Good Writing Is Good Business

The End

2011-03-07T15:46:00.000-08:00

This will be my last post on this blog until further notice. I am taking a hiatus to reconsider its overall value.

On that note, it seems appropriate to write this post on the topic of "ending well." How does one end a business letter, a formal proposal, a trade journal article? Are there any universal principles that work for all forms of business writing?

Yes, there are at least two: Always end on a memorable note, and always make your ending sound like an ending. If your text simply peters out, no one will remember anything you said 24 hours later. If you stop anywhere besides at a logical ending point, people will be scratching their heads and wondering what was cut off.

In business writing, the most common means of fulfilling both purposes is the call to action. Do you want readers to buy your product, fill out a survey, write a letter of protest to Congress? Tell them so--don't make them guess--and tell them as the last thing you say. Don't give them a chance to forget by distracting them with four paragraphs of additional information.

And I close this post--and this blog--with this call to action:

Never forget that Good Writing Is Good Business. Be intelligent, be conscientious, be considerate, be professional--and let it all show in every sentence you write.

Bad Writing: Pet Peeves

2011-02-21T13:00:00.000-08:00

There are many commonly made mistakes in the world of business writing, and every one of them has the potential to push someone's buttons--hard. Murphy's Law says that the someone will usually be the person you most hoped to impress.

Why any one person finds a relatively minor error infuriating is as impossible a question to answer as why some people like spinach and others don't. And to protest "you're making a big deal over nothing" never wins friends or customers, even if true. All we can do is write as flawlessly as possible, prove our professionalism by apologizing when someone complains ("thank you for setting me straight" rarely fails to turn away wrath)--and remember that we also have our pet peeves.

What phrasings, typos, and sentence constructions do you most hate to see in writing? Here are my top three:

My own name misspelled in a supposedly personal message. The dislike of this is no doubt universal, but it's a particular bane to those of us who bear common names with uncommon spellings. The gut reaction is, "You're just like everyone else--too lazy to look closely at the way I write my own name--and then you expect me to believe you're interested in me as an individual."

It's where its should be. All of us are taught in grade school that the possessive its has no apostrophe, yet the business world is full of college graduates who can't remember that simple rule.

That instead of who used to refer to a person. Technically, this isn't an actual error, but it grates on many of us to read "the secretary that typed the memo" instead of "the secretary who typed the memo." Something deep down says that the secretary has been reduced to an "it."

Please submit your own pet peeves as comments. I'd love to get a lively discussion going on this!

Verbal Shorthand: Not Always a Good Idea

2011-02-14T13:00:00.000-08:00

Abbreviations and acronyms were invented long before text messaging, but serve the same broad purpose: to speed up communications. Who (with the exception of students trying to fill minimum-word-count essay quotas) wants to write out "North Atlantic Treaty Organization" eighteen times in the course of a document? Who would rather read it eighteen times when the four-letter, two-syllable "NATO" is available?

One small problem. "NATO" can also stand for "No Action, Talk Only"; "Night At The Opera"; "Not Another Teen Organization"; "National Association of Timeshare Owners"; "National Association of Taxicab Owners"; or some 50 additional possibilities. The slightest ambiguity of context can leave a sizable percentage of readers--especially those to whom an alternative meaning is the "normal" one--scratching their heads.

The proven method for maximizing both understanding and efficiency is to spell out the phrase the first time--"North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)"--and use the now-clearly-defined acronym thereafter. But as with jargon, many writers never consider that their everyday language may be someone else's first-time encounter. Unless you're dealing with an acronym that has achieved common-noun status (such as "radar" for "RAdio Detection And Ranging"), follow the advice from the classic The Elements of Style: "Even if everyone did [know the meaning of any given acronym], there are babies being born every minute who will someday encounter the name for the first time. They deserve to see the words, not simply the initials.... Many shortcuts are self-defeating; they waste the reader's time instead of conserving it."

And especially these days, wasting someone's time is the unforgivable sin.

See also Acronym Finder.

Watch Those Links!

2011-02-07T13:00:00.000-08:00

If you insist on leaving typos in e-mails, there are three areas, at least, that must be exempt: proper nouns (especially contact names); contact-information numbers (including street addresses); and the URLs of online links. Misspelling someone's name is a guaranteed way to annoy him; so is sending him to the wrong address, brick-and-mortar or electronic.

Online links are particularly tricky because they operate without benefit of human logic. If a link leads to the wrong website, the reader's only option is to return to the original message, manually check the link's URL, and try to figure out where the typo slipped in. Most people won't bother; most others will give the mistake only one chance to be obvious.

If it's important to you that your e-mail recipients follow the links you send them, here are four rules for you to follow.

1. If at all possible, copy the address directly from the page. This leaves no room for error.

2. With a page you last visited some time ago, return to verify it's still up before sending its address. Even if it was right last year, things change quickly online.

3. If no immediate access to the website is available, and the link must be sent immediately, proofread it with extra care. If you spell "California" as "Califronia" and bury that inconspicuously within a long URL, you have only yourself to blame for the results.

4. Be especially careful if linking to a well-known organization. The Internet is full of porn and other unscrupulous sites that mimic the URLs of famous names (e. g., nasa.com vs. the official NASA site, nasa.gov) to lure in careless surfers. Don't aid and abet them.

The Internet is a wonderful thing--but, like all marvels of technology, it must be used according to instructions. Make sure you give people the right instructions.

The Middle Line of Readability

2011-01-31T13:00:00.000-08:00

The field of writing is hard-pressed on one side by the terror of grammatical incorrectness (epitomized by those whose abusive third-grade English teachers told them that splitting an infinitive was a capital crime), and on the other by the idea that good writing is easy (epitomized by would-be authors who torment publishing house editors with "sure bestseller" drafts that might well have been written by someone who flunked third grade). Both extremes have this in common: they result in writing that's deadly boring to read. And deadly to its intended purpose.

If you want your business writing to convince others to use your services (and to otherwise make a good impression for you), practice walking the middle line of readability.

To avoid the trap of ultra-correctness: Write the first draft the way you'd give the same information out loud. If you were giving a verbal presentation, you wouldn't say "you would not" or use an excess of fancy-but-vague words like "facility" and "ordinances." Pretending you're talking, rather than writing, to someone keeps your language sounding natural. (If you're seriously uptight about writing the way you speak, try dictating to a secretary or recorder at first.)

To avoid the trap of ultra-informality: Don't consider the writing finished with completion of the first, written-as-spoken draft. This is where most overly optimistic novelists and bloggers fail: they spill out their words stream-of-consciousness-style and expect the deeper meaning to be as obvious to others as to themselves. Give your work a few hours or days to rest, then review it word by word, considering what might be difficult to follow, what's redundant, and what jumps too abruptly from one topic to another. The close relationship between the written and spoken word applies here too, so reading a piece out loud can help. Getting someone else to read (or listen to) it is even better.

Remember: natural language first, then the polishing to the small degree of formality that distinguishes the written word from the spoken.

What are your favorite hints for avoiding one or both of the above extremes? Please comment.

Goofs and Gaffes

2011-01-24T13:00:00.000-08:00

Here's another list of actual quotes that show why "be careful what you say" applies to the written word as well. (Source: Edit Edit Edit (EditEditEdit) on Twitter. Pay that page a visit; there's lots more to chuckle at!)

"3-year-old teacher needed for pre-school. Experience preferred."
"Should I have a coma in the middle of this sentence?"

Sports news headline: "Grandmother of eight makes hole in one."

"Chairman Billings asked Board members to muster support from the PTA to support the governor's task force on driving while intoxicated."

Notice outside public restroom: "Skeptic Tank. No foreign objects."

"In Pittsburgh they manufacture iron and steal."

"Blind woman gets new kidney from dad she hasn't seen in years."

Warning sign: "This door is alarmed."

"Man Arrested for Possession of Heroine."

"Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half."

"Statistics show that teen pregnancy drops off after age 25."

"We provide the opportunities people with disabilities need to live dignified, fulfilling lies."

"When you smell an odorless gas, it is probably carbon monoxide."

Apologizing in Writing

2011-01-17T13:00:00.000-08:00

"You never get a second chance to make a good first impression." True, but the best of us will blow that chance on occasion. When that happens, better to try to redeem a bad impression than to slink away and leave it as the only impression you make.

A simple apology does much to make amends for a poor first impression--or a gaffe of any sort. And a written apology does even more: it not only proves you have the courage to admit your faults on the record, but it carries an innate dignity that minimizes the risks of the apology itself turning into an ugly scene. And written apologies can be edited before being delivered, particularly valuable if your mouth easily gets out of control!

Here are three principles to remember if you owe someone a written (or any) apology:

1. Be prompt. The longer you delay, the greater the chance of hard feelings evolving into a grudge. Procrastination also makes the apology grow ever more difficult. Don't waste time fretting over getting it grammatically perfect. (Do, however, write fairly formally, and do proofread it; you want it to be clear you found this worth some effort!)

2. Be humble and sincere. Explain extenuating circumstances or what you really meant only when it is vital to clear the air, and only as far as you can do so without getting defensive. Anything that sounds remotely like "it was really your fault" devalues the apology and could start a worse fight.

3. Be brief. Most people have difficulty not following "I'm sorry" with a lengthy "but..." or a paragraph of groveling. To the receiving party, this is always boring, embarrassing, annoying, or even infuriating. Sum up what you did wrong; say how sorry you are for the inconvenience/embarrassment/financial loss it caused the other person; offer to make amends (be as specific as you can, and always try to give back more than you damaged); and stop.

And take comfort that a sincere apology can have even better long-term impact than a standard good first impression!

Two Key Principles of Humor

2011-01-10T13:00:00.000-08:00

Humor. Nothing is so effective when used well--or so disastrous when handled badly. Written humor, especially, can land a sale or drive a prospect to your nearest competitor, improve a relationship or invite a lawsuit. No chuckle in the voice or wink of the eye modifies clever words; either the words are funny by themselves or they aren't. Don't try to make strangers laugh this way unless you're sure you know what you're doing.

Even if everyone finds your social messages hilarious, the identical approach may crash-land in business communications. When to joke and when to be serious is a question that differs with every office and industry, but there are two principles no humor-minded business writer should forget.

1. Act your age. No office should be full of always-dour faces, but neither should a business be staffed by thirtysomething class clowns. No one trusts the professionalism of someone who hasn't grown up yet. So to make the right impression, keep written jokes fairly low-key; think chuckles rather than belly laughs. Humorous anecdotes, especially true stories, are best; puns are fine if they don't make people groan so loudly as to stop reading. Knock-knock jokes and "cross x with y" riddles are best left to the kids' books. Things not to do include letting humor overpower the real message and slipping in material irrelevant to the main point.

2. Expect whoever reads your material to be ultrasensitive. If you don't know your intended readers, or if you know them only casually, a safe rule is "never make fun of anyone except yourself." This holds doubly true if you're writing to an individual and are tempted to build rapport by needling him; one person's good-natured teasing is another's cutting cruelty. If someone does complain that your joking hit a raw nerve, apologize without excuses, without defensiveness, and--above all--in a dead serious tone. The worst thing you can do is say something along the lines of "Ohhh, a grumbler; shall I send you some free anti-irritability pills?" This amounts to trying to bully someone into a better sense of humor, an approach useful only for making enemies.

Despite these pitfalls, a good laugh can brighten a dull day at work, which guarantees the writer will be remembered favorably. So if you have a gift for humor, by all means put it in writing!

Resolved to Write Better

2011-01-03T13:00:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Good Writing is Good Business 2011!

One of my New Year's resolutions was to make my posts shorter (at least until I see if more readers comment once I stop trying to say everything myself!). So today's post will comprise the top three business writing resolutions I recommend all entrepreneurs make--no description to be longer than this paragraph.

1. Keep things short. (Surprise!) Never use three words where one will do; never use five syllables where two will suffice. And don't drop in extra information just to show off your knowledge. Consumers researching best buys in car accessories don't really care how many miles the U. S. population drove in 2010.

2. Be thorough and clear. The opposite mistake from saying too much is assuming too much about what the reader knows. Do spell out (the first time) what acronyms stand for; don't mention a current event without giving a few details on the when-who-how. (Not everyone watches CNN daily!)

3. Proofread. The more important a piece, the more thoroughly it should be proofread (if really important, it deserves two proofreaders and a week's rest before the final draft). But even with a casual e-mail, scan before sending. It's worth it to avoid a real howler (such as leaving the l out of public).

What is your suggested top resolution in the business writing arena?

Social Networking for the Business Writer: Top-Ten List

2010-12-11T06:54:00.000-08:00

This post concludes a series on effective writing in social media.

This will be the last post in the Social Networking for the Business Writer series--also the last post of 2010, as I prepare for Christmas break. Since the end of the year is a time for list-making, this post is a list of ten things every social networker should remember. Consider incorporating them into your New Year's resolutions!

1. Social networking is not free advertising. It's been said in practically every post of this series, but it remains the #1 thing to remember; a social networking forum is no place for a hard-core sales pitch. Never post anything with the sole purpose of convincing readers to buy your product or service; that's what your website (and paid advertising) is for.

2. Ask not what your fellow networkers can do for you; ask what you can do for your fellow networkers. Thinking only of yourself is bad business in any venue, and particularly unwise in any form of networking. Be ready to provide advice and referrals whenever you can be helpful, without considering "what I might get back."

3. Keep things short. Short sentences, short paragraphs, and short posts are the backbone of online writing. No one likes a page of unbroken text, particularly on a glaring screen.

