Colourful metaphors
A Factorial reader sent me some metaphors from NSW Year 12 essays. I thought you might enjoy them.
She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature prime beef.
The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.
McBride fell 12 storeys, hitting the pavement like a supermarket bag filled with vegetable soup.
Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
You can read more of these metaphors at http://www.esau.com.au/forums/thread/245763
Labels: business writing, metaphors
Review and edit your work
We all make grammatical mistakes and typos. Often readers are forgiving; but not always. Unfortunately, when a reader sees a mistake, they don't think 'that person has probably worked on this document so long they can't see it clearly any more'. No, they think 'careless, sloppy writing'.
And sometimes they even judge the writer's integrity based on grammatical errors. When I was facilitating a business writing course once, a woman came back after a break and said: 'I’ve just received an email from a barrister. I didn’t feel comfortable about his advice and this email confirmed it. He used a wrong apostrophe! I’ll never trust him again.'
Ouch. It was just an apostrophe!
So how can we make our copy ‘as good as it’s going to get’? Here are my self-editing tips.
1. Take a break. If you edit your work straight after you’ve finished writing, you don’t see it clearly. Any break is helpful, but overnight is best as then you approach your work with fresh eyes.
2. Use Spell Check — and please set the default to Australian spelling if you live in Australia. I think it’s worth using Microsoft’s grammar check, even though it’s hopeless, as it will occasionally pick up something basic, such as a subject-verb agreement that you’ve missed.
3. Read your work through five times for a Rolls Royce edit:
* once for meaning (Is it clear?)
* twice to change grammar, words etc. (Is there a better way of saying this?)
* once for layout, headings, hyperlinks, tables etc.
* one last time for anything you’ve missed.
I realise this is a bit over-the-top, but I want to stress that one quick read-through is not enough and you edit more thoroughly if you look for different things on separate readings.
4. When editing the second and third times, concentrate on:
* sentences — are they too long?
* words — are any unnecessary?
* grammar
* consistency
* unnecessary repetitions
* typos
* layout.
5. If you’re editing on screen, proofread on a hard copy as well. Unfortunately, we don’t see things as clearly on the screen.
6. Some people find it helpful to read:
* word-by-word
* with a ruler underneath each line
* aloud
* with another person — one person reads and the other follows the text
* in reverse order, i.e. they either read point 7 before point 6 or literally read sentences in reverse order.
7. Ask a friend or colleague to read your work for you. But choose someone with an eye for detail — not all people have that skill.
With self-editing, you may pick up that rogue apostrophe.
These tips first appeared in Flying Solo (http://www.flyingsolo.com.au)
Labels: business writing, editing, grammar
Phrases you love to hate
In an entertaining article 'Are you going forward? Then stop now' (BBC Magazine), Lucy Kellaway looks at the epidemic use of the phrase 'going forward' and makes fun of some of our other pet hates.
Two of the most amusing examples of the use of 'going forward' are:
'When asked if he was going to be the England captain again after his triumph with Trinidad and Tobago, David Beckham came out with the gnomic reply "Going forward, who knows." It seems that the less one has to say, the more likely one is to reach for a going forward as a crutch. Politicians find it comforting for this reason. "We are going forward" poor Hillary Clinton said just before the last, fatal primary . . . when it became indisputable that she was going nowhere of the kind.'
For nearly a decade, Lucy Kellaway wrote a fictional column in the Financial Times about a senior manager who spoke in business cliches.
She says: 'Martin Lukes talked the talk. Or rather, he added value by reaching out and sharing his blue sky thinking. At the end of the day he stepped up to the plate and delivered world class jargon that really pushed the envelope. After eight years of being him I came to accept the nouns pretending to be verbs. To task and to impact. Even the new verb to architect I almost took in my stride. I didn't even really mind the impenetrable sentences full of leveraging value and paradigm shifts. But what still rankled after so long were the little things: that he said myself instead of me and that he would never talk about a problem, when he could dialogue around an issue instead.'
It is often the little things, isn't it? I cringe when I see 'myself' used wrongly, but I think it's here to stay.
As I read on, I smiled even more broadly when Lucy Kellaway dealt with the word 'passion'.
'Passion, says the dictionary, means a strong sexual desire or the suffering of Christ at the crucifixion. In other words it doesn't really have an awful lot to do with a typical day in the office — unless things have gone very wrong indeed. And yet passion is something that every employee must attest to in order to get through any selection process.'
If you enjoy being a pedant and want to smile at our crankiness about words, visit
http://news.bbc.co.uk:80/1/hi/magazine/7453584.stmYou can also click through to 50 office-speak phrases you love to hate at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7457287.stm
Look and feel of Web 2.0 websites
Design and layout are an increasing part of a writer's role. The way our words look on a page influences whether or not someone wants to read what we've written. Sometimes, as with websites, most of us need the help of a designer. But as with our financial affairs, even though design may not be our area of expertise, we need to keep up with the latest trends.
