Grammar Girl here. I'm In Jan Fogarty, and today I'm here with Joel Schwartzberg. He is a workplace communications coach, speaker, and speechwriter. And he was the senior director of strategic and executive communications for 10 years for a major national organization after holding senior

communication and editorial roles with Paramount, PBS, and Time. And he is the author of a book that I

loved called Get to the Point, Simplify, sharpen, and Sell your message. Joel, welcome to the Grammar Girl podcast.

Thank you so much, Mignon. It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah, well, I'm so excited because your book,

get to the point. I loved the first edition and now you have a new second edition now. So I can't wait

to hear all the new stuff, but to help people who are newer to your work, you know, get to the

point sounds like good advice, but what does it mean specifically? It really means understanding,

first and foremost, what a point is. I really came across this about three years into my

public speaking training, and I was training people to do all the stuff you would find if you

Googled it, I used AI, and looked up public speaking training. And I was training people to do all the stuff you would find if you Googled it or used AI and looked up public speaking tips about gestures and volume and eye contact.

But what would happen is my clients would come back to me. And I'd say, just so we're on the same page,

tell me your point. And what they would share with me was not a point. It was not a proposal or an assertion.

It was a topic or a theme or a notion, sometimes a catchphrase, sometimes a title or a category.

And this was so foundational because I truly believe if you don't have a point, there's no point in making

a communication that I really dug deep into some research, into my own experiences, to

identify not only what a point truly is, but how to get to one in a very easy way that can be

used by fourth graders as well as CEO.

So when I tell people to get to the point, I'm telling them to find your root argument.

And then once you have that, then you can amplify it, you could sharpen it, you could

broadcast it, and champion it, but you have to get to it first.

So give me an example. What's the difference between a point and a topic?

So definitionally, I'm going to make up a word there. I mean, you'll take me on that.

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