A number of years ago I had on my marketing staff someone I liked a lot as a person but whose approach to the writing work left me baffled and infuriated.

Once he handed me his draft of some document or proposed publication--a newsletter article, a letter, a report--for me to review. In moments I could tell there were multiple problems, structural, logical, not to mention issues of style, grammar, punctuation and just plain typos. When I asked him if this draft really represented his best shot, here's what he said:

"I didn't put that much time into it because I knew you'd just be changing it anyway."

It was one of those speechless moments.

Apparently it seemed appropriate to him that I, as his manager (his client), should have to clean up his sloppy work just so he could avoid the embarrassment of having me see, let alone critique or edit, something he represented as his best. I assumed he was insecure about openly showing me what his "best" was.

It was actually worse than that. Turns out, despite his breezy comment, the draft did represent his best. This was his idea of the kind of attention and effort this project called for.

I learned that this attitude had been learned in a previous position. He said his former boss had a motto that had apparently made a deep impression. Here was his motto:

 This ain't the Louvre.

My translation of this snearing reference to the venerable Paris art museum: Beyond a mediocre effort, any fussing around about the quality of a piece of writing amounts to no more than so much snobby, artsy posturing. Why bother?

I will tell you why.

A sentence or paragraph is not just a box into which you throw a bunch of content that somehow exists independent of structure or style. And editing is not just so much wrapping paper and ribbon.

Without structure, word choice, grammar and style, the idea--whatever it is--has no chance of making a successful journey from writer to reader. It is only through the skilled use of language that a message takes shape and becomes recognizable as content.

The way something is written determines how a reader will perceive or understand a new concept. It can influence a response to a proposal or a decision to buy. It can make the difference between empathy and apathy.

Someone I respect a lot said that a writer needs to work hard so the reader doesn't have to. A writer owes the audience his or her best efforts at practicing both the science and the art of language to make the experience of reading one of enjoyment, enlightenment or edification--not one of tedium, confusion, ambiguity or labor. It's the least we can do if we expect people to be grateful for what we do.

So, as far as I'm concerned, this is the Louvre.