123rf.com: Angelo Bonavera
A tip of the fedora to Stephen Wilbers for inspiring this post. No matter how experienced as writers we are, we can all benefit from these reminders. Mr. Wilbers, who teaches at the University of Minnesota, offers up six tips to improve our writing.
Know your audience
Or as Mr. Wilbers put it, “recognize your reader.” A good question for anyone writing anything to ask is “Who is my audience?” Quickly followed by “What’s in it for them?”
Strategize
Mr. Wilbers says “Your approach might be a simple as opening with a goodwill statement and closing with an affirmation of relationship or it might be as sophisticated as taking a direct approach with a sympathetic reader (proposal first, reasons second) and an indirect approach with a hostile reader (reasons first, proposal second.” He’s a believer in using the word “you,” because it helps you better communicate and connect.
Be clear
If you need to haul out Eats, Shoots, and Leaves or Woe is I, do it. Clarity involves appropriate word choice, sentence and paragraph structure, and clear thinking. Consider this gem: “… as we all know, writing is nature’s way of letting you know how unclear your thinking is.”
Be relevant
Support your position with the right details. Mr. Wilbers comments that you should offer just the right amount of detail.
My bonus tip: be brief. I’ve recently learned that millennials don’t like a lot of detail, because it slows them down. Choose what you think they need to know, and offer links to the rest. Actually, I think this applies to all audiences. We’re all time-crunched. Do a first draft, put it aside if you can, then return and edit ruthlessly.
Be attentive to style
Style is important, because, as Mr. Wilbers points out, style is really about brand. How are you coming across? What’s your “voice?” Warm and funny? Serious and cautionary? Snarky? Formal?
Be accurate
A client may be signing off on your work, but that doesn’t relieve you of the responsibility to be accurate in both your grammar and your facts. So double check everything. Read your work aloud for grammar. Scan it a second time for punctuation. Google the facts, and if you’re unsure, comment them for your client.
Some think, erroneously, that business writing isn’t particularly important. “Oh, just get it out there. Get it done.” You can see that attitude demonstrated repeatedly by bad grammar, typos, and poorly presented arguments. But what could be more vital to a brand than for communications to be on target and correct?
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