4. Speak from your expertise. Search out questions and discussions where you can contribute meaningfully--where it's obvious you know what you're talking about. Some people choose their comment forums primarily on the basis of keywords that push their buttons; you can pick out these people by their emotionally loaded tones, their failure to cite objective backup for their claims, and their evident ignorance of what was actually said in the original post and other comments. It makes a less than professional impression, to say the least.

5. Feel free to make multiple contributions to an ongoing discussion, but don't say the same thing every time. Do your part to keep the discussion moving in a line, not a circle.

6. Don't be afraid to say what you think. Some people are so afraid of giving offense that they wouldn't dare say outright that cold-blooded murder is wrong--not even if asked directly. Aside from moral considerations, this attitude is, frankly, boring. Respectful controversy adds interest to a discussion; just be sure to keep it respectful. Hint: give sound reasons for your opinions, but stop at one or two reasons. Going on and on about why you're right will soon have everyone picturing you as a stressed-out fanatic.

7. Don't pick fights. Building on the last point, the only trouble with controversy is that it easily gets out of hand. The instinct to take any disagreement as a personal insult is strong, but something that must be resisted if social networking is to be kept professional. Once tempers are lost, so are the benefits of the discussion. So never call names, blatantly contradict someone, or use such loaded phrases as "Everybody knows...."

8. Watch your spelling. And your punctuation, grammar, and usage. No one expects heavy editing on a social networking post, but at least try to get rid of all typos. You don't want to come across as hurried and careless, certainly not in any setting that reflects on you professionally.

9. Be especially careful when including online addresses. While most human readers can still understand the text through the typos, computers take everything literally. One missed character--or substituting "com" for "org"--can take someone to an "Error" page. Worse, the "wrong address" might belong to a porn site or hate group forum. And even if nothing embarrassing happens, few people will bother informing you of the mistake or looking for the real site you referenced, so you've gained nothing for your trouble.

10. Budget your social networking. Know how many hours a week you can spend and what topics and sites to focus on. Have advance ideas of information you might contribute; your writing will go smoother and faster. If you're seriously short on time and have a decent-sized budget, consider hiring a separate social networking writer (contract or staff).

Wishing everyone a happy holiday season and a prosperous 2011!

Other posts in this series:
Social Networking for the Business Writer: Profiles
Social Networking for the Business Writer: Network Updates
Social Networking for the Business Writer: "Cold Call" E-Messages
Social Networking for the Business Writer: The E-Article Connection
Social Networking for the Business Writer: LinkedIn Discussions
Social Networking for the Business Writer: LinkedIn Q & A

Social Networking for the Business Writer: LinkedIn Q & A

2010-11-29T07:08:00.000-08:00

This post continues a series on effective writing in social media.

LinkedIn's Q & A section moved a step beyond the traditional "forum" when it provided a separate page for each question with its answers, a feature appreciated by any user who has ever tried to sort out responses to one inquiry from 500 chronologically arranged and topically diverse comments. Smart Q & A participants keep their own comments in the "one page, one question" spirit: no answering questions that weren't asked, no going off on tangents, no adding new questions on the same page.

Smart Q & A participants also stick to the following principles:

When asking a question:

Be concise but clear. Questions that run more than a few sentences look too complicated to bother trying to answer; often they are, since lengthy paragraphs are frequently the mark of thoughts put down in random order. On the other hand, questions can be too short if they fail to explain exactly what is needed. Vague questions will draw vague answers, if any at all.

Keep parameters narrow. Questions such as "What are the best ways to market?" may draw recommendations that don't fit your industry or resources. Besides, the human mind tends to go blank in the face of "Oh, just anything" requests. (Remember that grade-school teacher who left you bewildered by saying "Write 1,000 words on anything you like" instead of assigning a topic?) Think "who/what/why": who are you (how is your industry/customer base relevant to the problem?); what do you need to know (not just marketing, but online/low-cost/networking marketing); why do you need to know it (to increase your customer base, improve ROI, focus your marketing efforts)?

Do put your question in an appropriate category. Sometimes the same question can be posted in more than one category. At other times, it's difficult to find any that fit; in that case, peruse the full list carefully and consider the closest match. Dumping a Web graphics question in the Law and Legal category on the rationalization that "occasionally people get sued over Web content" is pure laziness.

Likewise, when choosing connections to send your questions to, consider who actually knows the topic. Don't just copy your whole list. Most regular LI users have contacts in widely varying fields of expertise; and it doesn't do much for relationships to constantly bother people with questions they know nothing about.

Do check after a day or two to see if your question needs clarification. The first several answers should give clues as to how people are interpreting your question, and if they're confused on any point.

Don't forget to rate the question when it closes--and send a thank-you note to the Best Answerer!

When answering a question:

Avoid "fluff answers." Saying "I'd like to know that too" doesn't add a thing to the discussion. If you're really curious, send a separate message to the question-asker, or post a similar (not identical) question of your own.

If you're an expert on the topic, feel free to mention that. Here, you can even link to your website if you sell products or services related to the core problem--provided you include a genuinely helpful answer to the basic question, free of charge. Remember that ads and sales pitches have no place in social networking.

Never say that a question is dumb or unanswerable, or write anything else that might insult the question-asker or another answerer. In fact, keep your personal opinion, except as it relates directly to solving the problem presented, out of the whole thing. A surprising number of people use the Q & A pages to vent things that belong in the Discussion section, if anywhere.

Keep your answer brief--one paragraph whenever you can. Don't fill the page with an essay on the topic.

Do cover all points as thoroughly as you can, though. Consider everything the question-asker needs for a full solution to the problem. If you can give only part of that, fine; if you can answer the whole question, do so. Read the question in full; if you stop after the first two sentences, or skip the Clarification section, you may wind up answering a different question from the one that was actually asked.

If you're chosen as Best Answerer, thank the questioner!

Many entrepreneurs have found new clients through Q & A. The secret is to let your expertise shine through.

Other posts in this series:
Social Networking for the Business Writer: Profiles
Social Networking for the Business Writer: Network Updates
Social Networking for the Business Writer: "Cold Call" E-Messages
Social Networking for the Business Writer: The E-Article Connection
Social Networking for the Business Writer: LinkedIn Discussions
Social Networking for the Business Writer: Top-Ten List

Social Networking for the Business Writer: LinkedIn Discussions

2010-11-22T13:01:00.000-08:00

This post continues a series on effective writing in social media.

Online "discussions" are not particularly new; many of us have been active in them since the early days of Internet chat rooms. But LinkedIn has helped move the popular image from a leisure-time diversion to something equally valid for achieving professional goals.

Of course, it only works that way if you maintain a professional image in your postings. To get the most from LinkedIn discussions:

Don't try to use discussions as direct sales tools. It's been said many times in this article series, but it deserves all the emphasis it can get: social networking is not a free advertising venue. Anyone who writes, "If you purchase my product/service this will no longer be an issue for you--go to this address to learn more," is at best annoying to the majority of the discussion's participants and at worst risking being kicked off the network.

Don't, however, be afraid to reveal your business affiliation at all; speaking "as a publisher/travel agent/engineer" adds credibility to your remarks on relevant topics. Don't write a lengthy bio, though; anyone who wants to learn more can click your link.

Don't ever lose your temper. The worst thing any professional networker can do is act childish, and nothing is more childish than letting an anger reaction show in its full ugly colors. Even if someone says something that offends you--even if they insult you directly--never question their intelligence or call them names. "Shouting" with all caps or adding "swear symbols" is, if anything, worse; being openly defensive or directly contradicting someone isn't much better; and arguing your point of view in comment after comment will soon have every other discussion follower wishing you'd disappear. Explain your opinions objectively and concisely; accept that someone will always disagree with you in the end; and if someone else gets nasty, remember that the smartest thing to do is ignore it.

Do say something substantial. "I agree with so-and-so" just takes up screen space. Explain why you agree--and do it in a way that adds something new to the discussion. Don't just rephrase the comment you're agreeing with; open up new ways of looking at the issue.

Do include referrals to other experts and helpful articles. While recommending yourself is usually verboten, recommending others is part of what social networking is all about. And if you know of a full-length online article that casts further light on the subject, you can even get away with having written it yourself. (When referring discussion readers to another Web page, do include enough description to arouse interest; few people bother clicking a link unless they're reasonably sure it's worth the trouble.)

Do keep your actual discussion comments short: three paragraphs at maximum, one wherever possible, and no more than 100 words per paragraph. In online discussions no less than off, talking too much makes you a bore.

When starting a discussion yourself, do choose your opener to arouse interest. A hint of controversy, a new twist on a popular topic, an appeal to curiosity or altruism--all will attract participants to the discussion. But if you ask a "same old question" or are so vague that no one can decipher what you actually want to talk about, your opening post will remain the sole comment.

Do proofread your contribution before posting. Obvious typos can only hurt your professional image; likewise for an overdose of "padding" words ("maybe," "very," "usually"). Banish all such!

Many entrepreneurs have found much new business through LinkedIn discussions. Learn to discuss like a pro!

Other posts in this series:
Social Networking for the Business Writer: Profiles
Social Networking for the Business Writer: Network Updates
Social Networking for the Business Writer: "Cold Call" E-Messages
Social Networking for the Business Writer: The E-Article Connection
Social Networking for the Business Writer: LinkedIn Q & A
Social Networking for the Business Writer: Top-Ten List

Social Networking for the Business Writer: The E-Article Connection

2010-11-15T10:26:00.000-08:00

This post continues a series on effective writing in social media.

Social networking accounts can be great venues for sending readers to your blog posts or other e-articles. Be sure to post a network update or "tweet" for each article of yours that goes online, particularly items that emphasize your professional expertise. You can also send direct messages to those of your fans/friends/connections who have special interest in the article topic.

A word of caution, though: social networking is not an advertising campaign, so don't try to use online articles to launch a sales blitz. Focus at least every other article on some topic besides you. When announcing new products or special programs, concentrate on general newsworthiness rather than on convincing readers to buy; think press release, not advertorial. And put "contact us to learn more" information only at the bottom of the article itself, not in the network update (presumably anyone looking at your social networking account already knows or can easily find out how to reach you, so don't risk appearing pushy by emphasizing the information).

Do link to your social networking profile(s) in the e-article's bio/contact information; interested parties should be able to access full details from either end. (Post a copy of or link to the article--and a link to your profile(s)--on your main website as well.)

In the social networking announcement of your article's publication, concentrate on arousing click-over interest. The article title is frequently enough if it's both intriguing and descriptive; include the subtitle as well, if you can. If the full two-part title exceeds "tweet" or other space allotments, consider what best fits the "intriguing and descriptive" requirement; where an article is listed under a series title (as this one is), the "end section" may well be the better choice. Alternatively, you can quote the article's opening sentence, or create a "thesis statement." In any case, don't forget to include a direct link to the article!

Remember the basic rules of e-articles: short paragraphs, short overall length, relevant links, and strong visual elements.

Most social networking accounts also offer opportunities to publish "articles" directly on the network; prime examples are LinkedIn discussions and Q & As, which will be the subjects of my next two posts.

Other posts in this series:
Social Networking for the Business Writer: Profiles
Social Networking for the Business Writer: Network Updates
Social Networking for the Business Writer: "Cold Call" E-Messages
Social Networking for the Business Writer: LinkedIn Discussions
Social Networking for the Business Writer: LinkedIn Q & A
Social Networking for the Business Writer: Top-Ten List

Social Networking for the Business Writer: "Cold Call" E-Messages

2010-11-08T10:26:00.000-08:00

This post continues a series on effective writing in social media.

In the social media world, it no longer takes extensive research to locate an e-mail address; anyone with an account can contact a high percentage of the network with a click of a button. With account options like LinkedIn's InMail, you may have nearly unlimited access to the whole network. But the rule that long predates e-mail--if you want to make a professional impression, deliver your pitch in a professional manner--still holds.

E-mail is perhaps the most carelessly handled aspect of business writing. Even Ph.D.s and editors at major publishing houses are known to send messages like the following:

"Dear sir: We are in high apreciation of having received your Inqiiry. Unfortunetely, we recieve Thoursands of inquiries each week and must reject many xcellent ones. We regret that We ar thus unabel to use your prospoal at present."

No doubt convincing the recipient he's probably better off without that company anyway, if their attention to detail is that limited.

While the writer of the "no, thanks" message may not have much to lose, the person creating a proposal has plenty. Especially in a social networking e-message where attaching your resume may not be an option, you may have only one paragraph to convince a coveted investor that you're intelligent, capable, easy to work with, and otherwise worth investigating further. This is no time to dash something off in rush mode and send it into cyberspace without proofreading.

So when making a "cold" pitch through a social network, remember the rules that have long served well with the snail-mail and telephone approaches.

Know your target. If your message sounds too generic, recipients may assume this is a mass "blitz" of identical mailings--something worth little attention. Do some advance research, then customize each query to the recipient: call the person by name;, refer to a known attribute of the company (a recent news item, a major aspect of their brand, something their Web site needs) and how your own skills and experience relate; match the tone of your message to that of their own public writings.

Be respectful. Although the "never use first names" rule doesn't necessarily apply in social networking, many traditional-minded organizations still look favorably on initial approaches addressed to "Mr. Smith," "Ms. Green," or "Dr. Morgan." Other people, of course, are almost insulted at not being addressed by first name; so, again, do your homework in advance and learn what atmosphere prevails at your contact's company. In any case, never use any name version that does not appear in a person's profile; Richard Executive may never be called "Dick" by anyone he knows. Even if he is, he may not appreciate hearing it from a new contact any more than he'd want a stranger to slap him on the back unannounced and boom out, "Hey, buddy, how's it going?"

