.
It's interesting because we'veactually just developed a class
on AI, and there's, there'sthree levels on how you want to
use AI, because it's only asgood as what you put in, right?
(18:23):
So, it is making progress.
I think it can be a good aid,but you have to know how to use
it.
Um, but I don't know that itwill ever replace human thought,
human problem solvingcapabilities and those kinds of
things.
And then the other thing is, youstill have to have people who
can review the AI writtendocument for technical content
(18:46):
and readability and those kindsof things.
So, you know, it just, and Iknow people, oh AI, I know it's
a nice new shiny thing and I'mnever going to have to write
again.
Yeah, we're not there yet.
Yeah, not till
Meg Sinclair (18:59):
Pam teaches the
Pam Hurley (19:00):
AI tricks.
Yeah, not till I get in thereand teach it.
Yes.
Meg Sinclair (19:06):
Yeah.
Well, our last question is moreof a fun one.
We'd like to ask each of ourguests.
And since we've talked a lotabout writing, it seems apropos
that we would ask you about yourfavorite writers.
So if we ran into you at abookstore or your local library,
which section
Pam Hurley (19:22):
would we find you?
You'd find me in fiction.
I love fiction.
Uh, I love, uh, John Irving, whowrote the world according to
God.
Something very interesting abouthim too, is.
So, so they say whether this istrue or not, but he starts his
novels with by writing the lastsentence first, and then he
works his way backwards.
(19:43):
So, I was talking about thereverse engineering, but I love
John Irving.
I love Joyce Carol Oates.
John Boyne's another one.
I mean, I love to read.
I read, I read every day.
And that's another thing thatresearch tells us.
If you read every day, you'regoing to be a better writer, and
you should write every day.
That'll make you a betterwriter.
(20:03):
Big surprise here.
Does, does documentation count?
Say it
Meg Sinclair (20:10):
again.
Does documentation count aswriting?
Yeah.
That I think I'm all set.
Pam Hurley (20:16):
Yeah.
It's not like you're doing itconsistently.
I mean, it's just, you know,the, um, example I always use
is.
You know, you don't get great atanything without doing it
consistently.
You just don't.
And so I know people hatewriting and all that, but
there's so many ways to, youknow, to, to write right,
(20:36):
whether it's.
You know, emails or, orjournaling or whatever the heck
it is.
I mean, there's a lot, there's alot of ways to write that
nobody's going to.
I think part of the problem too,is that, you know, when you're
six and you write, Oh, it's justso great.
It's on the refrigerator and allthat.
And then as you, as you grow,you just get, you just get beat
(20:56):
up about your writing so much.
That by the time people actuallyget into the real world, I mean,
they're just like, I hate it.
I can't do it because there's alot of angst associated with it.
And that's a whole nother rantof mine.
But anyway, I just feel like,and I'm not saying that all, you
know, the teachers, but theyalways focus on the, on the bad
(21:20):
stuff and they never focus onwhat writers do.
Well, typically, yeah.
Yeah, so that's a problem.
And in the workplace, if youmanage a team of people who have
to write, you should focus onsome of the things that they do
well, you know, instead of justbeating them up about
everything.
That's great advice.
Thanks.
Meg Sinclair (21:42):
Well, thanks, Pam.
This has been a greatconversation.
Where can people go to followalong and learn more about you?
Pam Hurley (21:47):
Thank you.
You can go to our website, whichis Hurley, write w.
R.
I.
T.
E.
dot com.
Uh, you can hit me up onLinkedIn, uh, Pam Hurley, um, or
email me, Pam Hurley Write orgive us a call.
8 7 7 2 4 9 7 4 8 3.
Yeah, thank you.
And check out Pam's rants onLinkedIn.
Pam's rants.
(22:08):
Yeah.
Okay.
I need to do another one.
I've gotten a little slack herelately, but yeah, check out my
rants.
Meg Sinclair (22:14):
Okay, I will do that.
Thanks so much for joining ustoday.
Thank you for listening to thisweek's episode of From Lab to
Launch, brought to you byQualio.
