Stick to your topic

When writing, especially if it is an article or blog post, it isn’t hard to get distracted by related topics and ideas. But if someone has chosen to read about a certain topic, that is what they expect to read about.

Changing topics within a piece of business writing can confuse your readers and reduce your ‘expert’ status. This is especially the case if you are presenting a number of points about a topic (such as ’10 ways to save money’ or ‘tips for reducing water waste in your office’.)

As an example, I recently read an article listing various ways to sell a product. It started with market stalls, direct sales and wholesaling, but then went onto networking and advertising which are not sales methods although they can increase the number of sales made.

If you do want to include points that are not part of your original topic, change the topic to indicate the scope of the writing. Alternatively, write two or more pieces, each about a separate although related topic, instead of one piece on different topics.

Writing professionally

I just read a blog post about writing online as a great career. Don’t get me wrong – I think writing is a great career! But I did not like this blog post.

However, the author of that  particular post (and I won’t link to it as I don’t want to been seen as supporting their site!) wrote about how the only writing worth doing is online writing (not business writing mind you, although he also referred to business writing being good) and that anyone can do it.

The standard of writing in the post itself was not particularly high and he was offering writing work to others even if you hate writing essays and just know a few advertising principles.

In response, I want to say that writing is a great career but not everyone has the language skills and knowledge to do it. It also requires some business ability in order to get enough clients and succeed.

As a professional in any industry, why would anyone downgrade the skills of that industry? By saying ‘anyone can write’ he is downgrading his own employees and business – and is not building up a trust in their abilities for prospective clients. And downgrading the industry in that way could also decrease accepted price ranges for the industry, too, therefore he is not helping his employees either.

As a blog writer, the other lesson from this person’s post is – don’t make your blog posts ads. There is no useful information in his post – it effectively says (in 5 or 6 paragraphs) that writing online is a great job so apply with him now.

Reading an ad instead of an informative post is not going to entice many people back to read another post. People want ads they can go anywhere – blogs are for information of some sort.

A copyrighting expert?

Back in November, I wrote a post about the difference between copyright and copywrite. If you think about the actual words, it isn’t hard to tell them apart either (copyright is about rights for instance.)

Yet I have just come across a website with the following sentence:

we have combined many years of copyrighting skills to create magical letters for every occasion.

As much as the misuse of copyrighting annoys me, it being misused in a sentence where the writer claims to be an expert writer  is shocking. Of course, I am also curious as how to someone combines years to create anything.

Before I get on my soap box about people posing as experts and (in my opinion) trying to fool people*, let me give you a much better version of the above sentence:

Together, we have many years of copywriting experience which we use to create magical letters for every occasion.

* I don’t know anything else about the writing skills of the site using the above sentence so I am not commenting on their level of expertise or claiming they are unethical. It is just a general comment that I hate people presenting themselves as more than they are and errors such as this are sometimes an indicator of such behaviour.

Capital letters…

There are certain times when you must use a capital letter:

• to start a sentence
• for a proper noun (e.g. the name of a person, place or event)
• in acronyms (e.g. the ATO, ASAP, TV)

The rest of the time, lower case letters are not only suitable – they are correct and preferred.

It Is Very Annoying To Read A Sentence Where Every Word Starts With A Capital Letter Isn’t It? And it takes more time and effort to type, too! Despite what some marketers would have you think, these extra capital letters do not make your message clearer or more important, and they certainly won’t bring in more sales. In fact, many people will see all those extra capitals and consider it a tacky attempt to manipulate them and therefore are less likely to even read their message.

It also just looks like you don’t know much about grammar or appearing professional.

And I’m not just talking about using capitals for every word, either. For instance, I received an email stating:

The first of these will address issues in Web Writing. The other two will focus on Web Accessibility: a half day Overview workshop and a full day Techniques Workshop. These are excellent programs.

There is no reason for ‘web writing’, ‘web accessibility’ or ‘techniques workshop’ to start with capitals – they are not proper nouns and shouldn’t be treated a such. As for ‘overview’, I can’t imagine why someone thought it needed a capital letter!

I find misuse of capitals bad enough – but for someone advertising a writing course, I expect much better than this! I wonder if they addressed the issue of using capitals in web writing – online, capitals are considered as yelling so really should be avoided in your web and email writing.

Be careful with satire

Writing satire can be difficult but can produce some very funny work. However, you need to match the satire to an appropriate audience.

Some time ago, I wrote a satirical piece about being a year 12 student – I referred to the wonderful social life (visiting a newsagent, a library, seeing movies of books under study, etc) and the joy of always having something to do (hmm, now I think of it, it is pretty similar to running your own business!)

I know it worked as various friends and teachers at my writing course read it and laughed. Yet I gave it to another person once and she took it very seriously. Her comment was along the lines of “That’s an interesting piece, but I’m not sure how many other year 12 students would agree with you about the highlight of the year”

Personally, I found her response funnier than the original story! However, it does prove a point – if you are writing in a style that is not mainstream or is perhaps different to the norm in a particular context, then take care that your piece will not be misinterpreted in a way it is meaningless.

