Writing good is a big deal these days. A bigger deal then math, according to my friends and I, but I’m not hear to represent there views. But, I thank it’s important to know the English language and all it’s rules.
Did you catch all the errors in that first paragraph? The spell-check on my laptop didn’t.
The College Board – those friendly scholars who bring us the SATs and other fun tests – recently released the results of a survey by its National Commission on Writing. The news is not good. A majority of U.S. employers say about one-third of workers do not meet the writing requirements of their positions. “Businesses are really crying out,” College Board President Gaston Caperton told the Associated Press. “They need to have people who write better.”
The employers who say people need to write better are in some surprising industries: mining; construction; manufacturing; transportation and utilities; services; and finance, insurance and real estate. It seems companies want everyone to be able to communicate effectively, not just the executives, lawyers and public relations people.
This might come as a surprise not only to people in the working world, but also to people who are preparing to enter it. Students who believe the informal shorthand of e-mail and instant messages is acceptable in corporate America might be in for a shock when they lose the jobs of their dreams because of misspelled words on their resumés. I recently read a self-promotion posted by a recent graduate on a job-seekers discussion board for the public relations industry. The misspelled words, poor sentence construction and grammatical errors were enough to make E.B. White turn over in his grave. It’s bad enough that the job seeker embarrassed herself in front of thousands of professional peers (she even proudly announced the college from which she graduated). I only hope no one committed the greater sin of actually hiring her.
I have a friend who recently left the practice of business communication so he could teach it to the next generation of professionals. In just a few weeks in the classroom he has experienced something akin to culture shock. “It is disturbing how little these students know about the English language and its proper usage,” he lamented recently.
A lot of people ask why it’s important to use correct grammar, spelling and punctuation in their jobs. I have two answers:
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Standards are necessary for society to function. Imagine if a construction company decided it was no longer important to follow standards of measurement. One foot might be 13 inches or 12 inches. Who cares? Just as chaos would reign in that scenario, the same would be true if we didn’t follow standards of language. Clear communication would be impossible.
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Credibility is at stake. I would not trust a computer programmer who doesn’t know code, a chef who doesn’t know how to measure ingredients, or a doctor who doesn’t know the human anatomy. Just as these people must know how to use the tools of their trade, so anyone who uses English to communicate must know how to use it correctly.
Fixing the problem that the College Board survey exposes is not easy. Teachers will have to stop misspelling words on the communications they send home to parents. (Yes, I’m the parent who keeps sending those notes back with proofreading marks all over them.) Students will have to take Language Arts more seriously, like it’s a ticket to a decent job. Most difficult of all, employers will have to insist that the people who work for them – no matter what their jobs or salaries – begin using correct grammar, learn how to write well and spell words correctly. Annual bonuses should depend upon it.
By the way, my laptop’s spell check caught only one out of at least seven mistakes in the first paragraph. “It’s” should be “its.” (I believe the second sentence is a fragment, which would be an eighth error, although the laptop doesn’t think so.)
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Trick #1: Do Your Homework. It’s so simple but often the first thing we forget. If you’re trying to reach a publication (print or electronic), then spend some time reading it. (Thank goodness for the Internet—we had no alternative but the library or asking publications for copies before it.) Apply the same approach if it’s a television or online program. If you’re trying to reach a person, find out what you can about him or her first. Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter: you can gather all sorts of information. If it’s someone in your organization—or another organization where you have connections—talk with people who know that person.
If it’s a company—a potential client or employer, perhaps—then check out its Web site (particularly the news releases) and competitors’ sites. And if it’s a public company, read its financial reports, quarterly financial conference call transcripts or analyst research reports.
This will separate you from all the other folks who have just done a cursory job, or haven’t even bothered. It also will fulfill the need of those you’re trying to reach: the belief that we’re all unique and the world should only send us messages tailored to us.
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Trick #2: Show You Know. Now that you have this intelligence, weave it in to your communication.
1. Explain why the story you’re proposing would be of interest to the publication’s readership or program’s viewership. (This shows you know who reads it/watches it and what they want.)
2. Reference an important point you discovered about the person from your online research or from people who know him or her. (This shows you value that person’s ideas, opinions, feelings, etc., which helps to create a bond.)
3. Mention the issues you know the company faces and how you have addressed them for other firms. (This shows how you can reduce the company’s risk in working with you—because you already know and have applied the information these people need.)