(22:35):
If you like what you've heard,please subscribe and give the
show a positive review.
It really helps us out.
For more information aboutQualio, our guest today, or to
be a guest on a future episode,please refer to the show notes.
Until next time.
Hi there! Welcome to the FromLab to Launch podcast by Qualio,
where we share inspiring storiesfrom the people on the front
lines of life sciences.
Tune in and leave inspired tobring your life saving products
to the world.
Meg Sinclair (00:17):
Hi, everyone.
And thanks for tuning in to FromLab to Launch by Qualio.
I'm Meg, your host.
I'm glad to be here and reallyexcited about today's episode.
Before we get started, we'd loveit if you rated the podcast.
It's easy to do and share itwith any of your science nerd
friends.
We know you have some.
If you'd like to be on the show,please see the show notes for an
application.
(00:40):
Today we're joined by PamHurley, a distinguished figure
in the world of professionalwriting and communication
training.
Pam is the founder and presidentof Hurley Write Inc., a firm
that has carved out a niche foritself by providing top tier
writing courses tailored to theneeds of businesses, technical,
and scientific professionals.
With a client roster that readslike a who's who of global
(01:05):
corporations, including lifescience giants like Pfizer and
Genentech, Pam brings a wealthof experience in enhancing the
clarity, impact, andeffectiveness of professional
communication.
Her work is about empoweringprofessionals to convey their
ideas effectively, engage theiraudiences, and achieve their
goals with precision andconfidence.
(01:26):
For anyone in the life scienceslooking to elevate their
writing, whether it's forregulatory submissions, research
publications, or internalcommunications, Pam's, Pam's
insights are invaluable.
Her approach, focusing on clear,concise, and targeted documents
and presentations, promises toleave you with strategies that
will immediately improve yourwriting and communication
(01:47):
skills.
Given how much writing anddocumentation takes place in
launching any regulated product,we thought Pam would be a
wonderful addition to thepodcast this
Pam Hurley (01:56):
year.
I'd refer you to Salesforce,Meg.
Oh, great.
That's it.
That's it, everybody.
We're done.
Meg Sinclair (02:03):
That's it.
We're done.
So for more of Pam's work, checkout the show notes, but let's go
ahead and get to it, Pam.
Welcome to the show.
Pam Hurley (02:11):
Thank you very much.
I'm excited to be here.
Terrific.
Can you give us some
Meg Sinclair (02:14):
background on how you got into your writing career
and running your own
Pam Hurley (02:18):
practice?
Yeah, absolutely.
So, um, I started in academia.
Um, back in the day, andactually, it was interesting
because, um, I was teaching inacademia and I realized that
what I was teaching in academiawas applicable to a lot of
professionals.
(02:38):
So, I don't know if you everlisten to me on LinkedIn, I have
this series called Pam's rants,and I'm consistently ranting
about the poor, the poor jobthat academia doesn't train
people how to write for the realworld.
And so I called a local isactually a pharma company.
They're still in business.
I called them and I said, hey.
(02:59):
Um, I'm teaching this class.
I think your folks could benefitfrom it.
I called him for a solid year.
They finally hired me.
And, um, when they hired hiredme, they hired I worked for them
for about 10 years trainingtheir existing folks and also
training their, their, uh, youknow, onboarding their new folks
(03:20):
to teach them the, the way thatthe company wanted them to
write.
So that kind of propelled us,uh, to the, uh, to stardom, if
you want to think about it thatway.
Meg Sinclair (03:35):
Awesome.
So just cold calling got yourfoot in the door.
Yeah, I
Pam Hurley (03:40):
mean, back in the day, you could, you know, you
could get people on the phone.
I don't think it's that wayanymore.
But back in the day, you surecould.
And so yeah, and then, and thenfrom there, I just kept calling
companies.
And, you know, now we have ateam of probably seven, we have
a team of seven, um, you know,very talented, uh, very talented
(04:01):
instructor, instructor.
So yeah, it's been great.
Meg Sinclair (04:05):
Terrific.
So how can effective writingtransform the life science
industry?
