effective writing

A pocket-sized guide to clear and informative writing.

Effective writing:

auravox.dk

Words are information.We write to inform.

Not to sound professional,brainy, smart or innovative.

To read and understand is hard.Do what’s easy for the reader.

You put in the extra effortso the reader doesn’t have to.

Writing is diffi cult.Writing is diffi cult.Good writing is extremely diffi cult.

Breakwriting

upthe process of

>>

Good writing is extremely diffi cult.

Planning (Decide what to write and to whom)Drafting (Get it on paper once)Revising (Get it on paper better)Editing (Fix spelling, grammar, typing)Formatting (Choose font, layout, colors, etc.)

Planning

Planning

Defi ne your target group.Figure out how they prefer to receive your information.

Don’t know your reader? – use yourself as a sample:

If someone was to give you this information3 years ago, how should they have done it?

[To whom are you writing?]

Figure out what you want to say.And why?

Every section, paragraph and sentence must have a purpose.This purpose must be relevant to your reader.

If you can’t organize you content, write yourideas down in random order. Then sort them.

[What are you writing?]

Drafting

Drafting

Drafting is about getting ideas out of your brain and onto paper.It is about your ideas, not your grammar or spelling.

Don’t waste time on getting the sentence just right oradding that adjective. Get to the point. Fast.

(we’ll remove your adjectives later on anyways)

[Get it on paper once]

Drafting is about getting ideas out of your brain and onto paper.It is about your ideas, not your grammar or spelling.

Don’t waste time on getting the sentence just right oradding that adjective. Get to the point. Fast.

(we’ll remove your adjectives later on anyways)

[Get it on paper once]

Revising

Revising

”But there’s no other way to put my ideas into words. It doesn’t get any better than this!”

Wrong.

Ideas can be formulated in infi nite ways.You are simply too lazy to spend the extra time.

You put in the extra effort so the reader doesn’t have to. Remember?

Let’s make your writing clearer and easier to understand.This is done by fi nding better ways of putting your ideas into words.

If you don’t even understand it,the reader won’t either.

Is there anything that can be misunderstood?Change it so it can’t!

Be your own worst enemy.

Chances are that your reader won’t read everything you’ve written.

Put your main point in the fi rst sentence!

I mean...

Put your main point in the fi rst sentence!Chances are that your reader won’t read everything you’ve written.

Get to the point. Fast!

Always state the main point before you give the reasoning that leads to it.

You are not writing a detective story!

Don’t insult the reader.

Put the main point of eachparagraph in its fi rst sentence.

That way, readers can skim your paper and still get it.Do you actually think people read everything you write?

Be reader-friendly.

Never try to sound formal or sophisticated. Stuffy text is more

diffi cult to read.

Never (never!) use a word unless you know exactly what it means.The reader probably doesn’t know it either.

Don’t pretend to be something you’re not.

Black darknessCold ice

Burning fi re...or ”our user-friendly software is intuitive and easy to use”

Avoid pleonasms and redundant words.

“Our web-application up-time is excellent””Our web-applications are available 99,8% of the time”

The second statement carries proof.The fi rst statement is just words with a positive adjective – “excellent”.

Avoid adjectives (show it instead, don’t tell it).

“Company X focuses on quality”vs

”At Company X, we focus on quality”

The fi rst statement is inhuman – probably written by a machine in a basement.The second statement is human – it’s personal and carries risk for the sender.

Get personal. Humans prefer to talk to humans, not to companies.

Take a statement and reverse it.If what you’re saying is blindingly wrong, the original statement is a banality.

Original: “When doing employee surveys, don’t forget to get management buy-in”Reversed: “When doing employee surveys, you don’t have to involve management”

The statement itself is a banality, but the importance of management buy-in is not.Instead of stating the obvious, tell why management buy-in is important!

The “Banality Test” (…or cutting through the crap)

It’s not as if we didn’t try=

We tried

The longer the sentence, the harder it is to understand.(The n3 rule – more about that next)

Don’t use double negatives

Factoid:

Time taken to process an n-word sentence is proportional to n3

Cutting this sentence length in half will make it 8 times easier to read!

Say it with less (…or K.I.S.S.)

“One of the best things you can do for yourself to improve your writing is to learn how to cut out words that are not necessary.”

“One of the best ways to improve your writing is to learn how to cut out words that are not necessary.”

“One of the best ways to improve your writing is to learn how to cut out unnecessary words.”

“To improve your writing, learn how to cut out unnecessary words.”

“To improve your writing, cut out unnecessary words.”

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

“One of the best things you can do for yourself to improve your writing is to learn how to cut out words that are not necessary.”

to

“To improve your writing, cut out unnecessary words.”

Bingo! – 25 words reduced to 8!

We’ve now gone from...

Editing

Editing

Get your word proccessor to help you.Don’t always trust you word processor.

Read your text, not just the words!Better still, have someone else read it.

Chec ur spellin, gramar ’n punctation

If you’ve misspelled goverment your entire life, you probably won’t catch the error in your editing.

Nobody was born knowing how to spell. But if you can spell...

Code: int main(int argc; char* argv[]);Your title: Key Account Paradigm Orchestrator

...you can learn to spell its and it’s.

Old habits die hard

Formatting

Formatting

Use text formatting conservatively and your key message will stand out more. It’ll also make your presentation look better. Formatting your text with bold, italic and underlines

doesn’t always have the desired effect.doesn’t always have the desired effect.

Less is better. Keep text formatting to a minimum.Be consistent. Once you decided for italic for highlighting – stick to it!

Don’t underline. Underlines are only used to indicate hyperlinks.

Use text formatting carefully

Bullets should be used with prudence.Are they necessary?

Item #1 Item #2 Item #3

“I like bullets. Does this mean I can’t use them?”Sure you can, as long as you use them correct.

Bullets or no bullets?

auravox.dkMartin Lysholt Nielsen

Inspired byMichael A. Covington

(http://www.ai.uga.edu/mc/WriteThinkLearn.htm)