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Trick #3: Take Your Ego Out of the Equation. Let’s face it: even though you’re reaching out to this person or organization for your own purposes, as far as the recipients are concerned, it’s all about them. Focus any communication on their needs. Editors and producers want good stories: to keep their readership/viewership up and advertisers happy. Businesspeople and organizations want good ideas, or to improve their implementation: so their departments or operations are stronger, more cost-effective and competitive. Give them a taste of how you can solve their problems—rather than a dose of how wonderful you are.
The truth is that not every pitch you toss will be a homerun. You often have no control over the reasons why the batter won’t take a swing. But if your approach is well-crafted, you’ve eliminated the most common reason for being turned down—and sooner or later, your proposals are going to connect.
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Trick #1: Know What You Want. How many times have you fired off an email response or returned a phone call and not thought about what you hope will happen? The next time, spend that extra few seconds before and actually answer this question: “What do I want people do after this?” If you believe in visualization, picture them taking the action you’d like. Then ask yourself some simple questions:
- What problems will my approach solve for them? (Once again—people run away from pain faster than they run toward features and benefits.)
- What will they need to know so they can agree with me?
- What barriers would prevent them from taking the actions I want?
- How can I include information—in this communication or somewhere else—that will overcome these?
By knowing what you want—and how you can make others want the same thing—you’ve automatically increased the chances your reader will be persuaded by what you propose.
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Trick #2: Write with “Yes” in Mind. Have you ever had to write a memo and thought, “They’ll never sign off on this!” And, of course, you were right. It’s the reverse of positive thinking. When you’re sure your ideas will be rejected, that negativity will leak out in a million ways: the words you choose, the way you organize the information, and how much time you spend answering possible objections in advance.
If you can’t write with the belief that your ideas will be accepted, then do something else until you can. Listen to Henry Ford: “If you think you can do a thing or you think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.” Don’t shoot yourself in the foot before you begin. If this is an important communication, also know when is a good time to write it. If you’re a morning person, don’t start at 3:00 in the afternoon when you’re at low energy.
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Trick #3: Include the Call to Action. Tell your readers what you want them to do—and how to do it. If it’s a proposal, media “pitch” letter, or formal communication, the call to action falls at the end. You have used the rest of the piece to present your case so they will agree with you, and now you tell them how this should look.
If you’re writing an email, then put the call to action at the top. You may even want to put it in the subject line. This presumably is a shorter communication, so let your readers know right away what you want and then provide the (brief) details. Most people scan their emails. If your request falls at the bottom, they may not choose to scroll down several paragraphs to find out what you want and might miss it.By the way—don’t make this a “call me if you want to discuss this further.” You have no idea what else is on their plates, how important this is to them, or how many other things are hanging fire on their desks. Let them know when you will call to discuss the ideas—and then follow up.
Comments |
RE: Fourth Rule to Write By: The |
Another terrific posting, Lynne. Thank you. Your theory about beginning with a goal for the communications piece shouldn’t be surprising to anyone but all too often, people seem to get lost in the detail of the writing without remembering to focus on the goal of the piece. Writers do this at their peril – as do any sales people who forget to ask for the order or conduct a sales conversation without a positive outcome always in mind! Kim Dougherty |
Judy Gombita spotted this list of Great Literary Taunts:
- “A modest little person, with much to be modest about.” — Winston Churchill (about Clement Atlee)
- “I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.” — Irvin S. Cobb
- “He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.” — William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)
- “He had delusions of adequacy.” — Walter Kerr
- “They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.” — Thomas Brackett Reed
- “I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.” — Mark Twain
Thanks to the onslaught of technology and our need to constantly rush through everything, our grammar has gotten worse. Emails, text messages and other corporate communications are being sent without a thorough and professional proofreading, and using poor grammar in the workplace can have some negative impacts on your business.
It causes confusion.
If you use poor grammar in the workplace, you could end up confusing those people who need to read what you write or listen to what you say. Causing confusion will negatively impact your company’s productivity and require additional communications to clear up the confusion.
It makes you look unprofessional.
Poor grammar makes you look unprofessional. Nobody wants to do business with the company that has spelling and grammatical errors in their marketing materials, and no client wants to do business with the representative who doesn’t know the difference between their, there and they’re.
It hinders productivity.
Read full article on Every Marketing Thing
If your blog is boring, and there is another blog with similar content and enjoyable delivery, you lose. Pack up your keyboard and go home. Unless, that is, you want to unborify it.
In this post, I will suggest three excellent techniques to hold your reader’s gaze. When you type it in Word, “unborify” has a red line under it because all new words face initial resistance. This post has already been through the unborifying process, so I hope you enjoy it!
