Twenty-Five Year Apprenticeship

Tradecraft > Cable Writing Tips

Richard Hoagland

Getting Your Cables Read. Remember that the majority of general readers in Washington—not specialists or analysts—will often delete your cable from the queue without reading it. You worked hard to write it; you want readers. The trick is to catch the readers’ attention. That starts with the subject line. The first three to five words is all they will see in their electronic queue. You should clearly and factually indicate your subject, and even make it sound interesting, if possible. Think how headlines work in newspapers. What induces you to read an article? Generally, a concise and intriguing headline that draws you into the substance of the report. However, even if you get readers to open your cable, they will more often than not read only the summary and maybe the final comment. Therefore, your summary has to contain the full meat of your cable—the headlines and sound bites, if you will. You can do a summary two ways: as a narrative paragraph or as a paragraph of tics.

Concise Writing. Write only sentences that communicate something, so that you don’t waste your readers’ time. Sentences like, “During the course of their conversation, they touched on a few subjects,” even if used to introduce a list, is soggy filler and says nothing. Also, cables do not need temporal narrative transitions such as, “They next turned to the subject of….” Further, filler like, “The Ambassador used the opportunity of the meeting to raise the issue of…” is simply a waste of space and readers’ time. This is filler and unnecessary—and has about 10 too many words. As Joe Friday said, “Just the facts, ma’am.”

One further point: good cables should copy journalistic style rather than academic models. Use short simple and compound sentences. Avoid long, complex sentences with embedded clauses. A speed reader needs to zip through your text, not come to the end of your paragraph-long sentence and then say, “Huh?” and have to go back to untangle your thoughts.

Colorful Writing. Despite what some in Washington tell you, there is nothing at all wrong with colorful writing, so long as it communicates something. However, cute writing is never acceptable—cute is for toddlers, not for professional diplomats. An object lesson about colorful writing: a number of years ago, Robert Finn (before he became U.S. Ambassador to Tajikistan and then Afghanistan) was DCM in Baku, and did some of the best, most colorful and memorable diplomatic reporting I’ve ever seen. The U.S. Ambassador in Tashkent at that time used to ridicule Finn’s cables because they were “too colorful.” However, Finn won the State Department’s Reporting Officer of the Year Award for his Baku cables and pocketed $10,000.

Numbers. According to State Department style, the numbers one through nine are always spelled out; 10 and above appear as numerals. The exception, of course, is for dates and monetary amounts. For dollar amounts, simply use the dollar sign, not the old-fashioned USD or dollars.

Dates. For State Department writing, do not use military or European style. Dates are always in simplest form—always November 11-20, never from November 11 to November 20—or, even worse, “from November 11-20.” Further, the current year is never cited in cables because the cable itself is a dated document. Of course, if you are referring to a previous or future year, then cite the year.

U.S. vs. United States. According to State Department style, U.S. always has periods, whereas UN and UK do not. (To, I don’t know why. Just because.) Further, U.S. is an adjective (e.g., U.S. policy), whereas United States is a noun—“The United States announced that U.S. policy would include….” Also, please do not use USG as a short form for U.S. government.

Currently vs. Presently. These are not synonyms that can be used interchangeably. Currently means now or at this time. Presently means soon or eventually.

Passive Verbs. Avoid them like the plague—unless you intentionally want to fuzz who did what. Some think that passive verbs sound professional and erudite. They don’t. They sound dull and pretentious and waste communication time. As an example, which of these sounds more direct?—The president was killed by an assassin or An assassin killed the president.

Gerunds. In recent years, for some reason, it’s become fashionable to substitute gerunds for infinitives, i.e., the –ing form of a verb for the to+verb form. A classic case is, “The U.S. government is assisting in implementing economic reform.” It is generally more concise and crisper to write, “The U.S. government is assisting to implement economic reform,”—or, even better, “The U.S. government is assisting economic reform.”

Punctuation Spacing. Standard State Department style requires two spaces after a colon or a period. Especially do not get sloppy and mix one space and two spaces throughout your writing. Sounds picky? It’s simply part of professionalism.

Titles of Publications. In standard English, titles of publications are always in italics.

Current Idioms and Jargon. It’s essential to note that English is a living language and changes over time—what was not allowed in the past can be allowed in the future. Still, the best professional writing avoids trendiness. Here are some examples to consider.

“revert.” This is one of the most annoying current misuses of English. Revert means to return to a current form, not to reply. People think it’s trendy to say, “He promised to revert on Thursday.” Nope. Just say, “He promised to reply on Thursday.”

“training” is not a noun—NEVER! Do not ever use training as a noun. It’s an adjective. Always! Never write, “They conducted a training.” It must always be “a training program.” Even worse is trainings. Please, always avoid this barbarism.

“to share.” You will often see, “She shared her thoughts about….” Although this has become so common as to be almost acceptable, but still try to avoid it. Just remember, “Children share their toys.” Simply say, “She said….”

“to reach out.” You will often see (or hear), “He reached out to…”, when all you have to say is “He contacted….” To help you remember this one, try to envision a giant arm “reaching out” across the miles.

misuse of “as.” English rules are flexible and can change over time. One contemporary usage is so common that it might eventually become acceptable, but is still, in fact, considered substandard, or at least colloquial, English. Traditionally, as is an adverb that indicates two things are happening simultaneously. “John drafted the cable as Jean dictated from her notes.” In this usage, as means while. Also, do not use as interchangeably for since or because. Not acceptable: “As there was no heat in our house, we had to stay with our neighbor.”

“between” vs. “among.” In standard English usage, between is for two distinct things or groups, and among is for more than two. Examples: Geographically, the United States is between Canada and Mexico. We want to maintain consensus among all members of the United Nations.

“issue” vs. “problem.” This has become a faddish colloquialism that, frankly, is sub-standard English but that shows up frequently even on official State Department websites. “If you have issues, please contact….” Another misuse: “I couldn’t come to work today because I had issues.” Problem is always the preferred standard-usage choice in both of these examples. A close synonym for issue is item, like on an agenda. Also an issue is an individual publication in a series. A bit more esoterically, issue is what is spawned from procreation.

bottom line? Avoid trendy jargon!

U.S. Embassy Cables. The term “cable” is an anachronism, harking back to the days of sending hand-typed information by telex. Today, everything is done on the internet, but the term “cable” still persists. The 270+ U.S. missions abroad annually send hundreds of thousands of messages to Washington on two State-Department systems: OpenNet (unclassified) and ClassNet (classified). Many of these email messages are simply the back-and-forth of doing daily business. Further, since U.S. embassies have become U.S. government platforms for many departments and agencies, many of those other elements have their own communications systems—to name just a few, there’s the Department of Defense that does its own business within its own systems and also sends reports to the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the CIA that also has its own system for reporting back to Washington. In general, embassy employees see only the finished and approved products of these intelligence exchanges, but not the raw material.