Protocol for Ensuring Understanding

Literacy challenges facing the listener and lack of clarity from the speaker impact relations between professionals and their patients or clients.

Everyone can learn a few tricks here to improve their communication:

today from The New York Times
Knowing What the Doctor Is Talking About

Dr. Sunil Kripalani of the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta and Dr. Barry D. Weiss of the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson suggest these strategies:

¶ Doctors should assess the patient’s baseline understanding before providing extensive information: “Before we go on, could you tell me what you already know about high blood pressure?”

¶ Doctors should use plain language, not medical jargon, vague terms and words that may have different meanings to a lay person. They should say chest pain instead of angina, hamburger instead of red meat and, “You don’t have H.I.V.” instead of “Your H.I.V. test was negative.”

¶ To encourage patients to ask questions, doctors should ask, “What questions do you have?” rather than, “Do you have any questions?”

¶ Doctors should confirm the patient’s understanding by saying, “I always ask my patients to repeat things back to make sure I have explained them clearly.” Or, if a new skill like using an inhaler was taught, the doctor should have the patient demonstrate the action.

¶ Then, as fail-safe measures, the doctor should provide written instructions and educational material for the patient and family to review at home.

Exploring Metaphor

Anastasia at Lawsagna offers up an interesting discussion on Chasing metaphors:

Sometimes, my brain chooses to focus on something, and I am not quite sure why. I like to indulge my brain occasionally and go with the flow.

That’s how this post started – with the flow of financial metaphors described by Roger von Oech of Creative Think:

Flood the Market Laundered Money Liquid Assets Solvency Deposits Slush Fund Pump Money In Frozen Assets Float A Loan Bank Currency Take A Bath Cash Flow Washed Up Sinking Fund Capital Drain Underwater Pricing

He calls it “The Water Model of Finance.” I have used those terms many times, but I have to admit I have never thought about the water metaphor. Curious… Now what about those corporate law metaphors of “White Knight,” “piercing the veil,” “poison pills,” “crown jewel”?

It made me wonder about the effects of metaphors on our thinking and learning. And the metaphors kept coming…

I came across a post of Eide Neurolearning Blog on Metaphorical Thinking. It talks about how “[w]e often think, decide, and plan based on metaphorical assumptions of which we may not be fully aware.” It describes a study that asked college students to choose a metaphor that best descibed their learning during lecture classes: "Sponge," "Tape Recorder," "Stenographer," "Code Breaker," "Reporter," and "Explorer". The choice of metaphors was fairly predictive of the students’ preferred note-taking practices. The study posited that the students’ conceptual models could either facilitate or hinder their learning. Which metaphor would you choose to describe yourself?

Analogy thinking is big in law. When lawyers talk about precedent, they make analogies between the fact pattern of their case and the fact patterns of the previously decided cases. "Is my case more like this one or that one?" Metaphors help to bridge the gap. However, because we are not always fully aware of our metaphorical assumptions, we can fall into a hidden trap. The Volokh Conspiracy has a post on dangers of believing your own metaphors.

What are the metaphors you live by?

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My thanks to Anastasia for allowing me to reproduce her posting.

Proper Behavior by Copyright Owner

Hurrah for civility and wit!

We seldom encounter a (U.S.) law firm with any common sense. But Darren Barefoot now knows that the lawyers representing Second Life Know where the sunshines from other places.

Instead of threatening him over his parody at the Get a First Life site, Linden Lab sent him a "Permitted and Proceed" letter. Here it is:

"We do not believe that reasonable people would argue as to whether the website located at http://www.getafirstlife.com/ constitutes parody – it clearly is. Linden Lab is well known among its customers and in the general business community as a company with enlightened and well-informed views regarding intellectual property rights, including the fair use doctrine, open source licensing, and other principles that support creativity and self-expression. We know parody when we see it."

Read the post at Darren's blog

Writing to Control Center Stage

With so much recent discussion of passive voice verbs, I just have to jump in.

Control the actors and the story by controlling the point of view.

The reader of mystery novels has one question: Who dunnit?

You can control the story, and the reader's response, by your choice of active or passive verbs, hidden or key actors and clear or ambiguous words.

You can find helpful and amusing advice in The Transitive Vampire: A Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager and the Doomed, by Karen Gordon.

Sometimes it will be in your client's inter­est to obscure the facts and the focus of responsibility. In this situation, you may want to use the style of avoid­ance and be indirect:

To be indirect, convert verbs to passive form, replace verbs with nomin­alizations, and eliminate actors. But remember, this style is not read­er-friendly.

There are also times when you are not aiming for clarity and preci­sion. Sometimes it is a matter of courtesy -- it may be rude to state the obvious or identify the guilty party. Legal writer Henry Weihofen says,

Naked clarity can be embarrassing. Pas­sive voice works when you don't want to name the actor.

Some situations even justify violating the rules of grammar. If you are certain that it is necessary, go ahead. Situations where legal writer Timothy Perrin's "one unbreak­able rule" demands application:

Occasionally, a good writer breaks rules for an ef­fect. That's fine provided she knows what she is doing....So that is my only unbreak­able rule. You can break any rule I tell you if

* you know the rule

* you know you are break­ing it and

* you can give a good reason why.

The writing consultants at Clearlines (George Gopen, Joseph Williams, Gregory Colomb and Frank Kinahan) explained the conscious use of direct and indirect writing to control response in Mastering Legal Writing & Editing: How to Write Better & Faster:

If your client is on the side of the angels, make him an actor and express his good actions as verbs. Example: Mr. Doe contributed over $10,000 to the orphans' fund in 1986.

If your client has behaved in less than perfect fashion, get him offstage and retreat into passives and nominalizations. Example: The embezzlement from the orphans' fund is said to comprise a sum exceeding $10,000.

Conversely, if your opponent is on the side of the angels, get him offstage and retreat into passives and nominalizations. Example: The contribution to the orphans' fund is said to comprise a sum exceeding $10,000.

Finally, if your opponent has behaved in less than perfect fashion, make him an actor and express his actions as verbs. Example: Mr. Smith embezzled over $10,000 from the orphans' fund in 1986.