6 Basics to Improve Your Writing
by Miki SaxonThis week has been about communications, both corporate and personal, and what they tell the world beyond their words. Today is about basic ways to improve them.
Way back in 2006 I wrote Good writing fast—an oxymoron and in those four years only two things seem to have changed—writers care less and readers complain more.
It’s actually easy to make basic improvements on your writing using tools you already have. Yes, they take an extra minute or two, but consider the negative impression your writing can make will last for years.
Your writing will improve significantly just by using three simple tools
- In Word (or what ever word processing program you use) and turn on spell checker and grammar checker (skip style checker) and use them.
- Write blog comments, etc., in word and paste them where you want them.
- Set your email to spell check automatically before sending.
But the most important tool to improve your writing is your MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™). You may find that you need to adjust all of them and this is as true for corporations as for individuals.
- Foremost, you must think, not only about what you want to say, but also about the effect you want to have and the image you want to project.
- You need to care; you need to own the idea that the stuff you write on the web really is people’s first impression of you and consciously decide what you want that impression to be.
- Understand that jargon, rambling or complex sentences and multi-syllabic words will not make you sound more knowledgeable or your pitch more impressive.
You must be willing to spend the extra few minutes it takes to implement the six points; once it becomes your new norm and you see the effect you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it sooner.
Flickr photo credit to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/karola/3623768629/
