Archive for the ‘Writing Tips’ Category

I spent a day recently doing some coaching for one of my favourite clients. I had appointments with eight people. It was a diverse group–from finance to IT, and from junior to senior.  Some write reports to the executive team, and some write brief emails to each other. Some are technical writers, some write letters. Every person I met brought in a sample of their writing, and even though their writing was so different, I found myself saying the same things to each one of them: “Consider your reader—what information will they need? How will they want to see it presented? Why does your reader need this information? How can you present your message in a way that makes it easy for them to take their next step?”

Examples of what I saw at the follow-up session, and how these questions affected their revisions:

An email to a consultant asking a series of questions about a technical process. The first draft was a casual, rambling stream of consciousness, in which the writer asked a question, then adds a couple more that come to mind while he is writing. The fix: revise the opening of the message to explain you have 3 questions about the ABC process, number the questions clearly, and then update the subject line (maybe “Three questions about ABC”) to let the reader know what to expect. The reader then can easily embed the answers into the original message. It takes only a few minutes for the writer to revise, and saves the reader time and frustration.

An email to a supplier about coordinating an event. The email contains three small questions, and confirms another piece of information. Instead of one email to the reader containing everything, write four separate emails. Why? If you separate the different questions, requests and information into separate emails, the reader can respond quickly where possible. If you don’t have ready answers to every question in a multi-issue email, it’s easy to sit on it until you have everything you need. Better to answer what you can quickly. It’s also easier to file and retrieve information that is clearly labeled and not buried in an email with a useless subject line, like “Information” or “Follow up.”

A technical report recommending a change of software to manage a vital business process. The original document is well organized with all the key information a decision maker would need in the Executive Summary. The only problem is it’s very technical and studded with acronyms. The decision makers are the Board Members, who are unfamiliar with your jargon. The solution: assume your readers are ignorant, but not stupid. Avoid using technical language they might not understand, especially acronyms. Using acronyms might save you a few keystrokes and buy you credibility with your colleagues, but they frustrate readers who aren’t familiar with them. The solution: use the acronyms in your draft, then use the Find/Replace function in MS Word to spell them out. Even better, instead of an acronym, use a descriptive term, like the Agreement, or the Enterprise System.

A letter to a lawyer describing your analysis of a problem and the next steps you will take. This writer (a charming guy) had abandoned his earlier legalese style (yay!) but had rebounded to extremely spare prose, thinking the opposite of a legalese style is one that was condensed to the point where it felt dehydrated. The solution: relax, use a conversational style and tell the reader a story—what you did, what you found, and what you have done as a result. Unpack it, expand it, be conversational. The letter is a record, part of a file, and needs to tell its chapter of the story clearly.

Documentation of a change to proprietary software. The changes were listed on the page in separate paragraphs. What was missing was any context—the document needed a title and an introduction, so a reader who picks it up now or in the future knows why and when the changes were made. It also would help to number the changes themselves so they could be scanned quickly and referenced easily.

What impressed me about the day was how different each of the documents I reviewed was from each other. The revisions were different too. What was the same was the thinking process and questions that helped my learners see ways to improve their writing.

Take a look at something you wrote recently. Now put yourself in the place of your reader. Consider for a moment what their prior knowledge is, why they need to read your message, what they will do with it, and how you can best present it to make their job easier. What changes would you make?

Print Friendly

I have a terrible sense of direction. GPS isn’t enough for me—I also need a map, printed directions, a lifeline and a navigator to find my way. When I emerge from the subway in downtown Toronto I am always completely turned around and have to ask strangers to orient me. My kids have learned: whenever I have to drive them some place they make me add a full half-hour to the journey because they know I’ll spend time driving around in circles. Most of the time, being lost is an awful feeling—I feeling panicked and stressed. But when I’m on vacation, I enjoy it.

Being a little lost on vacation is fun because I let myself slow down. I don’t have to be anywhere special, no one is depending on me, and I’m not on a schedule. Being lost means I discover cool shops, interesting restaurants and beautiful sights. Being lost means I learn my way around by trial and error. Maybe.