Keep business approaches businesslike. Besides erring on the side of formality in what you call the person, don't use "Hi" or "Hey" as a salutation. (Most people hate the word "hey" to begin with; it sounds too much like an order to "drop everything right now and listen to me.") Don't use slang or "folksy" language in the body of the message either; and keep any humor low-key unless you're requesting an audition at a comedy club.

Focus not on what they can do for you, but on what you can do for them.

Ask for what you want. Sounds obvious, but a surprising number of people never get around to this. All it takes is one sentence: "I would appreciate being added to your supplier database," or "Please tell me when to call for an interview."

Don't make promises you can't keep. Amazingly, the vast majority of people who write "I'll call to follow up next week" never do call--thus sabotaging any interest aroused by the initial message. The same goes for promising to send a portfolio, subscribe to your contact's blog, or register with a supplier database: if you say you'll do it, do it!

Always thank the contact for his or her time.

Never click the Send button without proofreading the message. And when proofreading, it's a good idea to look not only for typos, but for unnecessary words and ambiguous phrasing. Remember these three C's: clear, concise, and correct!

You may also want to include links to your Web site and/or blog--as well as to any articles you've published that appear online--to make it easier for the contact to investigate you further. Next week's post will further discuss e-articles as they apply to social networking.

Other posts in this series:
Social Networking for the Business Writer: Profiles
Social Networking for the Business Writer: Network Updates
Social Networking for the Business Writer: The E-Article Connection
Social Networking for the Business Writer: LinkedIn Discussions
Social Networking for the Business Writer: LinkedIn Q & A
Social Networking for the Business Writer: Top-Ten List

Social Networking for the Business Writer: Network Updates

2010-11-01T08:10:00.000-07:00

This post continues a series on effective writing in social media.

To many people, blogs and tweets still equal "a lot of boring talk about what so-and-so had for breakfast." Though the business world hopefully knows better, no one is interested, either, in the minutes from your research team's latest meeting or the exact number of components to be included in your new computer's circuit board. If network updates by whatever name are to promote your business effectively, they must be concise, professional, well-timed, and, above all, interesting.

Concise. Twitter had the right idea setting a limit on characters per tweet; network updates were never intended to be as long as articles. Writing an update that runs beyond one short paragraph is like responding to a casual "Hi, how are you?" with ten minutes of details on your problems and triumphs. If what you want to say will take more than two sentences, put the key points into one sentence and append a "for more information" link.

Professional. While brevity is a requirement for network updates, compacted words and heavy abbreviations ("Thnx 2 our lyl cstmrs") are better left to text messages. They look super-casual, even flippant, and done-in-a-rush as well--leaving the subconscious impression that your products and services are created after the same fashion. Abbreviations are best limited to dates ("11/1/10"), numerals (as in "9" for "nine"), addresses (especially state names), and the symbols "%" and "&." Also, try to write in complete sentences; though they needn't be grammatically precise, they should at least sound like normal business-setting speech.

If you have real trouble writing both concisely and professionally, set aside half an hour each day to analyze how the experts--the top business writers and those whose social networking updates you follow--do it. Remember that adjectives and adverbs are usually dispensable. Keep a thesaurus handy to check for shorter synonyms to words and phrases. If all else fails, hire a social media specialist to write your updates!

Well-timed. Your updates will be better-written if you make time to compose them carefully, rather than dashing them off. It helps to have a daily or weekly schedule for posting; how often depends on how often newsworthy things happen at your business. If you have an event or new product launch scheduled, post updates on your plans (ideally with each post providing fresh information) once or twice a week for a couple of months in advance.

Interesting. The reason blogs and tweets got a bad reputation was that too often what they said was of interest only to the poster. In writing your updates, use the "what's in it for me?" principle--"me" being your network contacts, not you. An exclusive focus on self-promotion is boring by definition, which is why famous brands tell funny stories in their commercials rather than focusing on things the viewer has probably already made up his mind about. Even if everyone doesn't already know what you sell, people would rather have information they can use whether or not they're planning to buy a car or a computer. When composing your network updates, think about making website recommendations, inviting the public to events, or linking to blog posts, rather than always talking about what your company has to sell now. And don't be afraid to report the occasional hilarious gaffe--particularly if you can say in the update that it's now corrected.

Remember that people like their information in sound bites. Those bites can be very tasty when well-written!

Other posts in this series:
Social Networking for the Business Writer: Profiles
Social Networking for the Business Writer: "Cold Call" E-Messages
Social Networking for the Business Writer: The E-Article Connection
Social Networking for the Business Writer: LinkedIn Discussions
Social Networking for the Business Writer: LinkedIn Q & A
Social Networking for the Business Writer: Top-Ten List

Quick note to Houston-area followers who are fans of the writer's other blog at http://newsongsfromtheheart.blogspot.com/: on Saturday, November 6, a poetry book based on that blog will be for sale at the Gifts of Grace expo at Grace Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX. Contact http://www.houstonsgrace.org/ for more information.

Social Networking for the Business Writer: Profiles

2010-10-25T09:51:00.000-07:00

Social media is the child prodigy of the online world--only a few years old and accounting for 20-25% of the average person's Web time. And already the "social" part seems an anachronism as more and more businesses give major marketing roles to these networks.

The next few Good Writing Is Good Business posts will focus on social media as a business writing venue. Let's begin at the beginning, with the front-and-center section: the profile.

LinkedIn has anticipated me here in its FAQ article "Ten Tips on Building a Strong Profile." Here's a summary of important points, adaptable to the social network of your choice:

Remember whom you're writing for. The vast majority of social network users focus on very human needs: keeping up with contacts; locating practical information; finding jobs; or exploring the what-kind-of-person-is-this question before choosing whom to interview for an opening. Yet many social networking profiles read like cut-and-pasted resumes or like advertorials. Focus instead on things you might bring up in a face-to-face business networking conversation.

Remember also what venue you're writing for. The key to good Web writing of any type is short paragraphs and pages, preferably with links and visuals. (Side note: never substitute a cartoon image or blank square for your photo. Show your real face!) And do as the journalists do; put the most important information in the first sentence where readers will be sure to see it.

Be economical with your words as well. Instead of adjectives/adverbs paired with nouns/verbs, look for a descriptive noun/verb that carries the meaning of both words. Don't waste space on redundancies such as "future plans," or on near-meaningless adverbs such as "mostly" and "very."

Sound like yourself--and like your business. Don't write like a college professor if you rent party props, nor like a stand-up comedian if you're a funeral director. LinkedIn puts it best: "Picture yourself at a conference or client meeting. How do you introduce yourself? That's your authentic voice, so use it."

Write your tagline with special care; it may determine whether anyone bothers to read the rest of your profile. Incorporate the #1 key point of your business's mission statement.

Think "elevator speech" when drafting the first full paragraph of your profile. What two or three things do you most want every contact to know? Incorporate them into a memorable statement that can be read out loud in 20-30 seconds.

In the larger profile, include plenty of action keywords related to your specialty industries and your personal performance record. And be clear on what you (and/or your business) actually do. (But don't digress into long technical explanations; think about what will interest readers.)

Do include links to your main Web site(s), also to organizations where you hold professional memberships or certifications. Include also links to past employers. And do list professional awards or honors you have received.

Do complete your entire profile.

You'll probably have some say in your profile's official URL address. Make sure it says something short, memorable, and relevant about you.

Don't forget to update your profile when you get a new award, certification, or client.

***

Once your social media profile is complete, writing will continue to play an important role in your use of the account. I'll talk more about that in upcoming posts.

Other posts in this series:
Social Networking for the Business Writer: Network Updates
Social Networking for the Business Writer: "Cold Call" E-Messages
Social Networking for the Business Writer: The E-Article Connection
Social Networking for the Business Writer: LinkedIn Discussions
Social Networking for the Business Writer: LinkedIn Q & A
Social Networking for the Business Writer: Top-Ten List

Laugh Break

2010-10-18T17:03:00.000-07:00

Since last week's post was on the use of humor in writing, this seems a good time for another post on business writing that evokes laughs it wasn't seeking. Even perfect spelling doesn't always save a sentence from unintentionally hilarious implications:

"The postponed president's speech has been rescheduled for December 2." (Will he still be a postponed president then?)
"Our camp is the perfect place to go next time you feel the call of nature." (Maybe the camp's biggest attraction is its restrooms.)
"Living in our apartments, a dozen bus routes are convenient." (Every bus route needs a home to go to at night.)
"Our doctors don't misdiagnose medical problems. When they treat you for lung cancer, that's what you die of." (Comforting thought.)
"When two trains meet each other at a railroad crossing, each shall come to a full stop, and neither shall proceed until the other has gone." (One from the law-books department. Word has it that the original intent was to kill the bill it was attached to--proving once again the folly of expecting committees to exercise common sense.)
"The only way we'll ever see the economy pick up is if we can get the economy moving." (Who would have thought of that?)
"Support space colonization research. One ruined planet isn't enough for the human race." (We all know humans can be destructive and greedy, but why encourage it?)
"Firings will continue until we see some improvement in attitude around here." (Now that's real motivation.)
"No drinking allowed on coffee breaks." (Please eat your coffee in powdered form.)
"Thanks to all our friends and customers. Our business is no longer open." (We really appreciate your freeing us from the trouble of continuing to work every day.)
"Our initial counseling sessions are free of service." (I think that was supposed to be "free of service charges.")
"After using the automatic washing machines, please remove all your clothes when the light goes out." (At least they didn't advise customers to do it in broad daylight.)
"Get your ears pierced here and we'll give you an extra pair free." (I've heard many people wish for extra arms and eyes, but never ears.)

Smile and have a great week!

A Touch of Laughter

2010-10-12T13:02:00.000-07:00

The average child laughs up to 25 times as much as the average adult, who, indeed, is as likely as not to scold giggling youngsters for "being silly." The capacity for hilarity is something most people grow out of once they learn life is full of hard work and disappointment.

It's a shame in more ways than one. Medical research tells us that hearty laughter strengthens the immune system, improves cardiovascular circulation, relaxes tense muscles, and provides many other physical benefits. So if you mix a little humor into your business writing, not only will your contacts like you better for it, but you'll be doing their health a favor.

Beware, however. Being funny is a hard thing to do on command, and not everyone finds the same things laughable. Obscure or offensive humor can be worse than none at all. So when considering how to add chuckles to your writing:

Remember that off-color stories have no place in the business world.

Never make fun of any individual or group. Everyone knows that racial and cultural bigotry are verboten, but prudent writers also avoid jokes that emphasize the presumed failings of mothers-in-law, wives, lawyers, politicians, preachers, and majority groups--or that ostensibly advocate any sort of animal abuse. The idea that choosing a certain vocation or having a married relative automatically makes one impossible or evil is an idea long overdue for a quiet death; and while you have a right to avoid cats if you personally find them repugnant, the ailurophiles among us have a right to be spared the equally repugnant images evoked by "other white meat" remarks.

Never overdo or force humor. Two light remarks per page, or one side-splitter or "groaner" per article, is about right. Since business materials are rarely written purely to entertain, a pun in every paragraph can make readers wonder if you take your main goal seriously. Remember also that a good joke sounds like a natural part of the conversation, not like something plucked at random from the Internet or from a homonym brainstorming exercise.

By now, you may be wondering, "With all these 'don'ts,' what's left?" Probably more than you think. Everyone has some gift for some form of humor, be it puns, exaggeration, deadpan, relevant anecdotes, or simple subtlety. To find where your talent for humor lies, start by noticing when what you say makes your friends or family chuckle.

And remember this almost foolproof principle: A guaranteed laugh-getter is making fun of oneself. While criticizing others makes a person look snide and petty, everybody laughs along with--and respects--someone who admits his own weaknesses. Likewise, the exception to the "don't make fun of groups" rule is the universal foibles of humanity in general ("No one is sure how long the human race has been around, but everyone agrees it is old enough to know better").

May the new business your humor attracts leave you laughing all the way to the bank!

Say a Lot with a Little

2010-10-04T13:01:00.000-07:00

A journalism school ran a contest for the most sensational headline: "need not feature actual events, but must be no more than three words long." The winner--two words and three syllables--was "Pope Elopes."

You can say a lot in amazingly few words, if they're the right words. Journalists and other periodical writers know this best. The typical feature article contains a few thousand words at most; a back-page article or op-ed may be no more than 500 words; anecdotal or "filler" articles may stop at 250. How does one tell a whole story, or explain the essential points of a subject, in five or ten short paragraphs? Often, by going through the manuscript six or seven times to prune it of every nonessential word.

Your Web site or sales letter may not be facing an "under 1,000 words or you don't get paid" dictate from an editor, but it will be facing hundreds of potential clients who are short on time and on attention spans. Many people run from the mere sight of a page of unbroken text. Here are a few professional-writing tricks for achieving readable-looking lengths:

Build up your vocabulary. Some writers pride themselves on learning a new word from the dictionary every day, or studying the thesaurus for fifteen minutes of each lunch hour. The more words you have stored in your brain, the less likely you are to waste fifteen words describing something because you don't know its name. Don't, however, show off and use words most of the public has never heard, or you'll be back to writing out the whole definition.

Consider syllable count as well as word count: 500 ten-letter words take up more space than 500 six-letter words. Most successful writers live by the rule "never use a five-syllable word where a two-syllable one will do."

Divide long paragraphs into short ones: white space makes the text look less daunting, and may be the deciding factor in whether people actually start reading a page.

