Improve Your Writing

In this era of sound bites and social media posts, people aren’t used to slogging through long reports. Unfortunately, information doesn’t always fit in a tweet. If you must present a multi-page report, help your audience by using the following elements:

• Table of contents (for reports longer than 10 pages long)
• Executive summary (for reports longer than 10 pages)
• Plenty of white space (i.e., margins and space between and around paragraphs and infographics)
• Headers to signpost important topics
• Bulleted lists
• Infographics and other non-text means to convey your messages
• Engaging photos
• Page numbers

I recently wrote a 20-page report for a client, detailing the findings from my research and recommending several courses of action. I wrote the report in Microsoft Word with plenty of section headers and bulleted lists to make it readable, but as I was proofreading it, I found myself wanting to skip over some of the longest sections. If I wanted to skip them, I knew my client would, too.

If you run into this problem and you have the budget to hire a professional graphic designer, then send your report to the designer without delay. If you don’t have the funds (or time) for a designer, consider using a pre-designed template (Microsoft offers lots of them). Your final report may end up a few pages longer, but your readers will thank you for presenting the information so they can digest it.

For my report, I added a cover page with an engaging title, a byline, and a photo that invited a second look. I created a table of contents to make it easier to find information. I added an executive summary so people in a hurry could absorb the main points quickly. And I used a template (and my graphic design experience) to highlight the information that mattered most.

The great thing about hiring a professional graphic designer is that they know how to typeset reports so people can fly through the information effortlessly. Designers know how to use layouts, color, fonts, images and infographics to draw attention to the most important issues. A well-designed report won’t look designed; it’ll simply come across as professional, well-organized, and easy to read.

If you need help writing a report, get in touch. If it’s a long one, I’ll have my graphic designer buddies lay it out for us.

Whether you’re responsible for communicating with colleagues in your organization, stakeholders who share your interests, or members of the public, chances are you often communicate via the written word, using email, reports, white papers, press releases, advertising copy and even text messages to share your ideas.

The key to good writing is to pare away unnecessary information until you are left with only the essentials—the words and ideas that lead your audience down a clear path toward your goal.

Before you start paring, be sure to capture all your key ideas. Create a “sloppy copy” (to borrow a phrase from a wonderful fourth-grade teacher named Johanna Lopez). Get your thoughts down on paper without worrying about how you will organize them.

Then, consider your audience. Frame the key ideas from your sloppy copy in a way that puts your readers’ interests first (e.g., instead of listing your services, explain how your services pertain to your readers–how do you help them? What problems do you solve for them? How does your message relate to them?).

Be sure you’ve thought about how you want people to respond to your message, and include enough information so they can. If you want people to take action, tell them what you want them to do. And if you want them to visit your website, be sure to include the URL. Sounds basic, I know, but it’s amazing how often people miss the easy stuff.

Now that you’ve identified your key ideas and framed them so your audience will find your message relevant, it’s time to organize and distill.

First, organize. What information must you provide so people can receive the full impact of your message? Have you defined terms? Does your audience need the backstory? It’s best if you can carry people along step-by-step. Finding a way to tell a compelling story can help people do more than understand, it can help them care about your message.

Finding a way to tell a compelling story can help people do more than understand, it can help them care about your message.

Once you’ve created your story, remove superfluous words and phrases. Here are a few ways to do so:

Use active voice (e.g., Say, “She threw the ball” rather than, “The ball was thrown by her.”).
Remove redundancies. Usually, you are not driving your point home; you’re boring people.
Watch your modifiers. Replace phrases with words and use the simplest, most powerful modifier you can.  Instead of saying, “Bill Clinton, who used to be the President…,” say “Former President Bill Clinton…”  Scan your document for the word “very.” If you find it, you haven’t used a strong enough descriptor. Replace “very hungry” with “famished;” replace “very angry” with “livid.” You get the idea. You can always replace “in order to” with simply “to.”
Sometimes the problem isn’t the writing—it’s the thinking. Let’s take something as simple as an email to employees about keeping the breakroom refrigerator clean. You could write something like this:

It has come to my attention that food is getting left in the refrigerator to spoil. Having a refrigerator is a perk provided by our organization, but if people keep leaving old food in it, the fridge will be removed. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sounds pretty snarky to me. If you write an email like this, my guess is you’ll get eye-rolling from some and righteous indignation from those who always remove their food in a timely manner. Truth is, no one wants to read a message like this. If your goal is for people use the refrigerator respectfully, then solve the problem and then rewrite the email.  How about this?

I’ve placed masking tape and a Sharpie on the counter next to the breakroom refrigerator. Please put your name and the date on any food you put in the fridge. Each Friday, we’ll check the dates. Any food from the prior week will be discarded to avoid spoilage.

If your thinking is muddled or ill-defined, your writing will be too. If you don’t have a point to make, no amount of fancy writing will make up for that. If you find you’re having a hard time writing, it may be that you haven’t done enough thinking. Stop writing. Push away from your computer and ask yourself, “What exactly am I trying to say?”

If you’d like help figuring out what you’re trying to say, get in touch. There’s nothing like an objective sounding board to get you back on track.

Even though most of us sat through countless hours of English instruction, we don’t feel confident in our writing. Why is that, and how can we fix it?

English is a tough language to master. It seems to break the rules as often as it follows them, and if you don’t reinforce those rules constantly, they can slip away from you. Thanks to Microsoft Word, we can figure out when we’ve misspelled a word (that little squiggly red line is a lifesaver). MS Word also recommends helpful hints about sentence structure, but unless you understand the underlying grammar, you accept MS Word’s correction at your peril.

