Bill Bennett
Can you start sentence with “And”?
At school we were taught never to start sentences with “And”.
And yet newspaper journalists do it all the time. Not starting a sentence with “and” is one of the first so-called rules professional writers learn to break.
There’s nothing wrong with using “and” to begin a sentence or a paragraph. It is a great way to smooth the flow when you have a series of short sentences that would otherwise be too staccato for comfortable reading.
Only break this rule in moderation. Overusing “And” at the start of sentences quickly becomes boring.
As Keith Waterhouse points out in Daily Mirror Style, too many sentences starting with the word means your writing reads like the New English Bible.
Aim for only one “And” sentence start in a short piece of 300 words. For longer stories, you can get away with using it a few times – about once every 3-500 words. Control any urge to sprinkle sentences starting with “And” through your copy.
Other conjunctions
The school rule didn’t just apply to “And”, starting sentences with other conjunctions was also forbidden. As an aside, conjunctions are ‘joining’ words used to string phrases together – usually, but not always, to build more complex sentences.
There are plenty of alternative conjunctions to call on at the start of your sentences:
“But” is a great way to start a sentence that disagrees with the previous one. “Yet” is a less-frequently used alternative. “Or” is a great word for helping text flow. Some people don’t like sentences to start with “However”. That’s another rule worth breaking. “Although” is a possibility. In practice, it can be better to shorten the word to “Though” at the start of a sentence.
Tech: Rural divide in comms, law firm hack, Reddit goes bonkers
Last week’s RNZ technology slot:
Technology correspondent Bill Bennett joins Kathryn to talk about the Commerce Commission’s Telecommunications Monitoring Report and why rural telecoms is now the main political and regulatory frontier for the sector.
Starlink’s entry to New Zealand has made some think problems with rural access to broadband is now solved - but is it?
Bill also looks at the implications for the massive data breach at Australian law firm HWL Ebsworth after a ransomware attack and why Reddit has suddenly become extremely popular.
The term “content” is a barbarism that bit by bit devalues what journalists do.
- Jay Rosen, Chair of Journalism at New York University
Short, snappy writing works best online.
Snappy writing works best online
First, people are less ready to read long pieces online than short articles.
Second, people read online material about 25 per cent slower than print. Jakob Nielsen explains why in In defence of print. Nielsen wrote his article in 1996, but things haven’t changed.
Countering distraction
Third, people get distracted easily online. There are advertisements and links to other websites as well as bleeping notification of incoming emails, tweets and instant messages.
If you write a brief article, there is more chance a reader will get to the end before skipping off elsewhere.
Brevity is the key
Fourth, skilled writers aim for brevity because good, vigorous English is concise.
A writer’s goal is to get messages to readers as swiftly and as accurately as possible.
Get on. Say what you need to say. Get off.
Leave the fancy, flowery stuff to poets and fiction writers.
A Mac user's guide to word processors and other writing apps
Mac owners have a wide range of great writing apps to choose from. Here’s how to find the one that best suits your needs.
2023 Ashes series
Wasn’t sure about staying up late last night, getting up early this morning to watch the opening Ashes test from Edgbaston in England. English daytime cricket matches are played at brutal times when you live in New Zealand. When the Black Caps play in England I move my life to British Summer Time.
Judging by the first day’s play, this series is going to live up to the hype. And anyway, sleep is overrated. 🏏
Cold comfort for journalists
The life of the journalist is poor, nasty, brutish and short. So is his style.
Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm
Companies, especially tech companies, will spend time and money on press releases that are predictable, dull and boring. I wrote about this 12 years ago in billbennett.co.nz/predictab…
Twitter’s move to make third parties pay heaps for API access isn’t going to make me use the service any more than I do today.
In fact, the opposite is true. There is even less reason to go there.
Ten years ago Apple made a significant battery life breakthrough with a MacBook Air that could run for an entire working day on a single charge. While this literally changed my life, the story at my website was not about me.
Today’s Download Weekly newsletter looks at the impact Apple’s spatial computing is likely to have on data traffic and broadband networks.
Apple Vision Pro demands fast fibre
Getting found online
As an experiment I submitted the URL for the latest post on my business blog (https://billbennett.co.nz/ia-presenter-launch/) to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
Bing had the link online instantly… I searched and found it on the search engine in less than 60 seconds. DuckDuckGo had it well inside another 30 seconds (probably instantaneous). It’s 30 minutes since I posted it to Google and still nothing.
That doesn’t make Bing better, it does mean Bing is responsive.
On a related note… in the last week my site got about 20 per cent of its traffic from Facebook… I haven’t had a Facebook presence in more than a decade.
Guidelines for writing better headlines
Short – cram the maximum amount of meaning into the minimum number of words. There’s no strict guide to ideal word length, but search engines only care about the first 64 characters. Make every word count.
Clear – good headline are unambiguous. They must be immediately understandable in any context. Not everyone reading your writing will be a native English speaker. Keep this in mind.
Straightforward – use mainly nouns and verbs. Remember your nouns will be keywords for people using search engines.
Use simple words – short, Anglo Saxon words are best. Everyone knows exactly what they mean and they help you cram more meaning into fewer characters.
Active – use the active voice.
Avoid – forms of the verb to be. Articles ‘a’, ‘an’ and ‘the’ are space wasters best left out of headlines. Use a comma rather than the word ‘and’. Try not to use pronouns.
Plain English – there’s a grab-bag of short clichéd headline words that people never use in real life – such as nix, slam, rap. It’s better to stick with everyday language.
Some experts will tell you lists, questions and commands work well in online headlines. All may be worth trying, it depends what you are aiming for. Either way, they’ll work better if you keep my earlier points in mind.
