I remember when I was learning to write things like term papers and my dad would tell me “don’t make your reader work so hard.” He taught me the trick of deliberately mis-reading myself both in terms of grammar and in terms of tone. He would say that if I could come up with a misinterpretation, I could be absolutely sure that at least one of my readers would misinterpret me that way.

Of course, knowing to try this trick and actually being able to carry it through every single time are two entirely different matters.

You’re right that charitable writing is more difficult and I never thought about it that way until now. It often takes me a while to realize when I took a tone in a post that I totally didn’t intend, but that bothered people nonetheless. At a minimum, I hope I convey a respect for my audience — after 4 1/2 years, I’m still surprised people read my blog and I hope my appreciation of that comes through in my writing. In most of the blogs I read, it’s pretty obvious to me when someone really respects and appreciates their readers.