Matthew Stibbe, a marketing writer, inspired this post with his Fast, good or cheap? Choose two. Anyone who manages the process for creating a product can use this mantra to describe their constraints. Here’s the perspective from a musician. And one from a graphic designer. So here’s how I would explain the situation from the perspective of a…
I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again. Nothing signals your status as a pro workplace writer as much as testing an important document with representative readers before you deliver it. But reader testing can be expensive. You need equipment and training to conduct eye-tracking studies. Thanks to two of my Dutch colleagues, Menno de Jong…
Has anyone given you grief over splitting an infinitive in your writing? If so, they would claim “to better understand” is wrong because the adverb better appears between to and the verb understand. The “rule” to avoid splitting infinitives originated in the 18th century due to a faulty comparison of English with Latin. (For more…
Check out Huffington Post‘s “The new illiteracy — obfuscation — hinders progress.” The author mentions some top notch plain language efforts like the Center for Plain Language and PLAIN. But he assumes obfuscation is a recent problem. I wrote a very brief history of the problem in Why hasn’t plain language become the norm? Related…
There’s been buzz about the use of emoticons like the smiley face 🙂 or wink 😉 in the workplace. A New York Times article in 2011. Huffington Post took on the topic in a 2011 article and again in this 2012 article. A post by Gemma Stoyle at Linguistics Research Digest spurred my thinking about what emoticons mean and when they’re appropriate. Research by Eli…
My colleague, Saul Carliner, shared this slide deck from Mark O-Toole about why new grads don’t get hired. See if you can locate one of the eleven reasons that isn’t caused by (or couldn’t be fixed with better) communication. Congratulations Graduate! Eleven Reasons Why I Will Never Hire You. from Mark O’Toole Here’s my analysis….
If I need a lawyer, I’m gonna call up Mr. Kaplitt. Here’s a letter he wrote for a client who received a “cease and desist” letter written in indecipherable legalese. Huffington Post posted a short video about this one. Or read his letter for yourself. Bet Mr. Kaplitt’s phone has been ringing off the hook! Related…
Efficiency. One of the greatest challenges for amateur workplace writers, who have not yet wrapped their heads around the fact that their colleagues do not read like teachers do. I’ve made the point many times that teachers are obligated to read their students’ documents thoughtfully. And that workplace readers actually read the same way writers…
Need a little meditation to get through the rest of the workweek? This 5-minute video displays the architectural alphabet created by Antonio Basoli. I found this at Futility Closet thanks to a link at A Walk in the WoRds. Happy Friday!
A while back, the folks at Write in New Zealand talked about punctuating bullet lists. The post caught my attention because their practice is refreshingly straightforward. If the stem sentence and the list items are all complete sentences, we punctuate with an initial capital and a full stop. If the stem sentence is an introductory…