Pam Hurley (04:11):
Oh, let me count the ways.
Um, so one of the things we findwith life sciences companies Uh,
is that they're oftentimes theyhave incredibly smart people,
they always have incrediblysmart people, but these folks
don't necessarily know how towrite and how to write well, and
how to write in such a way thatthe information appeals to and
(04:36):
can be read and understood bytheir targeted readers.
And so, especially if they comefrom academic backgrounds, they
oftentimes tend to write inacademic speak, which is not the
way that they, um, that theyshould be writing.
And as you know, in lifesciences, they're so
documentation heavy.
I mean, everything from, uh, youknow, taking notes at meetings
(05:01):
to protocols to FDA submission,the list goes on and on and on,
uh, deviation.
We do a lot of work with, with,uh, companies on their deviation
reports.
Um, and it's just, you know,there's a, a lot of time and
energy wasted on poor writingand and so, you know, what we
(05:24):
find oftentimes is that people.
In the, in, in the lifesciences, right?
And then there's, there's,there's a lot of revision and
things like that.
And there's a lot of feedbackand there's a lot of back and
forth.
And so it takes longer for, youknow, products to get out the
door, takes longer for things tobe approved and massive amounts
(05:45):
of money.
Right.
So I'm not telling any of thelife sciences folks anything
that they don't, don't alreadyknow.
That's a lot.
It's a lot of time, a lot ofwasted time and energy on poor
writing that can really beeasily solved.
Do you have an,
Meg Sinclair (06:02):
excuse me, do you have a specific example of how
improving those writing skillshas.
impacted a deviation process ata
Pam Hurley (06:09):
company?
Yeah, so we're working with acompany right now and their
deviation reports are written insuch a way that it's very
difficult for management tounderstand what they're supposed
to do and how they're supposedto fix the issue.
And so what we help them work onis getting to the point more
(06:30):
quickly, because oftentimes withdeviation report, you know,
they're in chronologically 1st,this happened and there's all
this stuff happens.
And then by the end, they'relike, oh, and so what we think
what we're teaching them to dois to rethink.
How they, how they strategizeand how they organize these
kinds of reports for theirparticular readers, because
management, you know, what arethey, what are they mainly
(06:53):
interested in?
Right?
And so teaching people, writersin the life sciences to really,
and we hear this all the time,you've got to focus on, you
know, who are you writing for,who are your readers?
But the problem with that isthat most of the time people
don't know how to do that.
So they'll say, Oh, I'm writingfor Meg.
Okay.
Well, okay.
(07:14):
You know, and then you have,well, Meg likes bulleted Meg,
Meg, Meg likes bullets and allher documents.
Okay, and so then, you know whatI mean?
So it's just this kind ofsuperficial kind of thinking
about who they're writing for,and everything that we teach is
based on readability studies.
So it's not grammar, or we'regoing to do this because we
(07:36):
think it sounds okay, we'regoing to do this because this is
what we know about how readersread.
And so a lot of it is, thesefolks just don't have the tools,
and I'm deviating from what yourquestion was.
But but a lot of times it's it'snot that they are poor for
communicators is that they don'thave the tool they don't.
So we just kind of do thisbecause this is what we think we
(07:57):
should do.
And this is the way we're taughtin academia.
Instead of there are real waysto solve the writing problem.
So it sounds
Meg Sinclair (08:07):
like knowing your audience and that readability
and understanding thatreadability are two common
challenges.
Are there other common writingchallenges that professionals
face in their day to day
Pam Hurley (08:19):
work?
Yes, a big one is not knowingwhat the outcome is.
Right, and so what I mean bythat is don't write without
understanding, you have to knowwhere you're going to get there.
And so 1 of the things we talkabout in our classes is reverse
engineering, right?
So if you start with whereyou're going, then you can
(08:41):
better chart that path.
But what people do is they juststart writing and writing and
writing and write some more andthen I'm going to, you know, I'm
going to hope for the best orthey use someone else's report
or something like that withoutgiving any real thought to what
is it that I'm trying toachieve.