Learn about your target audience and preferably test your work on a couple of them. You don’t want to waste your best writing on an unappreciative audience!

Always double-check your writing

Writing well is more than just getting words onto the page – you also need to check the correct words and spelling are there to be read.

I was looking at a website the other day and I’m sure they didn’t proof read it – maybe they didn’t actually read it at all once it was written. On their contact page it states:

Submit your answers and reply or call at no time.

The bit that jumped out at me was ‘call at no time’ – not exactly a welcoming message for a business! The mistake of ‘no’ instead of ‘any’ is simple to make but has a big impact on the final meaning of your words.

Of course, ‘submit your answers and reply’ doesn’t make sense either. Reading over their work (or getting someone else to read it for them) could have ended with webcopy that made sense.

So always read through and check your writing says what you wanted it to say, without missing words.

Spam writing

Writing spam? Don’t you just want to delete it rather than create more of it???

 Occasionally, I read a piece of spam that gets into my inbox – mostly by accident and sometimes as research 🙂

I can see various spam emails being useful as examples of bad writing so I can show you how to improve your writing – or give you a giggle at bad writing anyway!

For instance, I got one yesterday that started with “Kind time of day of ladies and gentlemen” – why limit yourself to good morning or good afternoon when you can cover both at once! Obviously, a simple “Greetings”, “Hello” or “Dear friend” would be my suggestion.

Then, there was “Get $999 you download our casino.” Hmmm, a casino that will give me money to download them? I am very curious as to how I could possible download a casino – but not so curious I clicked on the link 🙂 A better way to say it would have been “Get $999 when you download our casino software” or “Join our casino and get $999”.

And “same problems. somewhere in the world.” could probably have been better written as “The same problems occur throughout the world” or “Someone in the world has the same problem as you.”

I could go on and on, but thought I’d finish with mentioning a blog entry that shows you how to write better spam – enjoy!

Blogging skills

I found a post  about developing your skills at blogging which I thought worth mentioning. It is also relevant on the whole for newsletter writing.

It doesn’t mention ‘be yourself’ directly, but I think that is the only major point I would add to the list.

In summary, Chris Garrett gives 10 points that lead to successful blogging:

1. blog by example
2. blog with passion
3. be organised (well, I can’t always get 10 out of 10!)
4. delegate
5. take ownership & responsibility
6. communicate effectively (hopefully, that’s where my tips come in handy!)
7. be brave & honest
8. listen
9. know your readers
10. be a reader

I found number 7 interesting – I am always honest in my blog but don’t feel I am particularly brave as communications isn’t usually very controversial 🙂 But then I read Chris’ comments about this to find him saying pretty much the same thing and suggesting there is bravery in choosing and presenting topics.

Which of the above points do you find most challenging in your blog writing?

Why use a professional writer?

Not many people actually ask me outright, but you can almost see the thought cross their mind – “why would I pay someone to write stuff for me? I know how to write a sentence.”

One very important reason some people choose to hire a writer is simply to save time. It is a task to be outsourced so you can spend more time doing what you’re best at. This is especially true for people who struggle over every word and find writing very time consuming.

Another reason is distance – a professional writer is not so close to your business so will have a clearer perspective of what needs to be said. When you are close to the business, it is easy to get caught in details that aren’t necessary in a marketing document for instance. And when it comes to something like an about us page on a website, many people find it hard to write about themselves anyway.

A professional writer (or editor) may just review what you have done – finding those little errors you can’t easily find in your own work. It is handy if you work alone and don’t have anyone else who can proof read for you.

Of course, a major reason for using a professional writer is to get words that work well, are easy to read and are grammatically correct. For some people this is easy to achieve, others have to work hard at it and some people just can’t get it no matter what they do. Even if you can write fairly well, if you aren’t experienced at writing in a certain way it may be worth getting a professional to do it for you. You can always use their work as a model for future projects.

I think of it this way – I can hold a pencil or paint brush and make marks on a page but I would pay someone else to actually paint something to hang on my walls. We all have our talents and I’d prefer to outsource to experts than try to find time to do everything myself. Which of course leaves me with more time for writing…

I’m sure they start earlier…

Yesterday, we had the chance to look at the grade 1 classrooms our child may be in next year. We had time to wonder around and look at the children’s work and the provided posters on the walls.

It was interesting to see that they have learnt about adjectives, different writing styles (narrative, reporting, discussion, etc) and proofreading – I’m sure I didn’t know all that in grade 1!

I occasionally help a trainer with a communications module he teaches as part of a course, and I can tell you there are a lot of adults who don’t know what these grade 1 students are learning. Of course, I see many other examples as I read things in general, too.

Maybe we’ll have a very literate community in 30 years or so, or maybe it’s just our school setting a high standard. Either way, I’ll keep sharing writing and grammar tips here and in my newsletter in the hope of helping people use correct grammar – and parents stay up with their kids!