Or we can start to say... "This is what I know. This is the information I have. Do you want it or need it? What else do you want or need? Maybe we have that information too. Or maybe we know how to get it.”

In any case, I think we can not stop asking the questions or finding new questions to ask. Step number two is to keep asking, even if it is hard!

Step 3: Here is another question -

What happens when women write as if we are talking with other women?

When we sit down to talk with someone, we do not talk as if we are alone. We may try to think about what our friend already knows about what we are saying. We try to think about what she wants to know. Maybe we think about what she needs to know.

And if we do not know what she wants or needs, we can ask her! May be we should ask her even if we think we do know. We may be wrong!

So, step number three is to sit down and write as if we are talking to someone. If we do not know much about our readers, we can ask them what they want to know.

Step 4: What do we do when we discover women can not read what we write?

How much time are we willing to spend learning how to write in a way that more women can understand?

If we want to be sure we are doing the best job that we can, we need to spend some time learning how to write clearly. We can learn about writing stories instead of ideas. We can learn about active verbs and concrete nouns and sentences that have subjects. We can learn about colons and commas and contractions and hyphens.

We can learn about white space and type sizes and how much space to leave between the lines. We can count how many syllables there are in each word we use.

We can count how many words there are in each sentence. We can count how many sentences are in each paragraph.

We can learn how to look for words and ideas that women may not understand because their lives are different from the lives of the women who are writing.

So, step number four is to take the time to learn how to write so that more women can understand what we are saying. We also need to ask - what does it mean if we are not willing to take this time.

Step 5: How will we know if we are writing more clearly? How will we decide if more women can read what we write?

Will we test our writing with different women before we make a lot or copies of it?

Women who write are learning to ask who they want to read what they write. If we think about this clearly, we will know where to find some of these readers. We can go to see them and ask them to tell us what they think of what we have done.

This can be a very hard thing to do. It is hard to write things as clearly as we can. When we finally get something on paper, we do not always want to change it.

On the other hand, we do want other women to understand what we are saying. And the only way we are going to find out if someone understands is to ask them.

I think this is the most important step of all. We can always learn a lot by taking what we write to different women and asking for their advice. If we hear what they say, we will get better and better at writing clearly.

So, step number five is test our writing with the women that we want to read it.

Step 6: If we test our writing with other women, we are going to hear that there are some problems with it.

Are we going to change our writing after we test it?

Many women who write say we do want to write in a way that other women will understand. But, when we find out that many of the women we want to read our writing are having problems, we find it hard to change.

Sometimes, we say our ideas are hard to understand because they are so important and complicated. We say there is no clear way to write these ideas. Sometimes, we say we do not want to insult our readers by being too easy to understand.

Sometimes we say women need to learn how to read important and complicated words and ideas. It will be good for us to teach others the kinds of words that we know. Or, we say we do not have time to change the writing. We just have to get the information out

I think we need to look at all these reasons and find out which ones are true and which ones are excuses. I think we also need to look at this question----

What happens if we do not change our writing after we find out other women can not or will not read it?

One thing that is going to happen is that many women are not going to read what we write. Are we saying, then, that we will not change? Are we deciding that how we write and how we feel about our writing are more important than sharing our information?

I think we need to make sure we understand what we are doing if we make this decision. We do not have any right to pretend that we are trying to write for many different women if we decide to write only for those who are just like us we can not say one thing and do another thing.

So, step number six is to be hone! about who we want to write for and how we want to change our writing. If we do not change when women tell us they have problems, we need to look at what that means.

I think it is very hard to change how we write. How we use words is part of who we are in this world. How we use words is part of our power and part of our powerlessness. Some of us have the powered words and it is very hard to let that go!

Maybe we can not let go. In that case I believe we need to admit that out loud and look at what happens. Who will be standing on the side of those people who hall the power? Who will be standing on the side of those people who do not have the power?

Betty-Ann Lloyd is a Halifax writer/ editor who is currently doing some research on literacy and the community college system in Nova Scotia.