And so that oftentimes is why ittakes.
(09:02):
You know, when you're reading,it takes so long to figure out
what the point is, becausepeople just write, and they just
write, and they write, and theyjust, gosh, I really hope it
works this time, without havingany real, um, you know, we talk
a lot about outcome statement,reverse engineering the
document, know where you'regoing, and then you can, you can
chart the path to get there.
(09:22):
But if you don't know whereyou're going, or you have a
vague idea of where you'regoing, it's going to be much
more difficult for you.
Meg Sinclair (09:29):
That's great advice, and I pet peeve reading
something and being like, what
Pam Hurley (09:34):
was the point?
And you're reading it and it'slike, okay, and any minute now,
I'm going to be able to figureit out.
It's just kind of amazing.
You know, it's interestingbecause writers don't Most of
the folks we work with hatewriting.
They just don't like it.
I don't want to do it, but it'sso interesting because they
(09:54):
spend all this time doing whatwe call overriding.
Right and it's just this kind ofgoing to throw words on a page
and hope for the best and thenthey spend all this time on the
back and where if they, if theytook a minute to take a minute
to plan.
They wouldn't, you know, they,they could, they could, they're
writing tasks would be so muchshorter and they would write
(10:17):
more cogent documents.
Right out of the chute insteadof this kind of, you know,
another thing about it is, is,you know, the writing, the
reports, whatever the, whateverit is they're running.
That's, that's the deliverable,right?
That is the deliverable.
It's not what you do in the labor what you do behind the
scenes.
(10:38):
It is the document, becausethat's how people decide, you
know, is the FDA going toapprove it?
Approve, you know, what is thedeviation?
Can it be fixed?
How do we fix it?
You know, whatever it is, butpeople, you know, companies are
guilty of not giving writersadequate training or adequate
(10:59):
time to write, which is veryinteresting because the document
is the deliverable.
I mean, so there's that.
It's a great point.
Thanks.
Yeah.
Um,
Meg Sinclair (11:16):
all the time spent and not planned out well.
Pam Hurley (11:20):
Yes.
It's amazing.
And companies oftentimes don'tsee that ROI, you know, they
just know that, um, think,think, you know, things aren't
going well, but they don't knowwhy and they don't know how to
fix it.
And they don't ever look to thewriters and lots of times hate
(11:40):
to say this out loud, but a lotof times it's the reviewers as
well, who are who are thebottleneck and they're making
comments that nobody understandsand it's just, it's just kind of
this.
We're kind of situation insteadof everybody, everybody being
aligned and everybody have tohave a have the same
(12:01):
understanding or this is whatwe're looking for.
This is what we're going toreview for.
Right.
Instead, it's a surprise.
Oh, today, or, you know, it'skind of weird.
It's a power thing to, I mean,it's, let's be honest,
unfortunately, going
Meg Sinclair (12:19):
back to the readability studies.
Can you elaborate more on theconcept of those studies and how
it forms the foundation of yourteaching methodology?
Pam Hurley (12:27):
Yeah, absolutely.
As I said, we don't teachgrammar.
So what we, what we do is we, welook at and so what readability
studies are obviously are howreaders read, because if you
don't have our readers read,what is the point?
You're guessing, right?
So I'm going to write for theengineer or the scientist in the
next cube instead ofunderstanding how readers read.
(12:49):
So readers pay attention tosentences in a certain way to
paragraphs that are writtenwritten in a certain way.
There's strategies involved inlength, the length of a
paragraph, the length of asentence.
You know, people say, Oh, yeah,I'm actually actually have one
one client.
We've been doing this for 35years.
So I've pretty much seen it all.
(13:09):
And the client was well, if asentence is over three lines.
It's too long.
Well, that's dumb.
It's just stupid because you canhave a sentence that's five or
five lines long and be perfectlyreadable.
And you can have one that's oneline long and not be readable,
but we get the, you know, peopleget caught up in these rules
overruling.
(13:29):
You cannot, you cannot be givena sentence with and or but, or
the world is just going toexplode.