Three(ish) techniques to unborify your posts
1. Inject humor into bland posts
Humor breaks through stubborn minds, making your content instantly more relevant and accepted. Not only that, but humor is funny.
I like to use the strikethrough jest. It works by inserting a funny, out of place “what if I wrote THIS” word or phrase in a sentence. Then, use strikethrough HTML to cross it out. Readers can see the ridiculous word, but you “fix it” and write the correct words after it, like this…
Michael Jordan plays with his hair basketball.
I am more successful than
Darren Rowseseveral 6th graders.I’ve noticed that women are hopelessly drawn to
mechocolate.These kinds of comments are laced with self-deprecating humor, which is funny when it’s used sparingly. Anyone can learn to add humor to their posts, but not many people do, that I’ve noticed, and it’s a mistake!
Make your readers laugh, and you will double their chance of sharing the article (there could be a study to back this up, but likely nobody’s read it because it’s boring).
2. Add in a relevant quote … or seventeen
Quotes are frustrating to me. Some quotes say more than a 1000 word blog post can. But instead of being jealously distant, bloggers are better off using them.
A relevant quote that coincides with your content is a nice break from the paragraph, paragraph, paragraph format. If it’s from a well known author and you’re not as famous, it serves as a credibility boost. You can even throw your own quote in a special box to highlight it.
“Quotes are good.”—Stephen Guise
Tip: Don’t add seventeen quotes to your post unless it is titled “The Seventeen Greatest Quotes From Ernest Hemingway.” Quotes are more powerful individually than in packs, so use them with care.
3. Build anticipation
People love anticipation. If the Summer Olympics were held twice a year, I wouldn’t be so darn excited about them every time. When you read in a blog post’s title that you’re failing to make a key revision to your blog, you want to find out what it is. List posts are filled with anticipation because you wonder what each list item says.
You can claim you have secrets, make promises, reference later parts of the article in the beginning, and structure your article to build to a climax. If you split an article into two parts, part II will have extra anticipation built in automatically. Anything that leaves your readers wondering what’s next is going to add valuable anticipation to your content.
In this interview, Paul talks about how to use storytelling as a leadership tool, ways that storytelling can make leaders more effective, why storytelling it important, and more.
How do companies make storytelling part of their leadership practices?
Some of the most successful companies in the world use storytelling very intentionally as a leadership tool. Organizations like Microsoft, Motorola, Berkshire Hathaway, Saatchi & Saatchi, Procter & Gamble, NASA, and the World Bank are among them. They do this in several ways.
Some have a high level corporate storyteller who’s job it is to capture and share their most important stories. At Nike, in fact, all the senior executives are designated corporate storytellers.
Other companies teach storytelling skills to their executives (because they certainly aren’t learning it in business school). Kimberly-Clark, for example, provides two-day seminars to teach its 13-step program for crafting stories and giving presentations with them. 3M banned bullet points and replaced them with a process of writing “strategic narratives.” P&G has hired Hollywood movie directors to teach its senior executives how to lead better with storytelling. And some of the storytellers at Motorola belong to outside improvisational or theater groups to hone their story skills.
In what ways can storytelling help leaders be more effective?
The short answer is that storytelling is useful in far more situations than most leaders realize. The five most commonly used are probably these: inspiring the organization, setting a vision, teaching important lessons, defining culture and values, and explaining who you are and what you believe.
But there are so many more. In my research for the book, I interviewed over 75 CEOs and executives at dozens of companies around the world and found them using stories in a much wider range of leadership challenges than I ever expected. For example, storytelling is useful when heavy influence is required like leading change, or making recommendations to the boss. But it’s also good for delicate issues like managing diversity and inclusion, or giving people coaching and feedback in a way that will be received as a welcome gift. It can help bring out more of people’s creativity, or help them rekindle the passion for their work. In all, I identified 21 common leadership challenges where storytelling can help.
So you don’t think I’m naïve or overzealous about the topic, I’m not suggesting storytelling should be used in every situation. For example, if you’re trying to decide what your five-year strategy should be, what you need is a good strategist. Or if you’re trying to decide how much money to pay to acquire your biggest competitor, what you need is a good financial advisor.
But once you’ve decided what your five-year strategy is going to be, and you need the 15,000 people that work at your company to line up behind it and deliver it, now you need a good story. Or once you’ve acquired your biggest competitor, and you need the 5,000 people that work there to stay, and not quit, now you need a good story. In short, storytelling isn’t always the right tool to help you manage things; but it’s exceptional at helping you lead people.
