We all know people who talk too much, rambling on and on and repeating themselves until we could scream. They probably write the same way, using way too many words to get their point across. Don’t be them when you write. Instead, practice cutting out words that will slow your readers down and may even… Continue Reading
Are you great at making data meaningful? I am certainly no expert in this field; I have a t-shirt that says: “English major–You do the math.” But I (and you) have a great resource in four practical guides (for free) from UNECE (https://unece.org/statistics/making-data-meaningful). You can download PDFs of all four guides or request printed versions… Continue Reading
I received two “you” messages recently. The first shows how NOT to use the “you” message: A client snarled, “What part of “no” don’t you understand?” (Really. I terminated the contract immediately.) The second was an offer from my favorite airline, apologizing for a recent flight delay of three hours and offering me 5000 free… Continue Reading
Isolation is both best friend and worst enemy to a writer. Writers need solitude to be productive, but too much solitude makes them admire their texts instead of going the distance to revise their drafts. So, at some point, even good writers need to be coached on their writing. In our culture, we’re more familiar… Continue Reading
I recently sent a document out for review; I had designed and created it to be a series of alphabetical listings. One reviewer asked for a table of contents. I couldn’t figure that out, as A, B, C, D seemed pretty easy to navigate to me. I asked her why she thought a TOC would… Continue Reading
Well, it depends…let’s define the two activities and you can decide! What a writing coach does A coach (who also may be called a tutor) assesses your skill level in a certain type of activity and helps you raise your performance to another level. For example, I have a business coach, Michael Sunnarborg, who helps… Continue Reading
Are you drowning in jargon? My son’s voicemail said: “Hi, Mom. I’m in Minnie, on my way to Indy. I passed my FO. Call me after 7 when I’ll be out of the box.” Hello??? One short message, four examples of airline jargon. This message certainly was concise, but it wasn’t clear to me and… Continue Reading
Several readers responded to my recent blog about not liking to write but liking to have written. To overcome writer’s block, I force myself to sit still and write for a block of time. I have become a voluntary prisoner again today, at least until I finish this blog post. I have recently become aware… Continue Reading
I always regret that I cannot be a perfect editor, although I aim for perfection.That’s why I use “PerfectIt,” software from Intelligent Editing that states on its website that it “is the fastest way to find consistency mistakes.” Sure enough, it checks for consistency of hyphenation; capitalization; numbers/words; capitalization in headings; abbreviations and acronyms (definitions/spelling);… Continue Reading
As a freelance editor, I spend a lot of time changing authors’ texts. That’s my job. It wasn’t until I experienced the editing process firsthand before publishing my book, Business Matters, that I truly realized what other authors may know: It’s hard on the ego to be edited. When I saw the edits, I didn’t… Continue Reading