I mean, it's crazy stuff.
So everything that we,everything that we talk about
is.
You know, a lot of writingreally is common sense, you
know, but people get reallywrapped up in the rules and the
(13:50):
rules.
So, so how you emphasize, howyou write for particular
readers, what type oforganizational strategy you use,
all that is based onreadability.
One of the things we know now isthat people don't read.
And so if people don't read, howdo you appeal to those to those
readers, or they may gloss overor they may skim, right?
(14:14):
People are much more likely toskim now than they were 5 or 10
years ago.
You need to know that you needto know that if you're running
the same way you did 5 or 10years ago, that document may not
be landing the way that it did 5or 10 years ago.
So what do you need to do?
Right?
And so that's how readabilitystudies can help us.
(14:34):
Evolve and think about differentand new ways and different
strategies to appeal to ourreaders and get and, and get the
job done.
Can you tell, I'm passionateabout this?
Can you tell I
Meg Sinclair (14:47):
I love it.
I love the passion.
Um, many of our professionalssee writing as a secondary
skill.
We see it on job applications,you know, have excellent written
communication.
But how do you help themunderstand the critical role it
plays in their
Pam Hurley (15:01):
success?
Oh, my goodness.
Well, here's the thing, and thishas been said by philosophers
for years and years and years.
If you can't explain it, youprobably don't understand it.
We also know that, and this isbased on studies, that people
who can communicate well aremore likely to be promoted.
(15:23):
They're more likely to be inleadership roles and things like
that.
People who can't communicate.
Well, I mean, another thing tothink about is this is that
people judge you based on thewriting you do.
And all of us have done it.
All of us have looked at thedocument and read it.
Not the sharpest tool in theshed.
We've all done it.
Right.
And so when we think about thedocument as the deliverable,
(15:45):
that's what I'm talking about.
Your image, right?
The way that you are perceivedis wrapped up in that document.
And so it's incredible.
How do you want to be perceived?
Do you want to be perceived assomebody who doesn't know
anything, disorganized becausethe writing is disorganized?
Or do you want to, excuse me, ordo you want to be perceived as
somebody who is incrediblyintelligent and thoughtful and
all those kinds of fun things?
(16:06):
I'm slipping out of my chair.
So excited.
So excited.
Falling out of your chair.
Sitting on my chair.
Yeah.
And
Meg Sinclair (16:16):
what are some insights you have on how
effective writing impactsdecision making in business and
organizational settings?
Pam Hurley (16:22):
Oh, I will give you a story.
So we have one, one client who,um, they're, these are engineers
and the writing was so poor, sohard to understand that
leadership was making wrongdecisions.
(16:42):
So.
multi million dollar incorrectdecisions based on the
information that they were, thatthey were given, right?
And then another example is theChallenger disaster.
If you've read anything aboutthe Challenger disaster, that
was a communication issue.
And so, you know, when you thinkabout those things, and maybe in
(17:03):
your business, Right.
Your business is not that big,not, not that big of a deal.
It won't have that much of animpact, but it could.
And so, I mean, businessesreally need to consider how
their communication is beingperceived.
And I will, and I'm going to saythis, a lot of new graduates.
(17:27):
don't have the same writingtraining that we did.
I mean, I'm old back in the daywe had, you know, we had a lot,
we had a lot, a lot more writingtraining.
And so there's an assumption,oftentimes that people who are
college graduates, masters, PhDsknow how to write.
And that's, that can be a reallypoor assumption to make.
Meg Sinclair (17:50):
Yeah.
And on the flip side, if theydon't know how to write, how are
they leveraging AI and, and asthose tools become more
prevalent, is writing trainingstill essential?
Pam Hurley (18:01):
Absolutely, because you still have to, you still
have to have, AI has not gottento the point where it can, it
can take the place of humanbeings and human thought and
that kind of thing.
It's interesting because we'veactually just developed a class
on AI, and there's, there'sthree levels on how you want to
use AI, because it's only asgood as what you put in, right?
(18:23):
So, it is making progress.