But when I’m working, I need to know where I’m going. And when I’m reading something for work, I need to know where you’re taking me. I’m  not alone in this—business readers don’t have the time or patience to explore the landscape of your thought at leisure. They read purposefully and want you to help them navigate through your writing. They need to see an overview of the entire document and as they read they want to know where they are, where they’ve been and where they’re going.

In general, readers need a preview of your main points, an explanation of your points with signposts along the way, and a summary of your points at the end. This pattern applies to the whole document and in a complex document, to each section.

Here are some of the ways to map your ideas for your readers:

Preview your main points

Readers need to know where you’re taking them. To help show this, start by providing a meaningful title for your document. If your document is long and complex, include a table of contents that summarizes the key ideas and shows the shape of your document. Include talking headers throughout the document, which allow readers to scan. Talking headers allow them to get a quick overview and decide which sections they wish to deep read and the order in which they want to read them. Preview your main points at the start of each section, and use the topic sentence of each paragraph to preview the main idea.

Provide rhetorical cues

Rhetorical cues are the little words and phrases that show readers the relationship between your ideas. Some rhetorical cues show the building up of ideas (also, and, as well, first, second). Some tell the reader to stop and compare (but, yet, nevertheless, on the other hand, meanwhile). Others summarize (therefore, as a result, to conclude, finally). Think of rhetorical cues as signposts that show readers the shape of your thought. They help add clarity by letting readers build a mental map of your message as they’re reading it.

Provide visual cues

Picture, illustrations, graphs, tables and screen shots all clarify and reinforce your message. Make sure the visual elements are reinforced with verbal explanations. Use the elements of layout consistently throughout a document so readers can quickly identify types of information by how they look. Use your layout (white space, typeface) to show readers the shape of your thought. I always tell my participants to think of themselves as sculptors—that every message has a shape and their job as a writer is to show that shape to the reader.

Summarize your main points

Provide summaries at the end of each section. Make sure you provide a detailed, concrete summary at the end of your document. Yes, the conclusion will repeat the preview at the beginning, but in more complete and concrete terms.

Print Friendly

“A poet never takes notes. You never take notes in a love affair.”—Robert Frost

At work, though, take notes if you want to remember things. Without good notes, you will have a flimsy record of important events and conversations. Relying on memory is unreliable and there will be gaps. And forgetting key ideas and commitments you or others have made is unprofessional.

Notes are crucial for recording important phone calls and meetings. If you’re taking a course or attending a conference, your notes help you recall what you learned and share your learning with your colleagues. If you’re a student, good notes are invaluable when it’s time to study for exams.

Start by jotting down the key ideas. If you’re having a telephone conversation, tell the other person you’re taking notes so they’ll understand if there’s silence.

Most important: as soon as your conversation, meeting or course is over, review your notes and fill in all the gaps. I like to use a contrasting colour pen to distinguish between the original notes and the details I add later.

Also important: identify any follow up action required. I always add a circle in the margins to flag any follow up I’ve committed to. Once the action is completed I put a check mark in the circle. If someone else has promised to do something, I put their initials in the margin.

Any other suggestions? Please share.

Print Friendly

Question

Several years ago we did a PD session with you about positive environments and creating our ‘commitment to a winning team’…. You did an activity on replacing “but with and”  which I love and try to use as a rule. I am now with a new team and would like to work on some of the same things.   When introducing the concept, I didn’t get the same response you did in your session…. Anyway, could you share the activity with me or give me some suggestions??

Thanks so much, Bernice Landry

Answer

Thanks for your question. When teaching people how to be more positive in their writing, I show them a list of negative trigger words. Many are surprised to find the words but and however on the list. The problem with these words is they negate whatever comes before them. So, if I say, “Bernice, you’re doing an excellent job in your new role, but you are not proofreading your work well enough” you would deflate when I got to the word but, because I’ve canceled the positive.

Instead, you can often substitute the word and. Say “Bernice, you’re doing an excellent job in your new role, and to do an even better job take the time to proofread your written work carefully.” I’m saying the same thing, and instead of canceling the positive, I’m building on it.

