Clarity

Clarity in communication is essential because it ensures that your message is understood as intended, without confusion, misinterpretation, or unnecessary back-and-forth.

Whether you're writing an email, delivering a presentation, or having a conversation, clarity supports both efficiency and effectiveness in every interaction. It demonstrates respect for the reader's time. Here’s why it matters:

1. Prevents Misunderstanding: When communication is vague or ambiguous, people fill in the blanks with their own assumptions. Clear communication reduces this risk, keeping everyone aligned on facts, expectations, and next steps.
2. Saves Time and Resources: If others don’t understand your message the first time, you may have to clarify it later, answer follow-up questions, or correct mistakes. Clarity up front avoids this wasted effort.
3. Builds Credibility and Trust: People trust communicators who are direct, specific, and easy to follow. Clarity shows respect for your audience’s time and intelligence. It signals that you know what you're talking about.
4. Improves Decision-Making: When goals, data, or instructions are clear, people are better equipped to act confidently and accurately. Ambiguity in key details can lead to bad decisions—even when the intentions are good.
5. Enhances Collaboration: Clear communication ensures that team members understand their roles, deadlines, and how their work fits into the bigger picture. Being on the same page is especially important in group settings or cross-functional teams.
6. Drives Action: The clearer your message, the more likely people are to respond, follow through, or take initiative. If your communication includes a direct call to action with no room for doubt, things get done.

Here are some examples of what can happen when communication is unclear.

I once threw a surprise birthday party for my work buddy, Igor. He was from Moscow, and he moved to LA early in 1998. He left his family and friends behind, and he was alone in a country that had been hostile to his homeland for most of his life. On November 4, we got a cake and met in the cafeteria. We got the head of HR to call him and order him to come to the cafeteria immediately. He poked his head in the door, and we all yelled, "Surprise!" He about had a heart attack. He thought he was in trouble or something, meeting the head of HR, and out of nowhere a whole bunch of Americans yelled "Surprise!" at him. He was not expecting that at all. He saw the cake and candles, which only confused him further.

"My birthday was seven months ago."

Our department secretary collected staff members' personal information in case of an emergency. Next to "Date of Birth," Igor wrote 11/4. In Europe, that means 11 April. In the US, that meant Whoops! He was a healthy young man recovered from the shock quickly. If he'd been the age he is now, we might have killed him. A lack of clarity can be dangerous.

Everyone has received an email from the boss or an influential coworker that made them wonder if the employer was mad at them. The written word doesn't include the tone, dynamics, and color of the spoken voice that add meaning. There's a hilarious scene in Passion Fish (1992) in which an actress describes her first movie role. She had one line, "I didn't ask for the anal probe." The director asked her to give multiple versions of the line.

• I didn't ask for the anal probe.
• I didn't ask for the anal probe.
• I didn't ask for the anal probe.
• I didn't ask for the anal probe.
• I didn't ask for the anal probe.
• I didn't ask for the anal probe.
• I didn't ask for the anal probe.

Punctuation and text decoration, such as bold, italics, superscript, all caps, etc., can make it easier for the reader to understand precisely what the writer intended.

Automated emails can turn into comedy gold when they go out at an unfortunate time. They can also be very hurtful. Skip to the next story if you get triggered by English people or horses. That pun happened purely by accident, btw. In 2013, a grocery chain in England sold beef products that contained horse meat in secret. The island nation was in an uproar for days after. The situation was made worse by a pre-scheduled tweet: "It's sleepy time so we're off to hit the hay!"

Right on "shejule," the outraged public bombarded them with variants of "So are your burgers!" Thankfully, they left their pitchforks and torches at home.

The moral? Automation without awareness is just an intern with a timer and no filter.

In 2017, Oakhurst Dairy paid $5 million in overtime pay to truckers because of a missing Oxford comma in Maine's overtime law:

“…the canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of…” [perishable foods]

The drivers argued they were exempt from the law because they did not ship and distribute—they only distributed—so they were exempt from the Maine law, which made them eligible to receive overtime. Oakhurst Dairy had to pay out $5 million because Maine legislators didn't type a comma after "packing for shipment." Whoops...

There’s one more thing we need to keep in mind: clarity means clarity for everyone. If you’re reading this with your eyeballs, try to imagine if you couldn’t.

You’d probably rely on a screen reader to speak the words aloud. And those miracles of modern science? They take their cues from punctuation. Without it, all you’d hear is blah blah blah blah blah blah blah—a flat, joyless monotone.

A period tells the reader to pause. A paragraph break gives the listener a moment to process what was just said—and prepare for a new thought. A question mark raises the pitch of the final words. A hyphen joins two words into one. An en dash marks a range and adds emphasis. An em dash makes the voice take a sharp turn—maybe an interruption... or perhaps a conspiratorial whisper.

With proper punctuation, you can make an AI voice read your words and sound almost like you. That’s why a vast number of YouTube creators use voice AI instead of their own—it sounds better.

And yeah, it glitches now and then. Want to know why? Garbage in, garbage out. The author didn’t punctuate it clearly, or they misspelled something. That’s not the AI’s fault—that’s a clarity problem.

Someone once asked me if I thought Jesus used punctuation.
I said, “Hell, yeah.”

Because what you do for the least of your brethren?
You do unto Him.