I think it can be a good aid,but you have to know how to use
it.
Um, but I don't know that itwill ever replace human thought,
human problem solvingcapabilities and those kinds of
things.
And then the other thing is, youstill have to have people who
can review the AI writtendocument for technical content
(18:46):
and readability and those kindsof things.
So, you know, it just, and Iknow people, oh AI, I know it's
a nice new shiny thing and I'mnever going to have to write
again.
Yeah, we're not there yet.
Yeah, not till
Meg Sinclair (18:59):
Pam teaches the
Pam Hurley (19:00):
AI tricks.
Yeah, not till I get in thereand teach it.
Yes.
Meg Sinclair (19:06):
Yeah.
Well, our last question is moreof a fun one.
We'd like to ask each of ourguests.
And since we've talked a lotabout writing, it seems apropos
that we would ask you about yourfavorite writers.
So if we ran into you at abookstore or your local library,
which section
Pam Hurley (19:22):
would we find you?
You'd find me in fiction.
I love fiction.
Uh, I love, uh, John Irving, whowrote the world according to
God.
Something very interesting abouthim too, is.
So, so they say whether this istrue or not, but he starts his
novels with by writing the lastsentence first, and then he
works his way backwards.
(19:43):
So, I was talking about thereverse engineering, but I love
John Irving.
I love Joyce Carol Oates.
John Boyne's another one.
I mean, I love to read.
I read, I read every day.
And that's another thing thatresearch tells us.
If you read every day, you'regoing to be a better writer, and
you should write every day.
That'll make you a betterwriter.
(20:03):
Big surprise here.
Does, does documentation count?
Say it
Meg Sinclair (20:10):
again.
Does documentation count aswriting?
Yeah.
That I think I'm all set.
Pam Hurley (20:16):
Yeah.
It's not like you're doing itconsistently.
I mean, it's just, you know,the, um, example I always use
is.
You know, you don't get great atanything without doing it
consistently.
You just don't.
And so I know people hatewriting and all that, but
there's so many ways to, youknow, to, to write right,
(20:36):
whether it's.
You know, emails or, orjournaling or whatever the heck
it is.
I mean, there's a lot, there's alot of ways to write that
nobody's going to.
I think part of the problem too,is that, you know, when you're
six and you write, Oh, it's justso great.
It's on the refrigerator and allthat.
And then as you, as you grow,you just get, you just get beat
(20:56):
up about your writing so much.
That by the time people actuallyget into the real world, I mean,
they're just like, I hate it.
I can't do it because there's alot of angst associated with it.
And that's a whole nother rantof mine.
But anyway, I just feel like,and I'm not saying that all, you
know, the teachers, but theyalways focus on the, on the bad
(21:20):
stuff and they never focus onwhat writers do.
Well, typically, yeah.
Yeah, so that's a problem.
And in the workplace, if youmanage a team of people who have
to write, you should focus onsome of the things that they do
well, you know, instead of justbeating them up about
everything.
That's great advice.
Thanks.
Meg Sinclair (21:42):
Well, thanks, Pam.
This has been a greatconversation.
Where can people go to followalong and learn more about you?
Pam Hurley (21:47):
Thank you.
You can go to our website, whichis Hurley, write w.
R.
I.
T.
E.
dot com.
Uh, you can hit me up onLinkedIn, uh, Pam Hurley, um, or
email me, Pam Hurley Write orgive us a call.
8 7 7 2 4 9 7 4 8 3.
Yeah, thank you.
And check out Pam's rants onLinkedIn.
Pam's rants.
(22:08):
Yeah.
Okay.
I need to do another one.
I've gotten a little slack herelately, but yeah, check out my
rants.
Meg Sinclair (22:14):
Okay, I will do that.
Thanks so much for joining ustoday.
Thank you for listening to thisweek's episode of From Lab to
Launch, brought to you byQualio.
(22:35):
If you like what you've heard,please subscribe and give the
show a positive review.
It really helps us out.
For more information aboutQualio, our guest today, or to
be a guest on a future episode,please refer to the show notes.
Until next time.
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