Print Friendly

Question: I’ve had a few staff attend your business writing course recently and am wondering if you have a ’shopping list’ of positive phrases. As their manager, I’m having difficulty in having staff recognizing the sharpness in their writing. For example, instead of using ‘you must comply’…try ‘you need to  consider’…would you have a resource that you could share so that I can mentor them further?  A Manager, York Region

Answer: I can definitely give you pointers to share with your team. And you’ve even inspired me to create a new quiz and a writing contest.

Being positive is always better—it’s easier to understand, easier to remember and helps build better relationships.

Yes, there’s a time to be negative. For example, when you give bad news, come right out and say it: “You aren’t getting the job” or “We can’t give you a refund,” or “We can’t provide you with life insurance.” But that doesn’t mean you have to load up your document with all kinds of regret.

Also, sometimes people don’t comply with reasonable requests, they persistently break rules or laws, or they don’t meet their obligations or responsibilities. You don’t want to come out swinging—start out by asking for their cooperation politely and assume their noncompliance was due to oversight. If they still don’t comply, then you can start to use a more aggressive tone.

Here are some strategies we teach in our courses:

Avoid the word NOT

Look for the word ‘not.’ It’s usually part of a negative phrase that you can replace with positive alternatives.

Avoid negative trigger words

These are words and phrases that carry negative energy. They can trigger a strong negative response in your reader. Take a look at the list and notice which ones you find upsetting. Scan your own writing for negative triggers as part of the editing process and try to remove them.

Prefer positive trigger words

Express your ideas in positive terms

Instead of saying what something isn’t, say what it is. Instead of telling someone what they can’t do, say what they can do. Expressing your ideas is positive terms makes them easier to remember, and easier to understand. Remember that when you express something in negative terms, the reader needs to flip it over to positive in order to act on it. If you tell them what they can’t do, they have to figure out what they can do. Make it easy for them.

Before: Don’t forget to submit your expenses.
After: Please remember to submit your expenses.

Before: You can’t edit your file while the printer is printing it.
After: You can edit your file when the printer is finished printing.

Here’s an example from the SEC’s A Plain English Handbook.

Before: Persons other than the primary benefactor may not receive these dividends.
After: Only the primary benefactor may receive these dividends.

Want some more practice? Test your skills with the new Make it Positive quiz and enter our current writing contest, which challenges you to change a passage from negative to positive.

Print Friendly

Seems to me the benefit of stating an idea in positive rather than negative terms is obvious, yet I spend a lot energy convincing people in our courses to be positive. Why must it be “We will cancel your account if we don’t receive payment” instead of “To keep your account active, please send your payment”? Some people feel being positive is kind of goofy, and artificial. I heard a story this week from my friend Majed Inayat that should set them straight.

The Background

Majed and I met over a bonding experience back in 2001. He’s a driver for GTA Limos, a service we use to get our trainers to and from the Toronto airport. Back in 2001, I had to get to North Bay to deliver a course to the Ontario Government. Majed took me to the airport but my flight was cancelled. I took a taxi home, then negotiated a deal with GTA Limo to have them drive me to North Bay. It made sense for them because business was very slow in the aftermath of 9/11 and it cost pretty much the same as the half-ticket I cashed in. Majed was assigned the drive—it was the last call of the day that took him about 8 hours! And that was after an already full day.

When we arrived in North Bay, late that night, a police car pulled us over. I guess we looked a little unusual—a big black limousine, a foreign looking driver in a long black coat and me in the back seat.

Over the years, Majed drives me sometimes and we always reminisce about that night. It was a very pleasant trip for me—much nicer than flying, Majed’s longest day in the car, and a story his boss Yasin tells to illustrate dedication to the job.

Majed’s Story

This past Tuesday, Majed drove me to the airport for my trip to Vancouver and we had a chance to catch up. He gave me some distressing news: his lower left leg had been amputated. Apparently he has diabetes, which he knew about, but ignored. By the time he alerted his doctor to problems with his leg, it was too late to save it.

After his surgery, he spend 4 months in Rehab, learning how to walk again with his prosthetic leg. And this is where he discovered his gift—an resilient, positive nature. He never dwelled on regrets or self-pity, and only ever saw his possibilities. He had the good fortune to have a boss who sat with him during his recovery and promised his job would be waiting when he recovered.