One hour is a short period of time, but within it you can prepare a great article of about 500 words. In that time, you can discuss about three to five major points. So, if you plan to write a longer, higher quality article, you will (probably) need more time for it.
The second point here is that, if you need to interlink between your posts, finding related posts and proper anchors will also take time.
3. Plan What You Want to Achieve with an Article (2-5 minutes)
This point is essential. You have to know what you want. Should it be a promotional article? Or maybe you want to share your experience about something? Or is it a simple story for your readers? Do you want to make them cry? Or laugh? Or maybe you want to arouse interest about something? You should answer these questions before you start writing your article.
4. Do Some Quick Research On Your Topic (2-5 minutes)
I assume that you know the subject matter of your article. But even if you are an expert, it’s worth it to some research about it. You should check in your favorite search engine what’s hot, and what’s not. You can do it also on blogs you are following.
5. Write Down the Most Important Points of Your Article (2-5 minutes)
As I wrote at the beginning of this tutorial – find three to five important points you want to raise in your article. If you find more – it’s okay, but your article will be longer and probably will take you more than one hour (for example writing this article, finding related articles, anchors, pictures and publishing it, took me about three hours).
6. Use (12+2)*3 Technique
This technique is very simple – write for twelve minutes, take a two-minute break, and repeat it three times. If you need less or more time for writing an article – you should repeat it less or more times . But remember – for 12 minutes you should write and only write, without exceptions. After that, you will get a two-minute break, when you can do something else (but I recommend you to stay on the computer).
For counting minutes you can use a timer on your clock or smart phone. Even a kitchen timer may be good for this technique. This tip is modification of (10+2)*5 rule from http://www.43folders.com
7. Prepare a Tea or Coffee For You (2 minutes)
Yes, it’s really important for your mind. So, stand up and go to the coffee room or to the kitchen. If possible, you can even talk with somebody – but remember about the time limit – you have only two minutes for it!
8. Read Carefully and Correct All of Your Bug(s) or Misspellings (2-5 minutes)
You should read your article at least once and mark all errors or misspellings. After it, you should check it in your dictionary (or in Google ), and correct all. If you have some time, you can read it once more.
9. Format Your Article – Make Points, Paragraphs, Links to Other Sites (2-5 minutes)
Now it’s the time for improvements and for formatting your post. Your article should be readable – think about it as brochure – is it easy to read, understand and find the main points?
Ian Lurie’s Conversation Marketing blog zeroes in on the keys to writing a headline for an online news story. Follow three rules:
Length isn’t (as much of) a constraint. In print, you have to make your headline fit a certain number of column inches. Online, you can add a word or two. Or three. Or even four. Don’t keep a headline short and uninformative.
Make the headline descriptive. It should stand completely on its own. It’s a micro-summary of the story. If written on a blank sheet of paper, it should tell the reader exactly what they’re going to learn in the rest of the story. Your headline will show up everywhere: In links, in search, etc.. Make sure it works in all those places.
Remember the search engines. Make sure your headline includes the words that folks will use to find the story. You don’t need to be an SEO pro to figure out that folks are more interested in ‘bank bailout’ than ‘Paulson stock purchases’ (keep reading for the full story on that example).
Continue reading: How to: NOT Write an Internet-Ready News Headline
When you get right down to the nitty-gritty, only two things really count when striving for the perfect tweet:
- Maximum readability
- Maximum retweetability
These are both vital, but neither should be tailored at the expense of the other. For maximum benefit, each needs to be perfect every single time.
1. Think Like Your Readers
This is a bit of a no-brainer, but it’s easily overlooked. For your tweet to be perfect, it needs to appeal most to your readers, to the majority of your network, and not to you.
Unless you’re a world-famous celebrity or brand with millions of devoted followers, adopting an attitude of ‘they’ll know what I mean’ or ‘everybody likes this!’ will almost always backfire.
You have to take the time to craft your tweet accurately and pleasingly, thus ensuring that it will be appeal to the highest number of readers.
2. Use Consistent Excellence To Stand Out From The Crowd
Take a moment to peruse your Twitter feed. Refresh the page. Who stands out? Why?
Through prolonged Twitter use we all become tuned into paying attention to certain things in our timelines, notably the avatars and usernames of our favourite profiles. But a friend or valued associate sharing new content isn’t always enough to make us click on that link. We trust their judgement, and we have liked some of the things they’ve shared in the past, but this hasn’t turned us into a robot, automatically clicking on everything they tweet.