I was shocked into thinking about the latest look and feel of websites when my online programmer told me my website looked old. "About three years old," he added. After a bit of spluttering, I had to admit that in web terms, three years is old. So I started to research what gives a website a Web 2.0 look and feel. (Web 2.0 websites make greater use of interactive tools such as wikis and blogs.)
During my research, one of the things that stood out most was the way colours in modern websites have much more depth.
I came across an excellent article on Web 2.0 websites at
http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/web-2.0-design-style-guide.cfmThis article, which I highly recommend, states that some of the qualities of Web 2.0 websites are:
If you want to see some of these principles in action, go to Barack Obama's site at http://www.barackobama.com/
Labels: Web 2.0, web design, writing websites
Euro English
A reader of my e-newsletter, sent me this joke (old, but still funny) about a five-year plan to phase in EuroEnglish.
In the first year, 's' will replace the soft 'c'. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. Also, the hard 'c' will be dropped in favor of the 'k'. This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter. The 'C' kan have two lines drawn through it and be used for the new EURO kurrensy symbol.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome 'ph' will be replaced with the 'f'. This will make words like 'fotograf' 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent 'e's in the languag is disgrasful, and they should go away.
By the 4th yer, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing 'th' with 'z' and 'w' with 'v'. During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary 'o' kan be dropd from vords kontaining 'ou' and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.
After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer.
ZE DREM VIL FINALI KUM TRU!!
Labels: business writing, Euro English
Sticky ideas are concrete, simple and use stories
In an excellent interview in
The McKinsey Quarterly, Professor Chip Heath states that sticky ideas must be simple, concrete and use stories.
Chip Heath says simplicity is the hardest concept to grasp. He gives the example of a non-profit organisation having eight core values when research has shown that even a few good choices can paralyse people and prevent them from making a decision. He says Bill Clinton had only one guiding message in his presidential campaign: 'It's the economy, stupid'.
As well as being simple, messages have to be concrete. He says: 'Take an abstract message like "Maximise stakeholder value". What should one of your employees do tomorrow to make that happen?'
Far better to use a story. Chip Heath gives the example of a FedEx employee who couldn't open a pickup box on his route as he'd left the key behind in the office. His deadline was tight and so he unbolted the whole box with a wrench — he knew he could open the box back in the office.
Chip Heath goes on to say messages are often abstract because of the 'curse of knowledge'. When we know a lot, it's hard for us to imagine what it's like not to have that knowledge.
So if you want your message to stick, make sure your ideas share the properties of sticky ideas — simplicity, concreteness and stories.
I recommend that you read the whole interview at
http://tinyurl.com/29ycr2 and subscribe to The McKinsey Quarterly at
www.mckinseyquarterly.com.
Labels: business writing, concrete, simple, sticky ideas, stories
Good use of bullet points
Many bulleted lists could be improved by:
- turning the bullet points into a paragraph
- writing a more comprehensive introductory statement
- breaking items into groups
- using fewer bullet points
- using consistent styles — structure and punctuation.
Turning the bullet points into a paragraph
An example I gave in my previous blog entry would be more effective as prose.
Original version
After surgery:
- sit on the side of the bed initially
- transfer to the bedside chair
- walk to the bathroom
- walk freely around the ward
- progress should be gradual, no exertion.Original version
Rewrite
You need to move gradually after surgery to regain your strength. Start by sitting on the side of the bed and then move to the bedside chair. When you feel ready, you can walk to the bathroom and then walk around the ward.
Writing a more comprehensive introductory statement
A long list in my previous blog had a stem statement 'Following surgery', followed by jumbled instructions on bathing, sport, lifting etc. A possible rewrite conveying one of the main messages is:
Recovery from major surgery varies from person to person and may take four weeks to several months.
Breaking items into groups
The items in the 'recovery from surgery' list could easily have been grouped into categories, such as bathing, lifting, sport. Then each group could have been a separate list with a stem statement. If something needed particular emphasis, for example, not removing Steristrips, it could have come first.
Using fewer bullet points
Our eyes glaze over when we see a whole page of bullet points. We have no idea what is most important so we 'skim read' them, often reading only the first and last few bullet points. My rule of thumb is no more than seven bullet points in a list although I break this rule if eight bullet points makes more sense.
Using consistent styles — structure and punctuation
Structure: If your list is a run-on sentence (i.e. every point relates back to the stem statement), each bullet point should relate grammatically to the stem statement.
Punctuation: Styles have changed and semi-colons are not used very often in lists today.
Some guidelines are:
- If each bullet point is a separate statement, as in this list, use normal sentence punctuation.
- If the list is a run-on sentence, start each bullet with an initial lower case letter and just have a final full stop at the end of the last bullet point. You don't need a comma at the end of each point. (Unfortunately, Microsoft Word always wants to default to an initial capital.)
- If your list consists of single words or short phrases, you can use initial capitals and no end punctuation, i.e. no commas, semi-colons or full stops.
Labels: bullet points, business writing