So, how can you improve your writing? Here are some helpful hints

1. Avoid mistakes by proofreading. Ideally, you can trade proofreading duties with a trusted colleague, since our brains often trick us into reading what we meant to write rather than what we put on the page.
2. Be sure you know what you want to say; then say it. By all means, tell a good story; just be careful you don’t get so caught up in the storytelling that your readers can’t figure out what your point is.
3. Use active voice. Active voice means the subject of the sentence does something rather than having something done to him/her or it.
   Passive voice: The very best cancer is the one that is prevented and the second best is the one that gets caught early.
   Active voice: The very best cancer is the one we prevent and the second best is the one we catch early.
4. Choose strong verbs and powerful adjectives. Use words that make your writing come to life, words that enliven the senses–help people smell the raindrops as they hit the pavement and feel the watermelon juice as it runs down their chins.
5. Get rid of your fancy filter. Use straightforward language, and use as few words as possible to drive your point home. People aren’t impressed by a bunch of words they don’t know. They are impressed when you can explain a complex idea clearly and thoughtfully.

Many grammar rules are black and white; either you’re right or you’re wrong. However, as language evolves, writers have to decide when they want to adopt new words, for example. Remember when the word “email” had a hyphen? And have you noticed that “health care” is becoming “healthcare”? The key to navigating these gray zones is to decide how you want to manage the grammar conundrum and then be consistent. Happily, you do not need to figure out how to proceed on your own. If you’re a journalist or blogger, I recommend the Associated Press Stylebook. If you’re a book author, I’d go with the Chicago Manual of Style.

If you’re not sure whether your writing is good, try reading it aloud. If it’s awkward to read, then it’s awkward. Period. Rewrite it.

Email is the most common form of business communication, so it can have a big impact on your productivity and your reputation. Well-written emails that are clear, concise, and compelling can keep projects moving and enhance your relationships. However, when emails include typos, struggle to get to the point, or strike the wrong tone, they can do more harm than good.

Here are some tips to provide high-impact messages and avoid embarrassing mistakes.

1. Choose an informative subject line
   Choosing an engaging subject line that describes what your email is about increases the chances your email will be opened promptly. It also makes your email easy to find later. (Don’t forget to change the subject line when replying to an email if the topic of the email has changed.)
   Don’t: Hi! Are you busy on Tuesday?
   Do: Can we meet Tuesday at 3 pm about Project X?
2. Be casual, but professional
   Although email is more casual than most written correspondence, it should employ a respectful tone and include proper spelling and grammar. As a rule, it’s best to avoid emoticons, all-caps, acronyms, and exclamation points. And don’t be the boy who cried, “Wolf!” If an email is truly urgent, say so; otherwise, just be patient.
   Don’t: Hey! Did you get my message? I TOTALLY need an answer ASAP about Project X.
   Do: Just a quick reminder that the deadline for approval on Project X is this Friday. Have you had an opportunity to review the information I sent?
3. Only use email when appropriate
   –Do NOT discuss emotionally charged or controversial issues via email.
   -Do NOT try to manage projects that require extensive discussion via email. Email is good for short, finite communication.
   -Do NOT include confidential information. “Reply All” and “Forward” are many people’s favorite buttons, and hackers love a to add social security numbers or credit card numbers to their collections.
4. Get right to the point
   The subject line should cue up your message, and your first line in the body of the email should get right to the point–ideally in a compelling or humorous way. Tell your reader who you are (if they don’t already know), and what you want. If you expect them to take action, you’d best demonstrate how that action benefits them.
   Don’t: I started my company ten years ago, and we’ve been growing ever since. I think you’d really like my product, but first, let me tell you about how we got where we are…
   Do: After ten years in the business, we’ve honed our product to meet the needs of clients like you. Here’s how…
5. Keep attachments small and essential
   If you must attach a file, be sure it is not too big. People are wary of files, as they should be–they’re a great way to share computer viruses. If your attachment is more than a couple megabytes, consider sending it via a file transfer protocol (ftp) site like Hightail.com or Wetransfer.com; or consider setting up a file sharing arrangement like Dropbox.com.
6. Use a signature line
   I am always stunned when people do not provide contact information in their emails when it is so easy! You can set your email software to include your signature information automatically for each new email (or for all emails, including responses). List your name, title, company, website, and phone number. If you include a logo or image file of any kind, be aware that it may not display properly (if it displays at all).
7. Proofread
   This is the easiest way to avoid embarrassing mistakes. Read your email slowly at least a couple times. Look at each word individually before allowing your eyes to go to the next word; this allows you to read what you actually wrote (not what your brain thinks you wrote). Click here to see more proofreading tips.
8. Read from the perspective of your arch enemy
   Before you hit “Send,” read your email as though its recipient will interpret everything in the most negative light. This allows you to edit the message to prevent any misunderstandings. Since emails lack the benefits of body language and verbal tone, carefully choose your words and sentence structure so they leave little room misinterpretation.
9. Have a friend or colleague read important emails
   There’s nothing worse than finding a mistake after you hit “Send” on a company-wide email or an email to a prospective employer. If you’re writing a high-stakes email, ask a trusted friend or colleague to read it over for you.
10. Consider implementing a company-wide email etiquette policy so everyone plays by the same rules
    Time-saving protocols work well when everyone understands them. Consider implementing a company-wide policy with accepted abbreviations and protocols about when and how to use email. Include things like requiring out-of-office messages when people are away, so clients and colleagues know what to do in someone’s absence.

Remember, email is great, but it’s not the right tool for every type of communication. Before writing an email, be sure the message you want to convey is 1. Not emotionally charged, 2. Not easy to misinterpret 3. Doesn’t require an immediate response, and 4. Not attempting to manage a long-term, complex issue. If email is the right tool, follow these tips and you should enjoy the benefits of higher productivity and enhanced relationships.