Consider the sound of the words--and of the piece as a whole. To some extent, length is in the perception of the reader; J. K. Rowling got away with making the later Harry Potter books extra-long by sheer virtue of her storytelling ability. If your writing sounds monotonous or singsong, bored readers will find your 250-word piece twice as long as a more interesting 400-word piece. Use sentences of different lengths, cut the cliches, and save rhyme and alliteration for taglines!

Don't rush! One writer is said to have ended a ten-page letter with the apology, "Sorry this is so long, but I didn't have time to make it shorter." Experienced authors know that you never become practiced enough to get first drafts perfect; and the less time you leave between drafts, the more unneeded words and other imperfections you leave in the manuscript. Go ahead and write down everything you have to say about your product or news item; then, rather than sending the results immediately to the printer, go back and remove everything not vital to your central point. For really important materials, give yourself a minimum of two weeks to do three drafts.

And don't say you don't have time. The time you save your prospects will come back to you soon enough.

A Tale of Two Businesses

2010-09-24T12:03:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time there were two business owners, Ace and Fizz.

Both made the same type of product, equally well. Both offered excellent customer service.

And both were planning marketing campaigns.

Ace thought, "Everyone loves a good story. I'll build my campaign for Business A around stories."

Fizz thought, "No one wants to waste time on trivial anecdotes. I'll stick to the bare facts in my campaign for Business B."

Ace thought, "People will be interested in hearing how my product helped other customers--people like themselves," and carefully selected the most humorous and interesting customer testimonials. Ace gave these testimonials a prominent page on Business A's Web site and made sure to include one in every press release.

Fizz thought, "I just need to explain to customers how my product will help them," and filled Business B's every Web page and press release with lengthy, tedious details of exactly how the product worked. Most of Fizz's advertisements were hard to tell from service manuals.

Ace threw in a few appropriate stories on Business A's own misadventures in the process of developing the product. After all, customers like to deal with businesses that sound human.

Fizz was careful never to admit that Business B had ever had a setback. After all, a business has to protect its perfect reputation.

Ace encouraged Business A's employees to build still more public rapport by contributing personal stories and new ideas to the PR materials.

Fizz drilled it into Business B's employees to keep their minds on their real work.

The public read Business A's materials all the way through, smiled and chuckled, and began following Business A's doings to hear more. Many new people decided to try the business's product, and soon the number of regular customers was multiplying exponentially.

The public glanced at Business B's advertisements, yawned, and tossed them in the recycling bin or hit the Delete button. No one bothered to investigate the business further.

And Ace sold happily ever after.

(Fizz, at last report, is back on the 8-to-5 grind.)

Perfection Isn't Everything

2010-09-17T00:01:00.000-07:00

"That is something up with which I will not put." That quip, attributed (in various forms) to Winston Churchill, is the standard response to the claim that one must never end a sentence with a preposition.

The line between grammatical rules and grammatical customs can be thin. Is it ever acceptable to split an infinitive? If not, how would you edit "We are initiating a new training program to better prepare new employees for their duties"? Is "Ain't I a member of this team?" grammatically correct? Yes (if you accept "ain't," the only known contraction for "am not," as a real word), but who'd dare write it? The alternative "Aren't I?" sounds correct, never mind that no one would think of saying "I aren't." Likewise, they as a synonym for he or she has become so common that it no longer seems worth the effort to argue the grammatical incorrectness of using they as though it were singular.

Some people make the effort anyway; the "write like you speak" crowd and the purists (who insist that should be "write as you speak") can start wars over the most trivial matters. When one side is editing the other's writing, coworkers are well advised to stand out of the line of fire.

One might expect a blog called Good Writing Is Good Business to side with the purists. But the truth is, a piece of writing can be technically perfect and still be far from "good" on the average citizen's "worth reading" scale. There's a reason most popular books don't start out as graduate theses. While not generally caring to deal with businesses that sound ignorant, the typical client does want to interact with someone who sounds human--not like a computerized grammar checker or that seventh-grade English teacher nicknamed "the robot" by drowsy students.

If you write a press release that scores high on your word processor's readability scale but makes a newspaper editor yawn and toss it after two sentences, you haven't accomplished a thing.

No, you shouldn't write exactly like (or "as") you speak. Who'd bother following a blog that says "yeah" instead of "yes" and tosses in an "um" or "you see" every few sentences? But you needn't be afraid of using contractions. Or refuse on principle to start a sentence with a conjunction.

Or banish all one-sentence paragraphs.

On Not Stepping on Toes

2010-09-10T06:14:00.000-07:00

"Above all give no offense" is a noble goal for business writing--and probably an impossible one, considering how easily some people get offended. There are people who consider "Mrs." the epitome of male chauvinism, and people who claim that using "Ms." is knuckling under to radical feminism. There are people who see the quoting of a Bible verse as the first step toward a fundamentalist totalitarian state; there are people who scream "racism" if none of four experts quoted represent their ethnic group. Any blog or booklet that reaches an audience of any size will be read by someone who goes around looking for excuses to feel insulted.

However, that doesn't excuse deliberate or callous insults on a writer's part. Saying that you believe someone is mistaken is one thing; calling him an idiot or a crook is something else altogether. And there is no excuse whatsoever for writing "retard," "cripple," or any number of ethnic words long used as deliberate insults. (One list of the latter can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs.)

For the gray areas between "everyone knows it's an insult" and "you'd have to be pretty unreasonable to make a scene over it," a few principles for coping follow. (And for insight on the issues that fuel inter-cultural clashes, visit the Cultural IQ blog.)

Wherever possible, verify the preferred term for any group referred to--the term currently preferred by the group itself, that is. Relying on what you hear secondhand or on what was standard thirty years ago can get you in trouble; even within groups, "acceptable" words change from decade to decade. The term your father's gardener thought nothing of may be anathema to his granddaughter.

Avoid all idioms that mention groups by name; most such are now considered stereotyping. It's not worth the risk.

Never, under any circumstances, contradict someone who is in a better position to know than you are. A surprising number of bloggers presume to "correct" an Ecuadorian diplomat on what country is southeast of Ecuador (without bothering to check the map, of course) or a seminary professor on what books are or aren't in the Bible.

Avoid contradicting anyone at all unless the wrong information could have significant consequences--and even then, be low-key and respectful. Correcting people just to show off your superior knowledge, or with words that imply "how can you be so stupid?," only says to others that you are too arrogant to work with.

Finally, for those times when someone expresses offense despite your best efforts, seriously consider that you may owe an apology--and be willing to deliver it, publicly if necessary, without argument or excuse. Genuine humility is so rare that it can only help your reputation. Even if your conscience or understanding of the facts won't let you go as far as "you were right, I was wrong," be willing to acknowledge the merits of your opponent's position. In those rare cases where there are none (the fanatic who insists that everyone who refuses to agree the earth will blow up next week is a tool of Satan), better to ignore it altogether than to argue, which only encourages your opponent and makes you look petty.

Perhaps an even better principle than "above all give no offense" is "above all, never imply you're incapable of a mistake." Where the facts support you, let them speak for themselves.

Jettison the Jargon

2010-09-02T12:48:00.000-07:00

Would you send a sales letter written in Japanese to a prospect who understood only English?

Ludicrous as the idea sounds, many a businessperson does almost the same thing by loading writings for the general public with technical terms incomprehensible outside a specific industry. Today's post title, "Jettison the Jargon," was borrowed from a lay preacher's warning to beware of such phrases as "washed in the blood" when discussing theology with today's average citizen, who wasn't raised on the King James Bible. Every profession from medicine to manufacturing carries similar "jargon" hazards. Ask, "What immediately comes to mind when you hear 'CD'"? and the typical banker's response will be quite different from that of the typical person on the street.

The habit of saying--or writing--what immediately comes to mind is related to many a problem, but perhaps none so insidious as the unconscious assumption that because something is clear to you, it will naturally be clear to everyone else. Most of us know that repeating spoken words louder and louder doesn't really help puzzled listeners comprehend what we're saying; most of us do it anyway, because human "logic" says that we just have to get the words across. The truth is, it's fully possible for a listener of normal intelligence to understand every word or syllable spoken and yet be unable to mentally string them together into a comprehensible whole. Once a brain registers "I'll be going to Seattle" as "I'll be going to see Attel," the translator circuit considers its work done on that sentence--and it becomes all but impossible to clarify what was actually said without rewording or elaborating.

Written communications are more capable of getting exact words across accurately, but carry hazards of their own. Writers rarely see the bewildered or bored expressions that warn speakers to clarify their words. Asking a writer to explain himself is too complicated for most readers to even bother. Thus, the assumption that "of course everyone understands what I'm saying" is free to work its damage unhindered; readers simply throw out or click away from materials they don't understand, leaving writers to wonder why their PR campaigns are getting nowhere.

Industry jargon is particularly dangerous because, often, everyone immediately available to proofread is equally familiar with "insider language." A company editor or even the person at the next desk can check a written piece for general comprehensibility; but when it comes to jargon, fifteen coworkers may agree that the piece is easy to understand and it may still bewilder an outsider. References to non-universal business practices, words for technologies rarely used by the public, acronyms with alternate meanings--all are so easily understood once learned, one quickly forgets that they might as well be written in code if presented for the first time without explanation.

For really important materials--a sales campaign on which your quarterly business plan hangs--you could do far worse than hire an outside writer with experience in multiple industries or in dealing directly with the public. (If your immediate reaction is "But we have a team of staff writers," reread the last paragraph.) For a blog or social media page, try to link every industry reference directly to its definition. (You may want to include a "jargon" glossary in the template; you definitely should clarify the most-used terms in your Frequently Asked Questions section.) And wherever you can, define a term when it is first used. That's particularly easy for acronyms; just write out the whole phrase, followed by the abbreviation (in parentheses), after which you're free to save space by using the acronym throughout the rest of the document.

But unless it in fact has value to concise language (say a concept is essential to the document's purpose and there's no generic synonym for the industry term) or some other tenet of good writing, try to avoid jargon altogether. Like slang and clichés, it's too often the lazy person's substitute for thinking up better ways of saying things.

Changing Times

2010-08-28T12:50:00.000-07:00

Having more than once emphasized the need for careful proofreading, I have to concede that in many cases, "correct" spelling or usage is simply a matter of majority opinion. Web site or website? Lois' report or Lois's report? Peas, beans, and bacon or peas, beans and bacon? Even the style guides don't always agree.

The worst headaches come at those points where officially accepted usage is in transition. Most over-forty keyboarders remember the old typing rule about leaving two spaces between sentences and around quotation marks--and having to adjust to one space with the rise of word processing. Now, the shift from Web site to website has writers once again fuming over the need to develop new habits. Many a writer-vs.-editor, author-vs.-coauthor, and blogger-vs.-commenter argument starts because both parties are technically "right" (each according to a different style manual or dictionary) and each is positive he or she has the only right way. It's not only in matters of ethics and theology that enemies are made because one person's obvious fact is another person's inexcusable lack of tolerance.

It won't help to wish for permanent, fixed agreement on every point of the English language; even if such were possible momentarily, a living language can no more be stopped from changing than can a living organism. Comparing "proper" English from country to country, dictionary edition to dictionary edition, or century to century should convince any thinking person of the futility of demanding lasting consensus. (Believe it or not, double negatives--"I don't have no apples"--were once grammatically correct; and once upon a time girl simply meant "youngster" and could include males.) If nothing else, the need of new words for new inventions would ensure that English in 300 years will follow different rules from English today.

In the meantime, we still have decisions to make. So here are a few rules that aren't likely to go out of date:

Be consistent. Write Web site once, and consider yourself committed to it for the rest of the document. Better that readers should think you're out of date than that you're too scatterbrained to have an opinion. And if you use a style manual, consult the same one--and the same edition--every time.

Look it up. If there's the slightest doubt in your mind, defer to a recognized reference source. "It's in the Chicago Manual of Style" carries more weight in a disagreement than "I've always done it this way."

Give a little. Complaining about your supervisor's dictionary preference or stubbornly insisting on the last word is unprofessional behavior even if your writing is technically correct. If anyone is firmly committed to a spelling or form that does have some official recognition, better to go along with it than to demand majority rights.

Don't make a big deal out of every criticism. Not only is it impossible to be universally correct on every point, but anyone who writes for wide distribution (especially in social networking) will eventually meet one of those stubborn souls who are positive they're right even when every reference source disagrees. Don't waste energy defending yourself to the last breath; know when to ignore an accusation, or say politely "I'll think about it" and move on.

Even the best writers can't always be right in everyone's eyes; but we can always be accepting of everyone's right to an opinion!

"Rush" Is a Four-Letter Word

2010-08-17T11:14:00.001-07:00

As a professional writer, I have a quick eye for typos, which can make ordinary reading an often annoying and sometimes hilarious experience. Did our grandparents really "have their milk delivered directly form the dairy"? Would you like to "take a peak at all the software options available today"? And how many people actually know the difference between its and it's?

I own books from every decade back to the 1960s, and as far as I can tell, accurate proofreading at major publishers has been in decline since the spell checker was invented. Those spell checkers, created to eliminate typos, seem instead to be giving writers one more excuse for laziness....

Or is it laziness that dismisses the need to proofread personally? Are business owners, working hard to all appearances, turning out sloppy social media writing because they "don't have time" to proofread--and sending brochures to the printer with unnoticed typos because they "don't have a week" to let the text sit so they can come back to it with fresh eyes? Is the underlying reason the same one that causes sleep deprivation and 70-hour work weeks: society has been conditioned to value quantity over quality? Until, of course, one becomes the customer whose order was lost in the crush, or the driver whose car was dented by someone hurrying to meet a delivery schedule. Or the shopper who goes to the wrong address because a harried copywriter mistyped the number. Rush is ultimately the worst enemy of success.