Real full article via AllTwitter – The Unofficial Twitter Resource
One of the dangers of writing is that we can fall in love with our words. Even the wrong words. And like a bad boyfriend, these ill-suited words are clung to even though they do us no good and our friends can’t figure out what the heck we’re doing with them.
I know I am guilty. Some of my drafts have included phrases that made me beam with pride at how clever I could be. That pride stayed even as I was editing and could see that said cleverness actually stood out like a big, fat salmon in the lettuce crisper. I knew it was stinking up the place and making the greens inedible. Oh, but how can you not love salmon?
The harsh reality is that sometimes, even the good, clever ,Omega-3 laden stuff needs to get cut from our work. If we want to write well, we can’t be too precious about our words.
I was thinking about this while listening to Bernie Taupin’s audio blogs on songwriting. He has written the lyrics to some of the most iconic and enduring songs of the last 30 years. If his name doesn’t ring a bell, perhaps you are familiar with his main songwriting partner, Elton John?
While discussing how he co-wrote “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me” he admits he has a “really bad memory of my own work.” He proves this by telling the story of watching a game show on TV where one of the categories was his own lyrics. “I believe there were five questions,” Bernie says, “and I got four of them wrong.”
Now that is the epitome of not being too precious about your words!
Be like Bernie. Don’t get too invested in your every word, especially the ones you suspect (or know but don’t want to admit) don’t really belong. The delete key is your friend. If that seems too painful, create a separate file where all the bits you’ve edited out can live and commiserate with one another about how they were unceremoniously cast out of the final draft.
Of course, I might be reading too much into Bernie’s comments. He’s terribly prolific, so maybe there are just far too many words for him to keep track of. Well, that’s a good goal, too.
You can hear Bernie for yourself at his website.
Barbara Govednik launched 423 Communication in 2001 to helps its clients tell their stories through freelance writing services, coaching and editing services, and employee communication consulting and implementation. Read Barbara’s Being Well Said Blog.
Remember when Robert Novak (surprise, surprise) became upset with something James Carville said, blurted out the word “bullshit,” and stormed off the set?
Well, I’m no friend of Novak’s, but I was amused at what reporters were saying he said on that occasion. Few dared to use the actual word, “bullshit.” My, how inappropriate for our sensitive readers. One writer got it pretty close. He said Novak used a barnyard term. Not bad.
But others said he cursed. Swore. Used obscenities. Even used profanities. I don’t know whether anyone wrote that he used vulgarities.
Now as a person who has taught general-semantics for a couple of decades, I know perfectly well that words can mean whatever you want them to mean. Nevertheless, normally we do expect people to use words in their generally accepted meanings.
For eight editions of News Reporting and Writing by the Missouri Group (I’m a co-author), I’ve struggled to make some distinctions in the following words in a chapter on using quotations and attributions:
* When people curse, doesn’t that mean that they want someone to go to hell, usually by damning them? I admit, most of the time people just “damn it,” whatever “it” is.
* Swearing involves taking an oath or calling upon the deity or at least someone regarded as sacred to witness to the truth of what we’re saying. We’re expected to swear in court though I’m not sure why, other than if we lie in court, we can be convicted for perjury.
* An obscenity is a word or a phrase that usually refers to sexual parts or functions in an offensive way. Most people can’t imagine, for example, using the “f” word in an inoffensive way.
* A large number of people are always offended by profanity. There’s a commandment about that – taking the name of the lord in vain. Using a word or phrase referring to the deity or to beings regarded as divine, even if only done carelessly and thoughtlessly, is regarded as sacrilegious.
* And then there are vulgarities. I like to call them “bathroom” words. We’re talking about excretory words or phrases used in a less-than-polite way.
Does all of this make sense? There are some words that I don’t know how to classify. “Hell” is one of them. I once asked a person, “What the hell does that mean?” And she said, “Well, you don’t have to start cursing.”
So often we use words in all of the classifications above because we can’t think of anything else to say. So often they demonstrate our real dearth of vocabulary. You know, it’s cold as hell; it’s hot as hell. What the hell do those statements mean?
But who can deny that sometimes a good “damn” just feels right. And so does a good “bullshit.”
So, all you writer and readers, get off Novak’s case. You’ve all said much worse in similar circumstances. And if you want to attack Novak, there are much better reasons.
Let’s rein in reign!
Have you noticed how often you see these two words confused?
Here’s a sentence from Dan Brown’s best-selling The Da Vinci Code: “Chartrand rushed forward, trying to reign in the camerlengo.”
From a sports-page headline: “Walsh might seize reigns as president.” That’s former 49ers coach Bill Walsh, rumored to become president of the 49ers.