And he learned that his greatest pleasure is in inspiring and helping others to do the things that come easily and naturally to him. He told me about a friend from the hospital—a 70-year-old woman who had given up on life. He made her his project and decided he would get her to take her first steps. Eventually she put her hands in his and pulled herself to standing. He tells me he was overcome with emotion, and so were the physiotherapists who were present. He now volunteers each Thursday at the rehab hospital and it strikes me that this is the centre of his life, his source of satisfaction and positive energy. He says he is grateful, so grateful to be able for the first time in his life to give back.  All his life, he says, he only took. I don’t believe that for a moment, Majed.

Print Friendly

Here at Bruner Business Communication we are all Word Nerds (i.e. the kind of people who sit around debating which rocks the most—a semi-colon or a dash?). Yes, it’s true, we can’t help but edit signs, menus and the daily paper. But, you know, it wasn’t always this way. We had to learn these obsessions…err, I mean skills.

When I was a nervous, tongue-tied journalism student at Ryerson University, for example, we were forced to read a book called “On Writing Well” by William Zinsser. It’s a good thing, because that book changed my life. Over the course of one year I went from being a mediocre writer to a good writer—good enough to win the top writing award for a graduating student. I believe Zinsser deserves a good chunk of the credit, and I also believe that his advice will help anyone in any writing situation (yes, that means you!).

Here are the three most important things he taught me:

1. Clear thinking becomes clear writing.

2. Writers must constantly ask: what am I trying to say?

3. Get rid of clutter. After writing a draft, go through it and ask: “Is every word doing new work? Can any thought be expressed with more economy? Is anything pompous or pretentious or faddish? Are you hanging onto something just because you think it’s beautiful?”

Even if you aren’t a Word Nerd like all of us here on the Bruner team, if you follow Zinsser’s advice I think you’ll be amazed at how quickly your writing will improve and how powerful your communication skills will become.

Let us know how you make out! Email us your communication experiences/stories.

Print Friendly

Another school year has started, and that means lots of opportunities to help your kids with their homework. While it’s tempting to want to get in there and do the work for them, they won’t learn how to be better independent learners if you do. Here are some suggestions for helping them with their writing assignments:

Before you give any comments, ask when the paper is due. If it’s due the next day, there’s no point suggesting substantive revisions. There won’t be time to make those kinds of changes and your kid will just feel demoralized. Instead, do a proofread looking for glaring spelling and grammar mistakes. Suggest to your child that it’s a good idea to involve you earlier in the process so you can help make more of a difference.

If you have a chance to get involved early in the writing process, start by reviewing the writing assignment together. Ask for a copy of the assignment itself to see what the teacher’s purpose is. Also ask to see a copy of the course outline given at the beginning of the year to see what the overall purpose of the course is. Often teachers describe broad course themes or perspectives in these documents and they can help your child shape their written work.

When you edit a draft, use the Comments function in your word processor. Instead of changing text, insert comments such as, “Please elaborate on this idea. Can you link these two ideas together to create better flow? Will the reader understand this or do you need to provide more background? This is very well developed. Excellent example—you’ve made your point clearly and concretely.”

When proofreading a hard copy for grammar, code the mistakes you see in the margin. For example if you see a subject-verb agreement problem, note it with an s/v. If you notice a parallel structure mistake, an ll. If there is inconsistent capitalizing, write ‘cap’ every time you note it. Scan the margin for themes. Often you’ll notice lots of mistakes but consistent patterns. It’s then easy to teach the one or two rules your kid doesn’t know, and voila, the problem disappears in the next paper.

Review the paper together when you get it back from the teacher. Note the feedback. Try to better understand the teacher’s expectations so you can do better next time. Stress that writing successfully means meeting the needs of your reader. Often different teachers have different criteria or mark differently, and it’s the student’s job to adapt to the reader.

In fact, it’s the job of every writer to write for the reader.

Print Friendly

Question from my friend Annie McConnell:

Need some clarification on the .cc or .c or c.c and what is the correct way to identify someone who is being copied into a letter.