The best defensive weapon is a little planning. I try to allow at least one full hour for preparing a blog or social media post of my own, and a minimum of one week per 500 words when doing a project for someone else. I may never win a prize for greatest number of projects per month, but my work is rarely featured in "The Funniest Writing I've Seen" forums either.

A bestselling book of the early 1990s asked, If You Haven't Got the Time to Do It Right, When Will You Find the Time to Do It Over? Twenty years later, most businesspeople still forget to ask themselves that question. If you apply it to your writing, you'll gain a marked advantage in making a professional impression.

Time to Say a Few Words

2010-08-10T08:39:00.000-07:00

Businesspeople like to tell of the condemned prisoner in the Roman arena. He stood calmly as the gates opened and a starving lion bounded toward him. Just as the lion was about to pounce, the prisoner whispered something the audience couldn't hear--and the lion whirled and bolted back through the gate.

Another lion was set loose on the prisoner, then another. Each time, he whispered something and the beast fled as if in panic.

By now, the official in charge was bursting with curiosity. He called the prisoner over and offered a full pardon "if you'll just tell me what you're saying to those lions!"

"It's simple," the prisoner replied. "I tell them, 'After dinner come the speeches!'"

The idea of a speech--especially when you're the one who has to make it--can also tempt human beings to bolt for the door. The emotional value we place on speeches is one reason they're prepared in advance, and that's where writing comes in.

It's a different category of writing than is done for books or Web sites, because speeches are designed to be heard rather than seen. Before jumping to the "hows" of speechwriting, memorize three essential points on what to do with it once it's written:

1. Rehearse the speech--out loud and preferably with a trusted small audience--before going public. This rule is vital not only for the practice and for raising your comfort level, but to ensure the speech actually fits the alloted time parameters.

2. Make the speech--don't read it. Keeping your eyes on the text will interfere with your making eye contact with the audience, and thus will reduce their interest in you.

3. Don't get obsessed with memorizing the written speech word for word. Concentrating too hard on your memory can result in your voice slipping into a monotone; moreover, the "word for word" approach can lead to getting completely lost if a single "next word" is forgotten.

As for the actual writing:

Arrange your speech in a meaningful order: chronological if one story is the focus; or from most important point to least; or on the alliteration or acronym approach (key words all beginning with the same letter or with letters that spell another word).

Use lots of anecdotes and examples. Good in any writing, this is particularly important where your audience may not have a copy of the text to save--facts and principles attached to real "happenings" will stick best in their minds. Don't be afraid to tell stories on yourself; audiences love it!

Don't force square pegs into round holes. Relate every sentence to the main theme. Don't include irrelevant jokes or anecdotes just for their entertainment value.

Avoid highly technical terms and words of over three syllables; they're hard to process when delivered verbally.

You can be more casual than with materials written for others to read; don't exchange everyday conversation for technically perfect grammar. (Of course, don't get so casual that people wonder if you finished high school!)

Remember the principle of "Tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em; tell 'em; tell 'em what you told 'em." Summarize your key point(s) at the beginning and again at the end.

Choose your first and last sentences especially carefully; grab your audience's attention at the beginning, and end with a strong takeaway point.

The takeaway point for this article is: No one's really waiting eagerly for some stupid remark they can use against you for the rest of your life. Don't let perfectionism ruin your dinner!

Define Your Business in Three Steps

2010-08-03T08:15:00.000-07:00

The successful business owner owes many a good idea to networking events and seminars. At a recent breakfast sponsored by my Chamber of Commerce, the speaker suggested the following useful hint for summarizing your business to interested parties: Develop your elevator speech around three key questions. The idea can easily be adapted to written materials, from your Web site's home page to your new sales letter.

Key Question #1: What is your Unique Selling Point, the distinct characteristic that makes your business stand out among the competition? Characteristics that every business in your field epitomizes (or should!) don't count; always delivering orders on schedule is commendable, but it'll hardly earn you special recognition from the news media. On the other hand, both Domino's Pizza and FedEx built successful USPs around unconditional guarantees of delivery within specific time limits. Be as specific as possible in choosing what point you should emphasize. What do your customers compliment you for? (Take special note of any comparisons to your competitors.) If you've won any awards or been featured in any news stories, what qualities of your business did they focus on?

Example: Want blogs and brochures with genuine interest value to potential clients? Spread the Word Commercial Writing knows what the general public likes to read; we bring combined experience of over 10 years writing articles for business and popular periodicals.

Key Question #2: Who is your ideal client? Saying "anybody" will get you fewer, not more, referrals; people need specific images to focus on. Think demographics: what do your current customers have in common in terms of age or income bracket? Gender or ethnicity? Family situation? If you offer business-to-business products or services, what are your top three preferred industries? What is the typical size/revenues range of companies likely to hire you? What is your ideal client's typical business mission?

Example: Spread the Word offers its services to businesses and organizations that are dedicated to helping people out of depression and discouragement.

Key Question #3: What specific needs do your products/services fill? Never forget the "find a need and fill it" principle! Customers don't come to your boutique because you won a designer award; they come because the clothes you sell suit their perceived needs. If you have trouble being specific here, consider taking a customer survey; you might even find an opportunity to subsequently emphasize a need you're now filling for the first time. (And to start filling it before some competitor uses it to lure your customers away!)

Example: When you use Spread the Word's writing services, your brochures will no longer be tossed as “junk mail” [filling the need to offer something people will save--thus keeping your name before them--and also the need to send the subconscious message, "My company is valuable"].

Answering these three key questions to the public's satisfaction can bring you more and better clients; garner more and better referrals; and help you clarify your business's focus. Please share your answers in the Comments section!

Be Careful What You Say

2010-07-26T07:15:00.000-07:00

When it comes to the written word, flawless spelling and punctuation aren't always enough to make your business look good. Building on last week's theme of humor in the English language, here are a dozen examples of the potential embarrassment in not thinking through what your words actually say:

"Donate to Consignment Retail Shop's quarterly sale and get rid of all those things that just clutter up your home. Bring your family."
"Don't let outmoded medical treatments make your health problems worse. Come to Homeopathic Clinic and let us take care of that."
"Our vacuum cleaners run so quietly, you'll swear they aren't working at all."
"Our West Road franchise will be closing next week. Thanks to all our former loyal customers."
"Come to our rifle range. We provide instructors so you can learn to shoot yourself."
"Can't get Internet access? Visit our Web site for the solution!"
"Our software is completely foolproof and virtually guaranteed never to frustrate you. To further ensure your convenience, we maintain a 24/7 Customer Complaints hotline."
"At next Sunday's church service, the pastor will formally announce his resignation, after which the congregation will sing 'Praise the Lord.'"
"Fly with our airline and let us worry about the hassles of driving."
"Our cars are effectively indestructible and let you hit anything with impunity."
"Tinter's Barber Shop prides itself on cultivating long-term customer relationships. We'll cut your hair until you go bald!"
"Get away from the crowds at Custom Resort. Reservations must be made at least six weeks in advance."

Just because you're clear on what you mean doesn't mean anyone else is; others can only read your words, not your mind. Never let anything significant to your profits or reputation get out to the public without testing it on at least one person who had no hand in writing it!

Words Are Funny

2010-07-20T07:26:00.000-07:00

In honor of vacation season, today's post takes a break from talking about business, and makes time to laugh at the idiosyncracies of the English language.

Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways?
Why do we send shipments in cars and cargo on ships?
If your father's wife is your stepmother, why isn't your uncle's wife your stepaunt?
If she corresponds to he, why don't we have shim and shis to correspond to him and his?
If the plural of mouse is mice, why isn't hice the plural of house? How does one tell the difference between the singular and the plural of sheep? And what's the singular of trousers?
If vulnerable and invulnerable are opposites, why do inflammable and flammable mean the same thing?
Why doesn't overlook mean the same as oversee? And why does quite a lot mean the same as quite a few?
If "worn-out" clothing is no longer fit to wear, shouldn't brand-new clothing be sold as "worn-in"?
Why isn't there any egg in an eggplant, or any apple in a pineapple? Where are the rocks in rock candy? Why aren't lead pencils made with lead, and why are tin cans made mostly of steel?
Why do dogs and people take catnaps?

Take a nap yourself this afternoon, and remember that relaxed minds make for "creativer" writing! (Why doesn't every adjective have one-word comparative and superlative forms??)

Your Blog's Mission

2010-07-13T12:53:00.000-07:00

A good blog, like a good magazine, needs a reasonably narrow focus. Few people will continue following a blog that talks about cat care one week, Middle East politics the next, and computer software the week after that--unless the writer can tie all three to some common aspect (such as "the realities of the modern world from a radical conservative's perspective") and emphasize that aspect to make it obvious all posts come from the same basic point of view.

It is possible to write a blog that covers a large variety of subtopics. Look at major periodicals that have been around for decades: National Geographic; Good Housekeeping; Time Magazine. All cover a variety of topics that at first glance seem to have little in common, yet no one thinks it odd if National Geographic runs an article on caffeine next to one on the history of polar exploration. The secret is to have a clearly definable mission--whether that mission is to educate readers on people, their cultures, and their world; to show average Americans how to make personal and family life more fulfilling; to explore how a philosophy or religion relates to the real world; or simply to provide entertainment for lovers of literary fiction.

The most obvious advantage of the mission-oriented blog is that it's less likely to die for lack of new post ideas; how many things can the average blogger really say about "the view from my kitchen window"? (For a detailed discussion on how not to run out of ideas, check back to the March 23 post.) But unless the mission itself is obvious, readers may lose interest as quickly as with a "topics chosen at random" post. So "your mission, should you choose to accept it," is to write your mission-oriented blog according to the following hints:

Make your blog's mission match your business's mission--or some aspect of the latter. A veterinarian might write a pet-health blog; a community-development nonprofit could focus on positive aspects of architectural or educational trends. A relevant blog is good publicity for your business, helps establish your expertise in readers' minds, spreads passion for the cause, and also is the best bet for a topic you won't run out of ideas on.

Put a header on your blog that states its mission in one short paragraph. The "mission statement" for Good Writing is Good Business begins "Despite what many would-be novelists think, good writing is not easy. It is, however, vital . . ." (see above). When Web surfers discover an interesting post on driving for maximum fuel efficiency, and come back the next week to find a post on locating thrift stores, they won't be jarred by the apparent incongruity if the header has made clear that this is a blog on "everyday economical living."

Choose a blog title equally evocative of the mission. Even if you prefer a clever or intriguing title that doesn't make the mission obvious (in which case a descriptive header is doubly important), match it to the blog's overall tone. Beware of risque implications if your mission is conservative, and remember that "groaner" puns lead readers to expect plenty of humor.

Keep the tone consistent from post to post; it'll help maintain a cohesive feeling when topics vary. Define the typical response you want to evoke: belly laughs? Moral indignation? Sentimental musings? If you write your own posts, beware of trying to speak in a "voice" that isn't yours. Attempting humor without a gift for it is bad enough in a single article; in a series of posts, it'll drive both you and your readers crazy.

Every successful business has a mission. The wise business owner designs blogs--and all other PR and marketing materials--to provide maximum support for that mission.

Want to Write a Magazine Article?

2010-07-06T06:36:00.000-07:00

Every academic and scientist has heard the phrase "publish or perish." When part of your job is to be brilliant, people expect to see your byline in major journals; lack of a bibliography quickly begins to reflect on your professional reputation.

While the pressure is less in other fields, the concept holds universally true: the businessperson who gets noticed by a major periodical is the businessperson whose presumed expertise gets respect. The press release, covered in an earlier post, is one way of getting an article into a newspaper or trade journal. To go beyond "the latest scoop on my business," try an article in one of the following categories:

The op-ed (as in "opposite the editorial page" or "opinion-editorial") is a good beginning choice; these social-commentary articles are short (rarely more than 750 words) and can be written directly from personal knowledge. Don't, however, slip into the "everyone with any sense knows this" approach; the opinion advanced still has to be supported with clear facts and logical conclusions. Pick a topic you feel strongly about and have considerable experience with; give "see-their-point" consideration to those who disagree; and cite at least one respected source that isn't on your payroll.

The filler--the brief piece of advice, anecdote, or trivia item--can also be a good first-article choice, especially if you work in a human-interest-related field. There's rarely room for lengthy author bios; just note your business name and/or Web address, plus your field if it's not obvious from the name.

The profile, interview, or news feature is an expanded version of the press release: instead of one specific milestone or accomplishment, this article focuses on multiple aspects of a person or business and (in the case of the news feature) how they relate to some major event or trend. It's ideal if a periodical interviews you; but, unfortunately, this isn't something you have much control over (though it helps to get involved in prominent causes and build good person-to-person relationships with the community and media). If you do want to write one of these articles yourself, be careful; it's hard to keep self-profiles from sounding like blatant self-promotion. You might hire an outside freelance service to edit your article for general interest, or to ghostwrite a news feature; or you might offer yourself to a freelance writer as a profile or interview subject, contributing a sidebar under your own name. (Don't, however, pay a writer for doing an interview article with you as the subject; it could invite uncomfortable ethical questions.)

The full-length feature article, whether news, social trends, or how-to, should be attempted only by the most experienced writers. However, there's nothing wrong with hiring a ghostwriter or "as told to" writer in this case. Do write the author bio yourself; it should be one short paragraph noting your business name/specialty, the best means of contacting you, and an interesting fact about you or your business that relates to the article's focus.

