How to Send Tangible or Abstract Messages

The 5 Ws provide a handy guide for communicating the right kinds of information, and for exercising good communication skills . As you may recall, the 5Ws refer to five touchstones used by journalists, to ensure they don’t miss any critical aspect of a story:

• Who? Whoever (or whomever) acts or is acted upon.
• What? Describe the action taken (or not) by these people.
• When? A time or date, in numbers.
• Where? Specify the location of the action.
• Why? Give us the motivation for the act.

To the 5Ws, we can also add an H:

• How? What methold or approach was used?

Here are two applications in which we’re specific for tangible communication, and non-specific for abstract communication. 

But, before we do that, here are a couple of brief definitions: Tangible communication refers to giving or getting information that’s highly specific (”Meet me at the lunch counter at 1215 p.m.”) Abstract communication, on the other hand, leaves details up in the air (”Let’s get together again one of these days.”)

Tangible Communication
How often have you been in an office coffee room and come across a sign that says something like “Will the last person to leave the office please turn off the coffee machine!” That’s obviously not concrete enough, especially if the last person varies from day to day. When you need something important done, you’ll want to specify Who by name, rather than by some vague qualification.

Dealing with suppliers is an obvious example, where specifying all applicable Ws helps you get what you want, when you want it. When you’ve been specific, as in who, what, where, and when (but not necessarily why), you protect yourself against future problems.

As these examples indicate, concrete language is specific and unambiguous. Abstract language, on the other hand, goes in the opposite direction.

Abstract Communication
I’ve recently been reading Patrick McManus’ book, The Deer on a Bicycle: Excursions into the Writing of Humor. He advises writers of humor to take a minimalist approach to detail, so that readers create pictures in their own imaginations.

Similarly, radio works very well for story-telling because of a lack of visual detail. Consider the love stories, the adventure yarns, and the spellbinding mysteries from radio’s Golden Age? They knew how to make us use our imaginations. Unlike television or the movies, you don’t see the people in radio stories; instead you concoct your own picture of them, based on people you met in the past.

So, in aiming for abstraction, be non-specific, avoid the 5Ws as much as possible. Your readers or listeners will fill in the picture. On the other hand, if you want tangible communication, be specific, using concrete words and phrases. Keep the 5Ws in mind whenever your goal is improving communication skills .