If you want to buy a fancy phone, the two best options at the moment are Apple’s iPhone 14 Pro Max and Samsung’s Galaxy S23 Ultra. This blog post I wrote last month compares them:
The Mobile to satellite communications – update blog post was missing its embedded table. Fixed that now.
Spent some time this morning tinkering with my micro.blog theme (Kiko) to increase the contrast, font size and font weight after a visitor told me they had difficulty reading the posts. If you’re interested in making your micro.blog site more accessible, I can share my recipe. It’s not a secret.
Go easy on adjectives
As old school journalists, we were taught to write mainly with nouns and verbs. Editors let us use adjectives only if they make the meaning more precise.
And even then, subeditors would remove them as they tightened copy.
In Daily Mirror Style Keith Waterhouse describes the old school journalist’s view. He says:
Adjectives should not be allowed in newspapers unless they have something to say.
Writers think adjectives add colour to their words. They do. But colourful writing isn’t always easier to understand.
In volume one of Editing and Writing, another newspaper journalist Harold Evans says they give writing a “superficial glitter”.
He goes on to say:
Every adjective should be examined to see: is it needed to define the subject or is it there for emphasis?
Evans says “over-emphasis destroys credibility”.
Adjectives for emphasis
Take care when using adjectives for emphasis. For example, the word ‘very’ adds nothing to a phrase. Most of the time you can lose the word without changing any meaning.
The same usually applies to words like really, actually, rather and quite.
It also applies to the f-word. It may be fashionable to use it in today’s writing, but nine times out of ten all it does is function as a synonym for ‘very’.
Often there’s a better, more elegant way of expressing the same idea. “The train crawled into the station” is better than saying it was “very slow”.
In practice many adjectives have no substance. You can remove most from your sentences. You won’t lose much, but you will gain clarity.
On a personal note, publishers and others have paid me for years to write by the word. Loading my copy with lucrative filler words including adjectives makes economic sense. Over the years they have paid off my mortgage.
Yet my writing would certainly better without them.
A quick refresher:
Nouns are names of people, places, things and ideas.
Verbs are doing words. They tell you what is going on.
We say Adjectives modify nouns. They tell you what kind it is, how many there are and which one is being talked about.
Adverbs do the same job for verbs.
Exclamation marks: Caution!
Exclamation marks have almost no place in serious writing.
Tabloid journalists use them in headlines. You may need to use exclamation marks in reported speech or where they form part of a name or title.
And that’s about it.
It’s no accident many newspapers and publishing companies ban exclamation marks in their style guides.
They don’t add drama. They don’t improve poor writing.
They don’t tell readers a sentence was funny – although they may tell readers a sentence was supposed to be funny.
In the newspaper business, the exclamation mark is sometimes known as a shriek or screamer. This gives a clue to why they are disliked.
It is often used to add emphasis to sentences. It’s versatile, you’ll see it used to show surprise, anger or joy.
The exclamation mark is the punctuation equivalent of raising your voice – maybe hysterically. Hence the name ‘shriek’.
Here’s why you should consider avoiding them altogether:
- They distract readers.
- They are an excuse for lazy writing – good funny or dramatic writing doesn’t need propping up.
- Once people start using exclamation marks, they usually overuse them – which makes writing look amateur.
- They hint at a gushing bygone world of “what-ho Jeeves!”, “lashings of ginger beer!” and “golly gosh!”. Your readers will wonder if they’ve stepped into a time warp.
- They make you and your writing appear unauthentic.
When I was an editor, I told a reporter who used one in a story that was his year’s allocation gone. I was only half joking. If you must use exclamation marks, use them rarely. One a year is more than enough.
Jargon doesn’t make you look smarter
Jargon makes it easier to write about technology. Technical ideas can be quicker and easier to discuss using the private language of engineers and geeks.
Some technical terms pack a lot of meaning into a single word or a phrase. At times jargon is a useful short cut.
Even so, try to keep jargon under control. And only use it in context.
It can be a barrier to understanding. A lot is misused, ambiguous or confusing.
Jargon is often redundant. It’s simpler, less confusion and unambiguous to talk about Windows when some people might say ‘the Windows platform’ or ‘the Windows environment’.
Remember sometimes specialist language is used as a deliberate tool to hide meaning from outsiders.
Likewise, there’s no excuse for indulging in the robot-speak used by corporations and government departments.
Out of context, jargon doesn’t make you look smarter. It tells your readers you’re a pompous windbag.
Often it makes your words, and your meaning, harder to understand.
Remember, not every reader is a native English speaker. And not every native speaker is tuned in to specialised language.
Some pet hates:
Ongoing – and ongoing situation is worse. Going forward – if you mean in the future say so. Ground rules. Upturn. Outcome is a particularly nasty piece of political and bureaucratic doublespeak for result. Currently.
Apple AirPods Pro second-gen: Familiar looks, better all-round
They may look the same, but Apple’s new AirPods Pro have improved sound, noise cancelling and battery life.
The data breach fallacy:
The longer a company’s code of ethics, the more likely it is run by sleazeballs
he No Asshole Rule author Bob Sutton hits the nail on the head again. The quote comes from his post: The Enron Code of Ethics: Something Every Boss Should Read.
I originally posted this on my blog in 2009, but it’s well worth a rerun.
Murder your darlings
“Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it — whole-heartedly — and delete it before sending your manuscript to press: Murder your darlings.”
Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
This quote, or a version of it, has been attributed to many writers Quiller-Couch was the original source. It’s unlikely you’ve ever heard of him, so this Wikipedia page will help.
The key point here is that often when you think you’ve written something brilliant, you probably haven’t. This is something older journalists would knock out of juniors during training. These days the young ones don’t have time for fancy writing.
Using a word like Murder is a great way of making the message memorable.
Another way of putting the same idea is: Don’t try to be clever. Keep your writing as simple as possible.