The full-page advertorial deserves a quick mention, though technically it's a paid advertisement rather than an article. The most effective ones read like press releases and include the human element, especially case histories and photographs.

A couple of final points:

1. For prestige, reader interest, and chances of being published, the trade journals for your industry are the best places to submit articles.

2. If you can't yet claim a published article, there's nothing unethical about posting your best work online with the note "as submitted to x magazine" (provided it's the truth, of course, and provided there's no risk of the magazine's later requesting first publishing rights). At least you'll get credit for trying!

Shorter Is Better

2010-06-29T05:48:00.000-07:00

Most people think of "rushing about" as a modern dilemma. But though faster technology and unlimited options have exacerbated "hurry sickness," dislike of "wasted time" has been around for quite a while. The classic composition booklet Elements of Style, first published in 1918, urges writers to avoid wasting readers' time with "needless words": "A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts."

A sure way to offend magazine editors is to submit a manuscript with the comment "I know you don't normally publish stories of over 1,000 words, but I'm sure you'll find this 3,000-word piece is worth making an exception for." Such approaches frequently come from writers who haven't even bothered trying to shorten their first drafts. And the temptation is even worse in business writing, where there are no official word counts, no obvious immediate rejections, usually more of a sense of "rush," and (in e-writing) no extra expense involved for additional length. No extra expense in terms of print costs, that is. One can only guess how many potential customers lose interest after one glance at the infinitesimal size of a screen-height bar, or give up in disgust after two rambling paragraphs.

The #1 hint for concise business writing is Take time to edit. First drafts always ramble; it's unavoidable.

Some other (short and sweet!) hints:

The word that, and phrases containing it ("the fact that," "it occurs to me that"), are among the most dispensable items. Ditto for qualifier adverbs such as usually, frequently, and very.
Active voice ("Tom brought the salad") is more concise and stronger than passive ("The salad was brought by Tom").
Replace adjectival phrases with nouns, and adverbial phrases with verbs. ("Prodigy" instead of "brilliant young man," "sprinted" instead of "ran quickly.")
Keep a thesaurus handy; it cuts words wasted trying to achieve precise descriptions.
Keep your topic or thesis narrow, and remove any sentences (or paragraphs!) that don't relate to it.

Hope this post was short enough!

Not All Articles Come in Series

2010-06-22T05:10:00.000-07:00

Stand-alone articles (as opposed to those published in magazines or newsletters) have been around for a long time in the form of white papers, tracts, and pamphlets, but in the online age such publications have really come into their own. Now, everyone with a Web site or social networking account can freely post company anecdotes, helpful hints, and top-ten lists. And these articles can be written as long or as short, as frequently or as sporadically, as the needs of the situation call for.

Of course, sometimes it's useful to have a hard copy in hand, and a simple printout isn't always enough. Particularly if you need handouts for a trade show or want to give clients something easier to handle than an 8 x 11" sheet, the professionally printed booklet or brochure can do wonders for your "businesslike" image. Even if you have to hire a professional graphic designer and make sure the number of pages is divisible by 8, it may be worth it.

In either case, as with any business writing, you need a specific purpose for your project. And whether you're introducing your business--or your latest product or service--to the public, providing news on your industry as a whole, or giving out helpful hints related to your field of expertise, there are principles that apply to every stand-alone article.

Shorter is usually better--and the longer the article is, the less it should state outright what the sponsoring company wants. Not only do people have short attention spans, but the more focused an article is on "selling them," the faster they get bored. That's why advertorials run only one page and feature articles don't include "buy now" appeals.

Use lots of subheads. Article readers like to skim for key points, and anything that makes that easier is welcome.

Bulleted and numbered lists nearly always get favorable attention. Their "sound bite" approach and the white space they leave on the page gives an impression of "efficient and uncluttered."

Visuals may be more expensive than all-text, but often the greater appeal is worth it. Try to use visuals with Web articles, at least, where cost is far less an issue.

Lifelike visuals score highest. Photographs usually trump drawings, especially when the subjects are shown smiling and acting natural. People always trump objects. If your article topic is something like "keeping the wilderness wild" and you don't want to show people stepping on nature, include shots of active living creatures--not just plants and rocks.

If you aren't talking about your company directly in the text, don't forget to include your logo, mission statement, and contact information. Keep it inconspicuously at the bottom of the back page, though. In the interest of good public relations, every business should occasionally give away some free information related to its field of expertise, but making the source too obvious (e. g., explaining every two paragraphs that you specialize in solving such problems professionally) gives a "back door sales" impression that irritates readers.

Also to avoid annoying readers, don't serve up mixed purposes in the same article. Sales on one page, news on the next, and everyday advice on the third works fine in magazines, but a single article--even a booklet-length one--needs a single purpose. Like the short story that shifts point of view every third paragraph, a multi-purpose article will soon have readers wanting to throw the thing across the room to relieve the frustration of trying to figure out where their primary mental focus belongs.

Articles can be extremely useful as public relations or sales tools. Like all tools, they are most useful (and safest) when handled in certain ways.

What Good Is It, Without Immediate Return?

2010-06-15T08:45:00.001-07:00

"Everyone says it's a great idea, but no one uses it" sums up much of the business world when it comes to blogs. For every entrepreneur who is successfully producing such electronic articles on a regular basis, there are likely ten whose efforts remain forever in the planning stage, stay perpetually sporadic, or die within three months.

Probably the top reason given is "not enough time." And cranking out a thousand or more words per week does take time (no matter how many non-writers think in terms of "dashing something off"). Still, I know several business owners who run highly profitable solo enterprises and still find time to turn out three or four blog posts a week, while many businesses with decent-sized staff pools are still planning to "get around to it someday." And anyone who really considers something a high priority will make time for it--or hire someone to do it.

So why do blogs and other e-articles, popular as they are in theory and given the number of successful businesses that swear by them, sink to the bottom of so many priority lists?

Probably because of a widespread tendency to judge everything by immediate and obvious results. It can be hard not to think in terms of "Getting people interested in what we do and what we know is all well and good, but shouldn't we devote the bulk of our resources to encouraging them to buy immediately? Where's the return on investment in giving out free health hints or telling funny stories about what it took to develop our new product?"

Some businesses decide that the best solution is to make one item serve both purposes, and create "blogs" that are really loosely disguised advertising campaigns. It seldom works; readers get bored with sales pitches far faster than with articles. In nearly every case, the two should be kept distinct.

What can a business reasonably expect from a well-written, consistently produced blog?

The building of long-term relationships. As people have always had their favorite magazines, they now have their favorite blogs. And as people rarely buy a magazine for the purpose of reading the advertisements, few will follow a blog primarily for the purpose of learning what the host can sell them.

Higher attraction value--and higher frequency tolerance--than advertising. Many people find their favorite blogs through Web browsing for information on a specific topic. Links to interesting e-articles are frequently forwarded on a casual "thought you might be interested" basis, whereas few people forward information on purchasable items unless (1) they have direct experience with the item or particularly long-term experience with the company, and (2) they immediately think of someone who is specifically looking for an item of that nature. Moreover, readers are generally glad to see a new blog installment, whereas advertisements frequently evoke a "quit bothering me" reaction.

A building of your reputation as dependable, consistent, and caring about more than the public's money. When a blog keeps to a steady posting/delivery schedule, every new installment sends the message "We can be counted on to deliver what we promise, when we promise." And if you regularly offer helpful or interesting information from your field of expertise, rather than simply talking about yourself, you also send the message "We care about your needs even when we don't immediately profit from them."

What you can't expect from most blogs is instant profit or instant new customers. Well-run businesses have both short-term and long-term goals; both are equally important, and the "article" approach serves the latter. It's worth the effort. Thinking entirely in the short term--the "putting out fires" approach--often means that the business itself will be short-lived.

If the long term is important enough to you to rate a large investment in a professional writer, you might even aim higher and create a full-length newsletter or e-zine. Visit this link (3/30/10 post, "Quick Quiz: What's Your Strongest Tool for Turning Prospects Into Clients?") and this one to learn from those who found it worth the time and trouble.

Conversely, you may appreciate the value of the business blog or newsletter but not be quite ready for a firm regular schedule. Or you may want to produce a piece that's too long for a blog but wouldn't really fit into a newsletter. The solution there is the informational brochure or booklet (electronic or print), which will be discussed in my next post.

Blog, Newsletter, Brochure, or Social Network Article?

2010-06-08T06:33:00.000-07:00

Today's post will begin a series on how to use blogs and other articles to your professional advantage.

Every business should regularly provide some written item that falls outside the category of "sales material": it keeps stakeholders informed, reminds past and potential customers you exist without seeming pushy, and--especially if you talk about things besides yourself--provides information worth passing to others who wouldn't heard of you otherwise. But many such projects die in utero or prove more bother than help, because of poor planning.

The first thing to plan is what form your "helpful written information for the public" will take. Blogs offer the advantage of being both concise and frequent. Traditional newsletters project the image of a conscientious business that takes itself seriously. White papers or e-brochures, posted on a social networking site and/or a business's Web site, work well for businesses that prefer not to keep a strict schedule. Many companies use the integrated approach, including all of the above.

If, however, you're picking just one to add to your marketing mix, consider the following before jumping in.

With blogs and newsletters, the length of each installment should be inversely proportional to the frequency with which installments appear. Blog posts run 1-5 times per week and less than 1,000 words. Newsletters equalling 8 or fewer printed pages are best produced monthly. Magazine-length newsletters should come out on a quarterly schedule. You want to give subscribers time to read one installment before the next appears!

Start small. Many newsletters don't get past the planning stage because a business tried to make them too long and ran out of information to fill them--or of time to assemble the information into a coherent, well-written product. For the same reason, if you want to make your blog/newsletter/articles an effective public relations tool:

Seriously consider outsourcing the work--or hiring a full-time writer. Don't fall into the "anyone can do a decent job of writing" trap and assign the project to whoever can scrape enough time from other duties to throw it together. No less than computer maintenance or building inspection, this is a serious part of your business and deserves professional treatment.

Don't post one of those "hiring blog writers for 10 posts a week at $20 each" ads, either. Top-quality writers who work under such terms are rarer than dollar menus in five-star restaurants, and even capable amateur writers won't do their best work at such high speed--not if they need to leave time in their schedules to earn a real living. You might as well assign the job in-house and at least save the $200--though you'd be better off using it to hire a real professional for one post a week. Quality definitely trumps quantity here.

Consider your audience. Who, exactly, do you hope will read this? What age, gender, religious, and ethnic categories do they fall into? What are they already reading regularly--print newspapers, social networking sites, trade journals? How much time do they spend online? To ensure an interested audience, keep your new product close in form to what they already use or enjoy.

The next post will talk about what to expect--and not to expect--from a written-information project.

Asked to Write a Referral?

2010-05-11T06:06:00.000-07:00

As a businessperson, you will write much to promote yourself. As a successful businessperson, you will probably be asked someday to write something that promotes someone else: a letter of recommendation for college, a job reference, a letter of introduction to a professional association.

Assuming this is someone you honestly can recommend and that there are no company policies keeping you from going into detail, by all means tell the college/business/association how fortunate they would be to have this person. Here’s how to make a good impression on your “recommendee’s” behalf:

Be specific. Sure, every administrative department wants students and staff to be honest and hardworking, but the adjectives by themselves don’t mean much. Give specific examples: “In October 2008, Ms. Spencer designed and implemented a new software program that cut our order-processing time by 20 percent.”

Be concise, but not too concise. Think minimum one full page, maximum two pages.

Be positive. People are wary of those who write recommendations simply to get persistent applicants off their backs; evident reservation tempts readers to suspect something is seriously wrong. If you think someone’s shortcomings would affect his ability to function in the position applied for, you shouldn’t be writing him a recommendation in the first place. Otherwise, let him worry about answering the “tell me your greatest weaknesses” question once he gets the interview.

Don’t gush, however. Being too positive arouses as much suspicion as being tentative. If you can show specific ways an applicant has improved in certain areas, that’s ideal.

Focus on qualities that can be transferred to the position applied for. If you supervised a college applicant during her three-month summer job archiving church records, mention her dependability, attention to detail, and other academic-relevant qualities. Unless the college she’s applying to is extremely conservative, they aren’t likely to care much that she is also a third-generation member of the church and hasn’t missed a service since she had the flu in fifth grade.

Be sure that you do, in fact, understand what is relevant. If you have any doubts, the person who requested the recommendation—assuming he’s serious enough to deserve it—is likely to be your best source of information.

Do proofread your reference before sending it. Preferably, let it “cool” a week before the final edit. This is, after all, something with potential to significantly affect someone’s future.

Make up your mind not to take it personally if your reference doesn’t “work.” However good your letter of recommendation is, the person you recommend may not get into the school or be hired for the job. Or he may decide he prefers some alternative, which he didn’t ask your recommendation for. There could be any number of reasons; don’t waste your time trying to find out what they are. If nothing else, you got some valuable writing practice from this.

References are a part of professional life; you may even need one yourself someday. Treat them with the respect they deserve.

Appearances Do Count

2010-05-07T09:24:00.000-07:00

When you receive an e-mail ad full of all-caps words and with line breaks apparently inserted at random, how likely are you to buy the product?

When someone hands you an advertising brochure printed on cheap paper and using a different font for every line, how seriously do you take the sponsoring company?

The delusion that one’s genius shines through the sloppiest communication is amazingly widespread among beginning entrepreneurs. Those who don’t outgrow the attitude quickly become “new businesses fail within two years” statistics.

