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Corporate writing is often awful - let's fix that
Big companies worry about communications. They want every word they send out to stay on message. Their goal is to protect or promote brands. This means a lot of unreadable corporate writing pours out of their headquarters. Many companies have brand bibles. These are like editorial style guides – they standardise language. Newspaper style guides are written to make life easier for readers. Brand bibles have other goals. They aim to help the company sell. Continue reading →
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Get straight to the point
Don’t waste time warming up when writing for online audiences. Get started straight away. Readers are busy. They scan text looking for meaning and they want it fast. Other writing competes for their attention and it is only a click away. Your first paragraph should summarise the entire story in less than 40 words. A 30-word intro is better. And make sure those words aren’t all in one sentence. Don’t overload the first paragraph with too many facts. Continue reading →
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Seven steps to a crisp blog post
One of the great things about Micro.Blog is you can use it for quick social-media style thoughts or you can write a more expansive blog post. Good blog posts communicate ideas and information. Do it with crisp, unambiguous writing. There’s nothing wrong with flowery writing. Just leave it for poetry, song lyrics and literary fiction. Here are seven steps to help you turn out snappy blog posts that’ll have readers coming back for more: Continue reading →
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A thesaurus with short words
Rules number four and five in Writing for the web in 300 words say: Learn grammar. Forget what teachers said about long words making you look smart. It isn’t true. Instead use simple words, grammar and sentences. It is harder to go wrong. Finding simple words isn’t always easy, especially when you are in a hurry. A thesaurus helps. There are online thesauri and there are two paper ones on my bookshelf at home. Continue reading →
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How to write like an old-time journalist
You may call it a blog post, article or something else. A journalist would call it a story. Here’s how to write a good one. Start your story by telling the reader what it is about. You do this briefly in the headline. Then again in the introduction or intro, which is a stop press paragraph. Ask yourself: What is this story about, what information am I trying to get across and. Continue reading →
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If it sounds like writing, rewrite
Elmore Leonard wrote this as the last of his ten rules of writing. If it sounds like writing, rewrite it Leonard is an author. A first-rate author who writes fast-paced novels with great dialogue and plenty of action. While Leonard is an artist, his advice applies to journalists and anyone else who writes for a living. What he means is make sure your writing doesn’t sound like an undergraduate essay or a high school homework. Continue reading →
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When words end in -al
There is a useful post at the Columbia Journalism Review chewing over the difference between words like electric and electrical or historic and historical. Continue reading →
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Full stops beat commas
Years ago, when training journalists, I would joke that Americans use more commas than British journalists because they are rich and can afford the extra ink. The same applies to journalists in Ireland, Australia or New Zealand. You would often find long, comma-packed sentences in American newspapers. They don’t make for easy reading. It’s better to write using plenty of full stops instead — periods if you’re American — and go sparing on the comma. Continue reading →
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When journalists quote
Quotes are important in journalism and reporting because they tell readers the information in question wasn’t made up by a reporter, but is someone’s account or opinion. Not all quotes are equal. The best come directly from an interviewee’s speech and are faithfully reproduced. In electronic media these are obvious – you see or hear the person in question saying their own words. With written media, quotes can be either direct or indirect. Continue reading →
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Write without creating traps for your readers
Your job as a writer is to get your message across clearly and quickly. One way you can sabotage communication is by laying traps for readers. Traps that halt a reader’s natural flow as their eye scans over text. Punctuation – as the name suggests – stops flow. This is why I leave out optional commas. You can also slow down a reader’s flow when you use capital letters incorrectly. For the same reason you should never write a word entirely in capitals. Continue reading →
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When you have to use jargon
Avoid jargon if you can. Sometimes you have no choice. It makes your writing difficult to understand and puts readers off. Jargon confuses readers and in many cases jargon is ambiguous – always a sign of poor communication. It puts a barrier between you and your readers. This is especially hard if you interview someone who talks in jargon and mangement cliches. You have a duty to report their words accurately, but you also have a duty not to bombard readers with gobbledegook. Continue reading →
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Does spelling still matter?
The post is ancient, but Erin Brenner wonders “Does spelling still matter?” It does. It matters a lot. Some people think worrying about spelling and grammar is anal and backward. They are wrong. There are two reasons why spelling and grammar are important and will remain important for as long as people still read printed words: First: Well-written, properly-spelt, grammatically-correct English is unambiguous. Poorly written English is open to misinterpretation. Continue reading →
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Where you should use capital letters
Use capital letters for proper nouns. Avoid them for common nouns. Proper nouns are the names of things. So use capitals for the names of people, places, months, days of the week, companies and so on. Don’t use capitals for common nouns. People run into difficulty with capitals because there’s a temptation to use them for important words. In business writing people often use capitals as a way of avoiding offending someone or something by implying he or it isn’t important. Continue reading →
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They don't make newspapers like they used to
I’m so pleased this had nothing to do with me. This was published in _The Australian _ 15 years ago and spotted by Mumbrella. So let’s do some role playing. You’re a sub on The Australian. Your boss has just given a speech about the health of newspapers. You’ve got to put a headline on the speech. Do you a) Check the spelling of the word “newspapers” in the headline or b) Not check the spelling of the word “newspapers” in the headline? Continue reading →
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Hear me on the New Zealand Tech Podcast
I’m on the New Zealand Tech Podcast with Paul Spain. nztechpodcast.com/new-iphon… Talking about the Christchurch Call Summit and whether you need to constantly upgrade your phone among other things. I explore the phone upgrade story in greater depth here: billbennett.co.nz/how-long-… Continue reading →
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Go ahead, end a sentence with a preposition
Your school may have taught you not to end a sentence with a preposition. This is a hangover from Latin and Greek. Sentences in those languages never ended with prepositions. Years ago I worked in communications for Britain’s Science and Engineering Research Council. My boss took me to task for ending a sentence with a preposition. He told me it was; “Something, up with which, I will not put” – a quote from Winston Churchill. Continue reading →
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Google as a verb
Google is one of a rare breed of companies that has moved into everyday language as a verb. There are language purists who argue against turning nouns into verbs. Don’t worry. It’s fine to “google something” online. People have “hoovered carpets” for years. Note the lower case G and H. Most of the time Google and Hoover are proper nouns requiring a capital. There’s no such thing as a proper verb, so why should Google or Hoover take a capital when they are used as verbs? Continue reading →
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Seven things I’ve learnt about blogging
You don’t need fancy software to blog. Free hosting services, like WordPress.com can as good as or better than self-hosting. You’ll need to pay for a few basics, but it won’t cost more than web hosting. A low-cost, minimalist option like Micro.blog (where you are reading this post) is the best for anyone who’d rather write posts than mess around with code. Blogging can take up a huge amount of time. Continue reading →
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Structure your writing like a journalist
Newspapers teach journalists to write using the inverted pyramid. It isn’t always the best approach, but it is reliable. the inverted pyramid has worked for news writing since the days reporters telegraphed dispatches to editors. Today it works for online writing. The structure echoes the classic essay structure you were taught — or should have been taught — at school. The basic format: Introduction — say what the piece is about; answer questions like who, what, where and when. Continue reading →
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Use be verbs sparingly
If you want to make your writing clearer and more interesting, use ‘be’ verbs sparingly. The verb to be includes: Be, being, been, am, is, are, was, were. Be verbs make text dull partly because of overuse, but also because they remove the reader one step from the action. They take readers the long route to meaning and can be long-winded. Compare: Fred is dismissive of cowboy films with Fred dismisses cowboy films. Continue reading →