It was my understanding that since we no longer use "carbon copies" the acceptable standard has evolved from the .cc

Answer:

For those of you too young to remember, carbon copy refers to the sheet of carbon we used to sandwich between two sheets of paper. The pressure applied by a writing implement (pen, pencil, typewriter) to the top sheet causes pigment from the carbon paper to make a similar mark on the copy. More than one copy can be made by stacking several sheets with carbon paper between each pair.

To let a letter’s recipient know others are also receiving the letter, you add a carbon copy notation to the bottom of the letter. That notation is generally abbreviated to cc.

For advice on how to use cc today, I referred to my trusty Gregg Reference Manual, where I learned that even though we no longer use carbon paper to make copies, it is still conventional to use cc. Also acceptable is c, copy to, or copies to. Still, cc is the most commonly used.

Why is cc still used? Because even though we don’t use carbon paper, cc means copies in the same way pp means pages or ll means lines. Some people suggest that cc stands for courtesy copy.

Some people object to using cc. I expect they think it’s a bit old-fashioned. But Bill Sabin (editor of Gregg) points out that using cc is comparable to hearing a dial tone on a phone, even though we no longer use rotary phones.

How do you place and punctuate a copy notation in a letter? You’d put it on the line directly under any other notation, such as an enclosure notation. If there is no other notation, put your cc on the second line below the writer’s signature block.

The cc/c/copies to should be flush with the left margin and in each case followed by a colon. Add one space after the colon unless you have more than one recipient. If you have several recipients, set a tab two spaces after the colon and line up each name in a vertical list.

Your word processor will try to capitalize the first c, giving you Cc. Sabin says you need to disable the function that forces this. You’ll want cc: (lower case), c: (lower case) or Copy to: (upper case). One way to disable the automatic capitalizing, is to use find/replace. Find Cc, Replace with cc, select More, select match case, then select Replace. Voila!

Who knew there’d be so much to say about carbon copies?

Print Friendly

Darren Rouse of Problogger is writing a series of posts on the topic of creating compelling content. He challenged his readers to create a post designed to engage the reader, and I’m taking the challenge.

All writers, especially business writers, want a response from readers—at the very least a change in their behaviour, thinking or knowledge. Bloggers want comments.

His challenge is broad—you can do anything from adding a simple question or poll to an existing post, to creating a new post about interactivity. In the spirit of being engaging, I’ve written a post about writing a closing that engages the reader and I’ve just posted a Writing Contest. Here’s a post on the topic of interactivity.

Interactivity is something I build into my practice as a trainer, and Darren’s question made me wonder if what  I do as a trainer to create an interactive class can be applied to my writing. Of course, there are differences. In a classroom we have a captive audience and the only way to keep people awake is to get them involved, interacting. Readers, though, especially blog readers, always have a choice. They can easily not read your post. And even if they do read it, they rarely leave a comment.

Here are some strategies I use to engage my learners in the corporate classroom. In no special order:

1. Respect the knowledge already in the room. Instead of telling everything you know, start by eliciting the prior knowledge held collectively in the training room. Once you’ve created the baseline, participants will be interested in what you can add to it.
2. Create a safe environment where learners can ask questions, make mistakes, or give the “wrong” answer without losing face or feeling stupid.
3. Give participants opportunities to practice new skills and give them feedback.
4. Avoid arguing your opinion. Instead, invite others in the room to voice alternative points of view. When someone resists plain language, for example, I usually want to argue. But it’s always better if I instead ask the group if anyone else would like to respond. There’s always someone willing.
5. Mix it up. Use a variety of activities, such as case studies, role plays, exercises, games, discussion groups, reading assignments, brainteasers.
6. If you must lecture, make sure every third or fourth sentence is a question, even if it’s rhetorical. People are engaged more by questions than by declarative statements.

One suggestion for encouraging comments is to write an incomplete post, providing space for your readers to contribute. I know this list is incomplete, because I just took several items off. (Hard to do!) What would you add?

And how might you use these teaching strategies to make your writing interactive and compelling, whether you’re writing a blog, a business case or an email?

Print Friendly