Several past posts (see March archives) have already discussed proofreading of actual text, so I’ll focus here on other visual aspects of written communications. If you want blogs, sales letters, and advertisements to make you look conscientious and competent, remember the following points:

For hard copy:

Use reasonably heavy paper (it looks sloppy to have text showing through, especially on two-sided brochures). And make sure the paper is fresh and clean.
Make sure there is sufficient toner to produce crisp print; smudged or faded text and illogical coloring make communications look amateurish, if not cheap.
For letters, use only white or beige paper and black text. Eye-catching colors are more acceptable in ads, but stick to pastel backgrounds and dark text; light-on-dark and bright-on-bright is hard on the eyes.
For trifold brochures, make sure each visual item is clearly contained within a single panel or spread—and that both sides have the same top edge!

For e-mails:

Avoid special formatting unless you know the recipient’s box can handle it. Few things are more visually annoying than the result of a computer’s attempt to translate colors and graphics to a plain-text-only window.
Don’t use all-caps for emphasis; it’s the electronic equivalent of screaming.
Try to stick to one screen’s worth of text.
Always use BCC with multiple recipients, unless they form a small, tightly-knit group. Aside from the issue of advertising everyone’s e-mail to who-knows-who, scrolling through three screens of addresses to reach the main text is a major nuisance.

For Web pages and blogs:

Use short pages, short paragraphs, and wide margins.
Remember that while Web users like graphics, they hate it when something downloads slowly or not at all.
For visuals, use photos (not clip art) that show your business in action or display its products.
Use eye-friendly color combinations of background and text, even more important here than in hard copy. Ten paragraphs of white-on-navy, or gold-on-white, are agony to the eyes on a computer monitor.

For everything:

Make sure margins line up logically and space between paragraphs is equal. (Check visually; printers and word processors can do strange things).
Remember that fancy fonts have no place in letters. Even in ads, atypical fonts make a poor impression if they are so squiggly or tiny as to be unreadable. And remember that boldface/italic, or different-from-the-rest-of-the-text fonts, are best reserved for section headings.
Remember that you never get a second chance to make a good first impression!

Doing without Visual and Voice Cues

2010-04-26T14:04:00.000-07:00

Having discussed “touchy situations” in the last post, I have to admit that such situations—and many others—are often better dealt with face to face than in writing. Researchers estimate that people form 55 percent of overall impressions from visual cues, 38 percent from tones of voice, and a scanty 7 percent from actual words used. So when writing, we have to work more than ten times as hard to get a point across.

Still, there are times when writing is necessary—to address larger segments of the public than can be met with directly, or to communicate on subjects you find so touchy that you doubt your ability to maintain a professional demeanor. One advantage of the written word is that it lets you take things back before they get anyplace where they might do damage. (Also, if you feel like communicating something at 4 a.m. without getting dressed, no one need know.)

To compensate for being deprived of visual and voice cues:

Be certain to include all essential facts—and to get them straight. Outside of instant messaging, writing makes quick clarification on confusing points impossible. Worse yet is the message that clearly communicates wrong information—“off by one digit” can literally mean “off by a mile” when sending important addresses.

Choose strong, descriptive words. “Forty-story building” is easier to visualize than “skyscraper”; “customers seeking refunds” paints a clearer picture than “dissatisfied customers.”

Don’t, however, use “loaded language.” Calling people names always reflects badly on you—even when the message’s recipient isn’t your target.

If what you’re writing is intended or likely to have a significant impact, let the message “cool” for at least one full day before editing and sending it. Not only is the second draft always better than the first, longer gaps between the two equal greater improvement.

Don’t expect anyone to automatically realize you’re “just joking.” The reader won’t see the grin on your face or hear the light tone of your voice. Before sending a message, consider it at face value; the recipient definitely will.

Don’t rely on emoticons or acronyms to clarify your intent, either. It looks overly casual for most business communications; it may cause “translation problems” between plain text and graphics; it can be confusing (not everyone knows that “LOL” means “Laughing Out Loud”); and, like expressing anger with generic profanities, it’s frequently the lazy way out of looking for appropriate words.

Consider your recipient. Slang and clichés are fine with family or close friends, but a bad idea with anyone you want to impress professionally.

Don’t get so formal as to be stuffy. Hardly anyone writes “I will not” for “I won’t” anymore. You do want it to be obvious that your message was written by a human being!

Making a good impression takes work, but it’s worth it. A little careful attention to detail goes a long way, even when you have only words to work with.

To help business owners promote themselves as experts in their fields, Spread the Word Commercial Writing is offering a special of one free e-article to catch your ideal client’s interest. Contact katherine@spreadthewordcommercialwriting.com for details.

Dealing with Touchy Situations

2010-04-20T07:11:00.000-07:00

However much we hate being misunderstood or embarrassed, business life is full of such opportunities. As long as the world remains imperfect, there will be dissatisfied customers, media scandalmongers, and political-correctness-vs.-tradition. Anyone mature enough to be in business should be mature enough to avoid provoking such situations, and to deal with them when unavoidable.

To minimize the risk of your written communications’ generating bad feelings:

Understand the “political correctness” minefield. Nowhere is it so easy to insult someone unintentionally as in “outsider” references to their culture, gender, or religion. Some people are so sure the world hates them that they take anything short of wholehearted endorsement as a hate crime. The best way to minimize trouble is to surround yourself with advisors from a variety of backgrounds; there’s no one like an “insider” for keeping others sensitized to a group’s sore points and preferred descriptive terms.
Never, ever insult anyone personally in writing. The difference between unwelcome criticism and a personal insult is that the former is both specific and provable. “JD hasn’t made a sale in ten months” can be backed up with evidence; “JD is the biggest incompetent who ever lived” not only is unprovable but implies a smear on every aspect of the person’s character. And while even a verbal insult can come back to haunt you in court, if you delivered it in writing you lose all benefit of the doubt.
Focus on the positive. When you never have anything good to say, even people not directly affected by your comments reflexively look for bad things to say about you.

Of course, too much avoiding of the negative can get you into worse trouble if you owe the public an apology or if there is some other real problem to be dealt with. Everyone knows about corporations and government entities that insist finances are stable up to the moment everything collapses, or that no one did anything wrong long after the evidence is undeniable. To minimize the damage when real trouble strikes, the #1 thing to remember is: Never try to dodge the issue. It will only hurt you in the probably-not-so-long run.

Not dodging the issue means:

Not downplaying the seriousness of the problem. It’s bad enough to have the media and the public questioning your competence; don’t give them reason to question your honesty as well.
Being open about the nature of the problem, the challenges involved, and the planned solution. Many businesses fail here because of paranoia about “revealing sensitive company information.” It’s one thing if a revelation compromises someone’s personal privacy, or gives so much detail as to show competitors how to duplicate a product or procedure; but every word in the employee handbook shouldn’t be top secret.
Being willing to apologize on the company's behalf, without mixing excuses with the apology. People think more, not less, of someone who is willing to unequivocally accept blame.

When it comes to good public relations, a little healthy humility goes a long way.

Press Release Pointers

2010-04-14T10:36:00.000-07:00

To keep the public aware of and well disposed toward your work, you need positive media coverage. Customers are more likely to trust businesses that have other ways of getting attention besides buying it through advertising.

However, you can’t always rely on the media to notice you on their own; it pays to take an active role in keeping them up to date. The traditional press release, also called the news release or media release, is still an effective tool for getting your name in the papers or on the major Web sites. It’s normally written in a format similar to the following:

----------------------------
Headline/Title

One- to four-sentence summary

City, State, Preferred Date of Release [if none, “FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE”]

Main news story.

About [sponsoring company and/or release writer]: [one short paragraph]

Contact:

Full contact information for the best person to answer any questions.

### [or “-30-” or “END”] [centered]

----------------------------

Correct format won’t get you far, though, without good writing and newsworthy content. To earn your release the best chance of being published:

Address your release directly to the editor of Business News (or whatever department publishes articles on your topic). And write to the person’s full name or “Mr./Ms. Smith,” not just a position title and definitely not a first name alone.

Gear your submission to the recipient’s convenience, not your own. Follow any specific instructions from the paper/Web site/media service on how, when, and where to send releases.

Choose “news” that’s interesting to potential readers, not simply to your own office. (See last two posts for hints on judging this.) Strangers are not interested in what your business does unless it affects them directly, offers something they want or need, or is intriguing or funny enough to entertain them.

Make the title short (no more than 80 characters) and descriptive. Study published news headlines to get the right feel.

Keep the whole thing to a maximum of 800 words. One of the best ways to reduce word count is to change adverbial phrases (“walks proudly”) to verbs (“struts”) and adjectival phrases (“luxurious car”) to nouns (“limousine”).

Put the most important information first; the further into a release a paragraph is located, the more likely it is to be cut before publication (or go unread after).

Include at least one direct quote (“‘This will give our customers an extra hour of daily free time,’ said CEO Craig Johnson”); rewrite your own best thought in quote form if necessary. Readers like to hear real people speaking.

Never use a five-syllable word when a two-syllable synonym is available.

Don’t overload the text with technical details, but do include your contact information for the benefit of interested potential clients.

Be extra careful to get all facts—especially contact information—accurate. And remember that typos hurt your professional image. Once you think the release is finished, let it sit for a full day and then proofread it.

Be certain, as with an ad, that you can keep any promises you make!

Features vs. Benefits

2010-04-08T13:05:00.000-07:00

If your ads suffer from a discouraging lack of response, it may be that they don’t answer every reader’s key questions: “Why should I care?” and “What’s in it for me?” Sales materials don’t deserve the name if they talk exclusively about features rather than benefits.

Features are the specifics on what a business does or is. Benefits are the specifics on what a business does, or can do, for its customers. Features, at best, capture attention for a few moments before readers direct their attention elsewhere. Benefits are what assure potential customers you offer something they will find useful, helpful, or pleasurable.

Does your copy talk directly to the customer? Good persuasive copy is full of “you’s” and short on “we’s.” Every ad should ask rhetorically, “Do you have this problem?” or “Do you enjoy experiencing this activity/feeling?” before explaining how the product or service solves the problem, or provides the activity/feeling, better than any other option.

Does the copy appeal to emotion? However much we like to think of ourselves as rational, reasonable people, we all let personal desires and wishes guide most of our actions. If your copy is sufficiently vivid and “you-oriented” that potential customers begin picturing themselves enjoying whatever you’re offering, you’re well on the way to a sale.

Does the copy tie all straight facts to potential gain for the customer? “Our new auto runs 10% more efficiently than last year’s model” may evoke a yawn and a “whose doesn’t?” “Our new model's increased efficiency can make your gasoline budget go 10% further” will get people thinking “this might be a worthwhile investment.”

Does the copy leave no doubt as to what it’s selling—and does it state this at the beginning rather than the end? Only the most prominent brands can get away with wildly imaginative commercials that hardly mention the product/service at all. But many feature-heavy ads are only a tiny improvement when it comes to being comprehensible. Some “ads” spend so much time explaining how the machinery works or how the service was tested that they never get around to stating clearly what is being advertised—or of asking people directly to buy it. Other ads tuck this information into one small paragraph at the end of a crowded page, forgetting that few readers bother to go on to the end once they get bored.

Does the copy tell readers how to buy? Ease in ordering is a benefit too often neglected; even readers interested in buying will give up quickly if there’s no Web site address, no order form, and no mention of which stores might be selling a product. The vast majority of consumers, given no way of immediately locating a product or service, will consider it not worth their while to spend time searching.

Thinking in terms of “benefits” has obvious advantages in persuading people to buy immediately. But it can be equally helpful when your purpose is simply to make a good impression on your public. The next post will discuss this and other things worth knowing about press releases.

It’s Not about You

2010-03-29T10:27:00.000-07:00

“I know and you know people who blunder through life trying to wigwag other people into becoming interested in them,” wrote Dale Carnegie in his classic How to Win Friends and Influence People. “Of course, it doesn’t work. People are not interested in you. They are not interested in me. They are interested in themselves—morning, noon and after dinner.”

It’s amazing how many intelligent entrepreneurs never learn this. Every other sentence in their press releases starts with “we.” Their Web sites read like transcribed employee manuals, and their advertisements resemble research and development reports. They never consider that most consumers, struggling to keep up with existing responsibilities, might not care that some company they’ve never heard of makes orange widgets or won an award from the Fourth Annual Business Committee of Nowheresville.

Even worse are the direct appeals that come across as “Give me what I want because I want it.” Carnegie’s book includes one such letter as an example of how not to win cooperation: “We desire to retain our position in industry leadership… Will you put us on your preferred list for regular updates and send a prompt acknowledgment of this letter, giving us your latest ‘doings.’” The typical reader’s reaction is likely to be something along the lines of “Why should I care about what you want or how important you are; I have problems of my own to worry about. Who do you think you are, anyway, ordering me to drop everything and write a detailed response right now?” Not exactly conducive to good public relations.

If you wonder whether your own promotional writings may be too self-centered, here are nine red flags to watch for:
1. You can’t describe the typical person who can be expected to read the text.
2. The text is full of company-specific jargon. (If you’re not certain, ask a trusted friend outside your business to read a hard-copy sample and highlight anything s/he needs you to define. If the papers come back looking gold-plated, it’s time to consider hiring an outside writing expert.)
3. The text of an item intended for the general public is full of industry-specific jargon.
4. The text includes large numbers of statistics. (Unless you can present those statistics in an exceptionally intriguing or humorous manner, no one who wasn’t directly involved in producing them will be interested.)
5. The text brags too much. (Non-stakeholders couldn’t care less about the awards you win unless those awards are for something exceptionally intriguing; everyone has a “Top Sales” or “Citizen of the Year” award. And even readers who rejoice in your triumphs will get bored if the “how great we are” text runs beyond a few paragraphs.)
6. The text contains the phrase, “I/we want.” (Only your personal friends and loved ones will do anything for you simply because you want it.)
7. The text includes any requests that fail to say “please” (and preferably “thank you” as well).
8. The text contains far more “we’s” and “I’s” than “you’s.”
9. The text talks extensively about what you can do, but never mentions what you can do for the reader.