From the National Catholic Reporter in a story about Deal Hudson, publisher of Crisis magazine: “While Hudson was taking over the reigns at Crisis, Cara Poppas consulted an attorney.”
In scholar John Merrill’s wonderful book, Existential Journalism, in which he describes the existential journalism professor: “He will insist on personalism, not impersonalism; he will encourage diversity in his students, not conformity; he will try to give free reign to creativity, not imitation.”
And in a column in the Columbia Missourian in which Merrill is condemning the “No child left behind” program, he writes: “What we need is an emphasis on ‘No child held back,’ or ‘Give free reigns to the gifted child.’”
I think we should not only rein in “reign,” but we should also rein in “rein.” It’s used so often and so needlessly. Besides, I wonder how many people really understand its roots. Once when a graduate student of mine used “reign” in place of “rein,” he asked me what in the world a rein was.
As a former farm boy whose father still had a team of horses, I think I can describe reins without looking the word up in the dictionary. I can still see those long strips of leather that dad held in his hands to get the horses moving or to get them to turn right or left (“gee” – right, and “haw” – left, he used to shout) and to get them to stop. If the horses were going too fast, he would pull on the reins that went right to the harness over their heads and to the bits in their mouths. He would tighten the reins. If he wanted them to trot, he would loosen the reins (give them free rein?). And if he wanted them to stop, he would pull hard and rein them in.
Granted, the word has also come to mean “a restraining influence, a curb or a check.” But again, it’s so overused, and it’s so often replaced incorrectly with “reigns.”
At least think twice before you use “rein” or “reins” again!
Web writing has, with few exceptions, put an end to the days of long-winded, verbose content, and has ushered in an era of quick, concise pieces you can read on the fly, while still reaping the benefits of the information gathered. So, how can these little black dots help transform your copy from good to great and help you draw readers in? Here are some easy-to-follow bullet point basics that can help make your content pop from the page:
Treat them like mini-headlines
Bulleted content should be introduced with short, catchy phrasing that draws the eye of the reader quickly. They not only tell the reader what each section is about, they’re like bookmarks that make it easy for them to scan the entire piece and return later for more information. For example, if you’re writing about the “Best Exercises for Toning your Abs,” a bullet may look something like this:
- The sneaky side crunch: A deceptively difficult move that not only tests your balance, it also torments your oblique muscles in a cruel-to-be-kind manner that will leave you bikini-ready in no time.
Use symmetry
Be consistent. Don’t make one bullet point three sentences in length and then make others six or eight sentences long. Keeping the look similar across each section will visually enhance your blog, article, or on-page content while making it more inviting to the reader.
Avoid a barrage of bullets
The idea here is to make your content easier to navigate, not more complicated. Using too many bulleted lists within one article (more than two, as a general rule) or using sub-bullets (or sub-sub bullets) will make your content look confusing, which will only turn off your reader.
Keep the flow
Use a parallel structure when creating your bullet points. In other words, stay consistent grammatically with the wording you use to introduce your bulleted list. Here’s an example of what not to do:
How can you stop snoring, improve your health, and get a better night’s rest? Begin by:
- Sleeping on your side
- Get rid of allergens
- Improving your sleep habits
Begin by “get rid of allergens”? That’s just not right. The middle bullet should read, “Getting rid of allergens.” Keeping it consistent will help improve your writing style and readability, and will keep you from looking like you don’t understand basic English grammar.
Refined Wisdom: Here’s what I think about making verbs into nouns. Usually, there are so many better, simple words that we can use.
It seems months ago by now (and it is) that, strangely enough, I found myself listening to Condoleezza Rice testifying before the special committee investigating the events surrounding 9/11. Not once, but several times Rice said various people “were tasked” to do something, and I’m quite sure she also said “we were tasking” that at a certain point in time.
Then I read this quote from Richard A. Clarke in The New York Times: “All 56 F.B.I. federal offices were also tasked in late June to go on increased surveillance.”
So, there was a lot of “tasking” going on. So also was there a lot of “verbyfying” nouns, to use the word Edwin Newman coined for the phenomenon. Well, it might have been William Safire.
I looked up the word in Webster’s Third, quite confident “task” was never a verb, but I was wrong again. The first meaning listed is “to tax,” but it says that usage is obsolete. “To impose a task upon,” it says in the second meaning, and then it quotes John Dryden using it that way. The third meaning, also obsolete, is “to reprimand.” And the fourth meaning is “to oppress with great labor.” I was just with a staff of a software company in North Carolina, and a sharp copy editor there defended the use of the word in the passive — “was tasked.” Sounds like cruelty to me.
Well, it does bring up the whole question of turning nouns into verbs. There’s no disputing that many verbs we now use were once nouns (was “progress” first a noun or a verb?), and some would say, what’s the big deal anyway? We have verbs such as “maximize” and “minimize,” so what’s wrong with “parameterizing”?
(I once had a phone conversation with the father of a student whom I had failed in a magazine-editing class. The father assured me that he and his daughter “now had matters parameterized.” I almost told him that I would never have failed her had I known she had been paramaterized.)
Here’s what I think about making verbs into nouns. Usually, there are so many better, simple words that we can use. Even if it takes a few more words to say something, it’s better than appearing pompous or pretentious with overblown, made-up words. In the end, it comes down to clarity.
Why would we want to “utilize” something when we can just “use” it? I like to say that if we don’t stop “utilizing” the English language, we’re going to “finalize” it. I don’t really believe that, but if you or your boss is verbyfying nouns, stop it already.
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Trick #1: Whose purpose does it serve? Does our deathless prose actually help readers understand the point we’re making—or is its point to make us look good?
Let’s be honest: anyone who writes something for others must have a bit of an ego—otherwise she wouldn’t be able to write. But let’s keep the emphasis on “bit of” rather than “an ego.” It’s quaint to read Victorian novels that address us as “dear reader,” reminding us that the author has an active role in what we’re reading. However, it’s death to a communication or piece that’s meant to persuade when our writerly fingerprints smear the important points.
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Trick #2: Do others’ suggestions improve what we’ve written? This is perhaps the best test of the amount of ego in your writing. Spend that extra second asking, “What will my readers better understand: my presentation or the new one?” And if it’s the new one, make the change. (Then find a way to work your beloved phrase into a conversation with friends who will appreciate it.) When your purpose is to communicate with others, their needs trump yours.
Sometimes the suggestion doesn’t improve the text, and your approach is the better solution—then keep it. Some people don’t believe they’ve done their job unless they change something they’re reviewing, so know when this is happening to you. (We’ll get to “The All the World’s a Frustrated Author Theory” next time …)
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Trick #3: Don’t argue about it. If you are (inwardly) jutting out your jaw as you explain to someone why your words are better than theirs, then you’ve already lost the battle. There’s no way you can come off as anything but defensive or egotistical—calling your credibility into question. It’s just not worth it. Over your career, you’ll create many wonderful communications—if you don’t antagonize the people who pay you to do this. Live to write another day.
Why are we putty in a storyteller’s hands? The psychologists Melanie Green and Tim Brock argue that entering fictional worlds “radically alters the way information is processed.” Green and Brock’s studies shows that the more absorbed readers are in a story, the more the story changes them. Highly absorbed readers also detected significantly fewer “false notes” in stories–inaccuracies, missteps–than less transported readers. Importantly, it is not just that highly absorbed readers detected the false notes and didn’t care about them (as when we watch a pleasurably idiotic action film). They were unable to detect the false notes in the first place.
And, in this, there is an important lesson about the molding power of story. When we read dry, factual arguments, we read with our dukes up. We are critical and skeptical. But when we are absorbed in a story we drop our intellectual guard. We are moved emotionally and this seems to leave us defenseless.
There are many wonderful people living the Gospel of the One-Pager that we can all learn from. A few examples:Strategy to Performance Dashboard Downloadable, this SlideShare tool from BlueOcean gives you 9 pages of templates to fill in.One Page Business Plan from lifehacker.comOne Page Job Proposal for getting a new job
Build a One Page WebsiteTo find more on your own, simply Google “one page (fill in the blank)” for whatever you’re seeking. Somebody out there has created a one-pager for just about everything!Don’t Just Copy the Templates: Develop a One-Pager Skillset
To truly live the Gospel of the One-Pager, don’t just search for specific one-pagers. Look across all that you find for patterns:• What do all these one-pagers have in common?• How do the get to the crucial stuff while editing out the noise?• How are they packaged?• etc.Among other things, you’re likely to find:
• They all have one key point, and no more!
• Everything else is compelling storytelling to support that key point
• They target the audience’s head (thinking), heart (feelings), and hands (action)Once you begin to practice what most one-pagers have in common, you will have forever harnessed the Power of the One-Pager. And that’s a superpower that will serve you well, everywhere!
When you try to be persuasive in writing or speaking, you probably spend a lot of time crafting the message, but you might be overlooking something that is more important than your content.