That last point will be covered further in next week’s scheduled topic, “Features vs. Benefits.”

Keeping up the Blog Momentum

2010-03-23T09:39:00.000-07:00

The first few posts of this blog having covered the technical points of good writing, it’s time to move to the uses of good writing. What better place to start than with—blogs?

Blogging and social networking have succeeded Web sites as the business trend of the future. Unfortunately for lazy self-marketers, the new approach requires even more frequent updating. It takes maybe two weeks without new posts before readers quit checking.

As a professional writer, I encourage outsourcing the actual writing of this valuable marketing tool—but that doesn’t mean you should be personally lacking in ideas for post topics. You know best what your perfect customers want to read about…. usually. Every long-term blogger has “what’s left to talk about???” days.

Far more is left than you might think. Here’s a top-ten list of ways to keep your idea bank full (adapted from a summer 2009 posting at linkedin.com):

1. Spend some time every day reading (or viewing) media related to your blog’s main theme. This will provide topic ideas, suggest new reference sources, and allow you to absorb what “works” in terms of style.
2. If you’ve been relying on television and radio for daily news, find a written source as well. Written media covers topics in more detail and explores more angles.
3. Along with blogs and other articles, read full-length books on your topic. It only takes ten minutes a day to finish a book a month, and you’ll gain a lot of insight into how much can be said on a theme.
4. Read reviews and comments for books and blogs on related topics. It provides great insight on what the public likes in a writer.
5. Read an occasional article or novel (or watch an occasional documentary or movie) just for fun. Relaxing keeps your mind fresh, and you may be surprised at the ideas you get from diverse sources.
6. Don’t be afraid that reading other people’s work will stifle your originality. This is rarely a danger except for those who try to “copy” popular writers in the vain hope that success is directly transferable.
7. Read books and articles on the art of writing itself (my favorite databases are www.writingfordollars.com and www.writing-world.com). Learn how successful writers of all kinds come up with their ideas.
8. Don’t neglect the real world! You can collect dozens of blog ideas (not to mention descriptive details and true stories to make things more interesting) just by spending an afternoon in the park watching the world go by, or by sharing lunch with a friend.
9. Do keep a journal or “idea notebook” for those days when your mind does go temporarily blank.
10. Think positive! Guard your mind against any “the world has nothing new to show me” attitude, and you’ll experience new insights every day.

My next post will talk about one obvious idea better not used in blogs—or any other written communication.

Commonly Confused Words

2010-03-16T06:38:00.000-07:00

“It ain’t so much the things we don’t know that get us into trouble. It’s the things we know that just ain’t so.”

That old quote proved itself when I tried to confirm exactly who said it. A dozen famous characters are credited with originating the phrase—and each has advocates who “know this for a fact” and are ready to tear into anyone who disagrees. I’m sure I’ll hear from some of these if I personally credit anyone besides their top candidates; so I’m going to take the coward’s way out and avoid even mentioning any of the possibilities.

Some “things we know that ain’t so” have uglier consequences than heated arguments. Ask anyone who has mistaken the accelerator for the brake, or spoken condescendingly to a “receptionist” who turned out to be the company president. And though few people have been sued for confusing “principal” and “principle,” avoiding vocabulary mistakes is crucial to projecting a conscientious, intelligent professional image.

Last week’s post talked about commonly misspelled words. Today, we go on to commonly confused words. Here are ten pairs for starters:

1. Accept/Except: “Accept” means “to receive”; “except” means “excluding.”
2. Benefactor/Beneficiary: The benefactor does the giving, the beneficiary the receiving.
3. Complement/Compliment: “Complement” means “a necessary part of” or “to supplement something”; “compliment” means “a flattering statement.” (And the word that refers to free gifts is complimentary—like gift, it has an i in it.)
4. Continual/Continuous: “Continual” means “regularly recurring”; “continuous” means “uninterrupted.”
5. Disinterested/Uninterested: “Disinterested” means “objective” and may refer to someone, such as an arbitrator, who is very much involved in a situation. “Uninterested” means that someone is totally uninvolved and couldn’t care less.
6. E.g./I.e.: “E.g.” means “for example”; “i.e.” means “in other words.”
7. Farther/Further: Generally, “farther” refers to material, physical distance and “further” to less measurable quantities. Hence, “three miles farther” but “for further consideration.”
8. It’s/Its: “It’s” means “it is” or “it has”; “its” is the possessive form of “it.” One sentence demonstrating the difference: “It’s a wise dog that scratches its own fleas.”
9. Mean/Median: Both are mathematical terms roughly meaning “average,” but they are calculated in different ways. When a sum is divided by the number of calculations that went into it (as in [3+9+12]/3=8), the result is the mean. A median is the midpoint of a list of numbers that is arranged from lowest to highest.
10. Principal/Principle: “Principal” means “first in rank” or “the person first in rank.” (The head of a public school is the principal. The amount of a loan before interest is the principal. The central issue in a situation is the principal issue.) “Principle” means “a basic standard or truth.”

Dozens more “Common Errors in English” are posted at http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html#errors. You may be surprised to learn what you’ve been getting wrong!

The Perils of English Spelling

2010-03-09T14:15:00.000-08:00

Do you know that one of the most commonly misspelled words in the English language is--"misspelled"? That sneaky double s has tripped more than a few people.

Just as most misspellings of proper names (discussed last week) are due to variations from the "regular" spellings, other frequently misspelled words achieve that status by violating convention. Remember the grade-school spelling rule "i before e except after c or when sounded like a as in neighbor and weigh"? But... how do you spell "height"?

You form plurals by adding s; but then how do you explain "mouse" and "mice"? Or "woman" and "women"? Or "goose" and "geese"--and for that matter, why is the plural of "mongoose" still “mongooses”?

And what about words that are spelled one way and pronounced another--and letter combinations for which there seem to be no conventional pronunciations? Why does "knife" have a k in it? Why doesn't "dough" rhyme with "rough," nor "key" with "obey," nor "plow" with "tow"?

Be grateful if you learned English in toddlerhood. The more-or-less-official tongue of international business is perhaps the hardest language in the world for adults to master. Blame a centuries-long habit of freely adopting words from other languages, no doubt aided and abetted by the British Empire period.

Nonetheless, and like it or not, people still see sloppy spelling as a sign of ignorance or carelessness or both. Blind faith in your spell checker is not an advisable solution: few computers can tell the difference between "twenty-four resources" and "twenty for Resources." At times, we all have to revert to the ancient "look it up" method.

However, no dictionary can help if you're so uncertain of a spelling that you can’t find it in the alphabetical list or keyword search, or if you're like the college student who lamented, "My professors say I have to learn to look up words when I'm in doubt--but I'm never in doubt!" The only thing resembling preventive medicine is to review likely-to-be-misspelled words until the correct spelling is burned into your memory. Do you have "misspelled" straight? Good; now here are ten more words to memorize before drafting your next business proposal:
1. Accidentally
2. Calendar
3. Consensus
4. Guarantee
5. Indispensable
6. License
7. Occurrence
8. Personnel
9. Relevant
10. Stationery (as in "writing paper," not to be confused with stationary, which means "motionless")

When you have all those right, visit the "Most Often Misspelled Words" page at yourdictionary.com for a top-100 list and some useful memory aids....

...the word for which is spelled M-N-E-M-O-N-I-C-S and pronounced “knee-MAWN-iks.”

The Perils of Misspelled Names

2010-03-05T08:27:00.000-08:00

Having talked in my last post about the value of proofreading, I should note one thing that is often “corrected” where no correction is needed—the unusually spelled personal name. I should know. My last name is S-W-A-R-T-S with an s at each end, and if I had a dollar for everyone who’s written it as S-C-H-W-A-R-T-Z or S-W-A-R-T-Z or even S-C-H-W-A-R-Z, I could retire right now.

Hundreds of others have reason to curse the surname legacy of their paternal ancestors—or to wonder what their immediate ancestors were thinking on choosing a first name. Long, impossible-to-spell names are bad enough. Names that sound like bad jokes (as every Houstonian knows, Ima Hogg was a real person) quickly get old to live with. Names with obvious alternate spellings (“Is that K-A-T-H-E-R-I-N-E or C-A-T-H-E-R-I-N-E?”) can be a nuisance. But a name for which everyone thinks the spelling is obvious means a lifetime of policing everyone who writes it down—and still seeing it come out wrong half the time. It’s especially bad if the discrepancy comes near the end of the name; people usually stop listening to me spell out S-W-A-R-T-S after I pass the w.

Many people regard misspellings of their names not merely as annoying but as personally insulting—especially when those misspellings are attached to message responses, and the original communications were signed with the right spellings. Get an e-mail signed “Smyth” and reply to “Dear Mr. Smith,” and you effectively tell him you didn’t consider his message worth reading carefully. Even where it concerned a key element of his identity.

Get a name right, by contrast, and you make a favorable impression. Get a difficult name right, and you make an especially favorable impression (“What a relief to meet someone who doesn’t misspell my name!”). Dale Carnegie knew this well; his classic How to Win Friends and Influence People devotes a whole chapter to remembering names.

Which isn’t always easy, especially where multiple tiers of communication are involved. Many convention attendees carefully spell out their names (verbally or in writing) during the registration process, only to receive a badge with the wrong spelling upon arriving at the event. Usually, the person who actually took the registration wasn’t at fault. Despite computerized recordkeeping, many registrations still go through two or three levels of human beings. And often, one of those human beings transcribes a note or memo without looking carefully.

Worst of all, however, is the usually careful proofreader who sees the actual spelling clearly—and still writes down the wrong one. “It looks wrong, so it must be a typo” is the sort of “logical” thinking that infuriates those of us whose names vary from majority custom. So unless you know someone personally, always assume that a name is spelled exactly the way it’s written, no matter how ridiculous it looks to you. If the spelling really is wrong, at least you’ll have someone besides yourself to blame.

Remember that, or I’ll send you an e-mail with your name misspelled!

Despite what many would-be novelists think, good writing is not easy. It is, however, vital—especially when your reputation and customer relationships are riding on it. Don’t steal time from your business’s primary mission to struggle with written communications. Contact Spread the Word Commercial Writing today and learn how professional help can save you time and frustration!

“Anything Worth Writing Is Worth Writing Right”™

The Perils of Careless Proofreading

2010-03-05T07:19:00.000-08:00

Blame the growth of text messaging; or the modern ease of copying messages as opposed to the old “retype the whole thing” approach; or today’s rush-rush mentality; but people just aren’t proofreading the way they used to. Though no one expects e-mail memos to conform to Pulitzer Prize standards, even professionally published books are now laden with typos any third-grader should have caught. As for proofreading standards applied to the average business brochure: I have considered going into professional expos with twenty-five $10 bills and offering one of those bills to anyone who hands me a brochure I can’t find a misprint in. I’d be willing to bet I could go to every booth without losing the whole $250.

Following is a top-ten sampler of the funniest typos I sighted in 2008-2009 alone (italics added):
1. Online form error message: “In valid Web site format.”
2. Writer’s market guide: “You will find a dollar sign ($) in front of the periodicals that ate paying markets.”
3. Daily-trivia calendar: “Lightening starts more forest fires…”
4. Ripley’s Believe It or Not! book: “…more members than the Untied Nations.”
5. Inspirational reader: “The early bird gets the word.”
6. Major writers’ newsletter: “…favorite books… whether they are classics or more recent tiles.”
7. Online writing-articles database: “For some, walking slowly and methodically allows them to think things through, while for others, too slow provides too much distraction…. On the other hand a very rapid face can leave you out of breath…”
8. Major nature magazine: “…avoid undo exposure to predators.”
9. Business e-newsletter: “was generating over $10 million per month in gross review…”
10. Rendering of Bible quote by major religious publisher: “Cod opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

And as a bonus, my all-time favorite, still fresh in mind years after first sighting:

Voter’s guide: “…ten years in pubic service.”

It’s funny when someone else makes the mistake, but do you really want your business to be best remembered for such a gaffe?

Failure to proofread can also have results that definitely aren’t funny. First, it can leave a decidedly negative impression of your business. People will overlook one mistake; but if your written communications average 10 typos per 100 words, how long will it take potential customers to start wondering if you’re as careless with your primary services?

Sloppy proofreading can also lead to serious and costly inconvenience. The seminar announcement that reads “we will meet at 7 a.m.” instead of “7 p.m.”; the business address listed as “1001 Richmond” instead of “10001 Richmond,” or even as “Norwalk, CT” instead of “Norwalk, CA”; the Web link that leads nowhere because the address was mistyped—how much time is wasted annually because people take such messages as they are written?

However great a hurry you’re in, never think of proofreading as a waste of time. Carelessness here can hurt you and those whose opinions you value.

Despite what many would-be novelists think, good writing is not easy. It is, however, vital—especially when your reputation and customer relationships are riding on it. Don’t steal time from your business’s primary mission to struggle with written communications. Contact Spread the Word Commercial Writing today and learn how professional help can save you time and frustration!

“Anything Worth Writing Is Worth Writing Right”™