An audience often decides how it will respond to a persuasive appeal based not on the message itself but on whether the communicator is credible. Credibility, according to psychologist Dan O’Keefe, is the audience’s assessment of whether you are believable. If your audience does not view you as credible, strengthen your image by working on three things people usually consider in judging credibility.
1) Expertise – Be an expert in your field, because people are persuaded to do things when they view the communicator as an authority in the field. And it doesn’t only apply to people. Consumer Reports magazine is the leading source of trusted information when people want to buy a product. Why? Because they view it as credible.
2) Trustworthiness – Be fair, be honest, be a good listener, and be respectful of your audience. A major reason people are not persuaded to do something or to believe something is because the communicator was rude, sarcastic, condescending, or, in some other way, disrespectful.
3) Confidence. Carrying yourself with confidence is reflected in the way you dress (be a sharp dresser) and in the way you speak. Don’t use hedging language because when you hem, haw, and ramble, you don’t sound like you have control of the message (in writing or speaking), and you do not come across as being confident.
Reading from a screen isn’t the same as reading from a piece of paper. I say this at the risk of a) telling you something you already know and b) sounding like a curmudgeonly Luddite who can’t cope with new-fangled technology.
Many of us intrinsically know this is true. There is more scanning, and in many instances, more distraction to skip to someplace else. Turns out that science backs up the hunch.
According to The Chronicle of Higher Education (which I read online), an article was published in the Journal of Research in Reading (which I didn’t read at all) that highlighted the research of Anne Mangen. She gets all metaphysical and says that “digital texts are ontologically intangible,” so we have a different physical relationship to them, it influences our immersion into the material and other outcomes.
The best bit is this line from the Chronicle quoting Mangen: “One effect, Mangen maintains, is that the digital text makes us read ‘in a shallower, less focused way.'”
We accepted this truth about our shallow, scanning and skipping audiences long ago. And we’ve worked to adjust for it as writers. But I had to wonder if I was fully embracing it as an editor.
In the name of efficiency and environmentalism, I generally edit electronically using any of the available markup tools Microsoft Word offers. This puts me squarely in the audience’s skipping and scanning shoes. It lets me make sure that the text accommodates this arms’ length relationship and that the main points can be plucked here, there or anywhere.
But I also have a responsibility to make the work correct and complete. The writer’s little mistakes and near-misses need to be ferreted out and corrected. I can’t do this well if I am skipping and scanning on screen. That requires immersion.
Which means I either need to let go of my resistance to killing trees and marking up a hardcopy with the old red pen or learn to buck nature and immerse myself in my laptop. Although the latter sounds kind of scary and Tron-like. (E-mail me if you are less ancient than I and don’t understand that reference.)
When editing a piece meant to be read on screen, editors play a dual role. We have to experience the content as the reader will, and we have to bring a critical, detail-oriented eye. What do you do to accommodate both?
Barbara Govednik launched 423 Communication in 2001 to helps its clients tell their stories through freelance writing services, coaching and editing services, and employee communication consulting and implementation. Read Barbara’s Being Well Said Blog.
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Trick #1: Know your audience. If you’re communicating with another wordie, go ahead and use challenging language. This person will appreciate it. (Honestly: I just wrote a memo with “purview” in it because I knew the CEO would like it!) If not, forget it. Most people read for content and not for style, and if you’re choosing words that scream “pay attention to me,” then they’re shouting over your content.
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Trick #2: Watch for jargon. This falls into the same category as $64,000 words for me. Those who don’t know them feel excluded, stupid and angry. When jargon is appropriate, define your term the first time it appears. Those who know it will congratulate themselves, and you’ll avoid negativity from everyone else.
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Trick #3: Kill the Latinate words. These are the long ones that sound like legal terms, and have their origins in Latin. (For my money, there’s a reason they call it a “dead language.”) This includes terms such as “therefore” (try “so”), “pursuant” (try “after”), “heretofore” (try “until now”), and “notwithstanding” (try “although”). When given the option of a complex versus a simple word, go for the latter—don’t let your words get in the way of your meaning.
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Trick #4: Use the thesaurus sparingly. Most people pick one up because they’re using the same word a lot and want to give their readers some variety. This is a noble gesture. But a thesaurus can also be a crutch. Instead of trying to find new ways to express yourself, you just want to change one word. And often you end up going several words deep among the synonyms to find one that will work—and the further you go on the list, the more obscure the term becomes. Remember: it’s not just about word choice—it’s about thoughtful writing.