Posts Tagged ‘Writing tips blog’

Writing for the web

Posted by Catie Holdridge

A website is a quick, easy and relatively cheap way to reach thousands of potential clients.

Rich web content is what keeps those prospective clients coming back for more. Most people (75 per cent*) say that content quality is the most important factor governing whether they revisit a website (*Forrester Research).

Yet content readability is one of the most obvious – and most overlooked – aspects of website accessibility. No matter how good the design of your site, and no matter how many users it gets, both are irrelevant if visitors can’t or won’t follow the content.

Of course, websites for large organisations may have several different authors. So it’s easier to slip up on content readability: personal writing styles vary and can lead to confusing inconsistency. There may also be a mad dash to fill pages as soon as they are designed – without enough thought given to subject matter, layout, punctuation, grammar and, most importantly, your site visitor.

Good writing is not merely intuitive. Here are ten top tips on how to improve your site and ensure your content is king.

1. Start with the reader in mind. Ask yourself why they’re going to be visiting a page and what their likely thought process would be. Also, ask what things they wouldn’t be interested in.

2. Use plain English. Imagine a typical customer. What terms would they use? Imagine that you are speaking to them when you write. Read the content out loud if it helps – often it’s the process of writing that causes the problem.

3. Use the active voice, rather than the passive. So rather than saying an area ‘is being redeveloped’, say, ‘we are redeveloping’ it.

4. Structure your sentences logically, by putting the ‘what’ before the ‘why’. So don’t write: ‘If the company makes these changes now, it will immediately improve the service.’ Instead, write: ‘The company will immediately improve the service if it makes these changes now.’

5. Avoid over-long sentences. The best way to do this is to limit yourself to one idea per sentence. (This makes content much easier to write too.)

6. Use punctuation helpfully and accurately. Punctuation may seem like a small thing, but it can make a world of difference. For example, a local authority website recently left the apostrophe out of the following sentence: ‘Residents’ refuse to go in the bins’. The resulting meaning was probably not what the author intended.

7. Be direct. Use the word ‘you’ whenever you can, and address the site visitor directly, as one person. (For example, ‘You can find more information here.’)

8. Talk. If various colleagues provide written information for your website, set up a meeting and decide on a style guide to ensure consistency. For example: use the same subheads and titles; if you use specific abbreviations make sure you all work to the same format. Discuss work in progress as a team so as not to repeat content unnecessarily.

9. Proofread. Inaccuracies can easily be missed. Be sure to print out and proofread the content, as mistakes are much harder to spot on screen.

10. Links. Links can be extremely helpful if directing the site visitor to relevant information. But be careful not to splatter your web pages with links for the sake of it. This can alienate the site visitor from the content they actually require. You don’t want to send them hurtling into the www ether when they could be reading your site.

Tags: web copy, Writing for the web, Writing tips blog
Posted July 16th, 2010 in Online and social media | No Comments »

Into or in to?

Posted by Catie Holdridge

A delegate on a recent Emphasis course suggested a subject for our writing tips blog. ‘Can “into” and “in to”,’ she wondered, ‘always be used interchangeably?’ In a word, no.

Here’s why.

Into

‘Into’ is a preposition. A preposition essentially indicates the relationships (usually within space or time) between two parts of a sentence. Others include ‘in’, ‘on’, ‘above’, ‘behind’, ‘through’, and so on.

‘Into’ generally suggests entry; movement in the direction of; or up against. This can be a real, physical movement or a more symbolic or metaphorical movement: entering a state of being or form, or getting ‘inside’ an idea or concept.

I hurried into the bank.

She walked into a lamppost.

He went into shock.

I looked into the accusations of incompetence.

She went into the entertainment industry.

As with all prepositions, ‘into’ is followed by its object: here, ‘the bank’, ‘a lamppost’, ‘shock’, ‘the accusations of incompetence’ and ‘the entertainment industry’.

Adding the preposition to its object, you get a prepositional phrase, and this works together to give you information about the verb in the first part of the sentence. In these examples, the hurrying, walking, looking etc.

In to

‘In to’ is a phrase where the two words work separately. So:

I hurried into the bank

but

I hurried in to withdraw all my money.

Now ‘in’ modifies ‘hurried’, while ‘to’ is used to show purpose or intention (to withdraw money), rather than direction (literal or otherwise).

To decide which to use, it may help to think about what the ‘to’ part of the sentence is doing, and to which part the ‘in’ belongs. The differences may just become obvious if you just try both ways out.

After a horribly long car journey, he finally turned in to his own garage.

After a horribly long car journey, he finally turned into his own garage. *

Let us know if you have other writing queries you’d like us to answer, either by commenting on our business writing blog, or by posting a query on our writing forum.

* Probably not what was meant, but a good trick nonetheless.

Tags: Grammar, into or in to, Writing skills blog, Writing tips blog
Posted June 10th, 2010 in Grammar | 1 Comment »

Graduate positions

Posted by Catie Holdridge

For anyone graduating – or with offspring who are graduating – this year, you could be forgiven for thinking the future looks a little bleak.

The average graduate salary is likely to stay frozen at £25,000 for the second year running, according to research by the Association of Graduate Recruiters. There are also fewer jobs to be had. And the best that can be said is that the number of vacancies hasn’t fallen as sharply as predicted last year: the decrease was by just under nine per cent rather than the anticipated 25 per cent.

But competition will be extra fierce this year, because the job-hunting class of 2010 will be joined by around 53 per cent of 2009 graduates, who are still vying for positions.

Employers might welcome a bigger talent pool. But such a welcome is misplaced, at least according to one recruitment firm. ‘This rise in the quantity of applications has not brought a rise in quality,’ says ClodaghBannigan, head of client services at Alexander Mann. So it seems that increasing the size of the talent pool has just diluted the talent.

The advice is straightforward: the best approach is to carefully research roles and apply with thoughtful covering letters and tailored CVs. And, as ever, one of the first ways to guarantee your foot in the door (on the way to an interview) is to pay close attention to your writing.

Remember the basics too. You might have an exceptionally well put-together CV, full of pertinent experience and encouraging insights into your person. But all that will mean nothing if your application is thrown out based on the typo in the first line.

Literacy is a basic ‘hard skill’ that prospective employers will look for evidence of in your resume. Typos, spelling mistakes and errors in punctuation and grammar can all indicate sloppy attention to detail and won’t paint you as the kind of representative they’ll want in their company.

Until your interview, you are only as good as your paperwork (to quote the Recruitment & Employment Confederation). But a great CV can get you a chance to prove you are the right person for the job. So make sure yours is:

•   up to date
•   well-structured and clearly laid out: it implies a logical and considered thought process
•   full of objective, genuine evidence of your (relevant) experience and achievements
•   written in simple language and short sentences: waffle will get you nowhere
•   proofed, proofed and proofed again: check all grammar, punctuation and spelling, paying close attention to any contact details. Get someone else to check it too.

Tags: graduate jobs, graduates, writing a cv, Writing tips blog
Posted May 28th, 2010 in Letters and CVs | No Comments »

Dash it! Or do I mean hyphen?

Posted by Catie Holdridge

Sometimes, in a writing skills blog, you’ll find yourself in a corner of the punctuation family tree where two symbols seem so suspiciously similar to each other you could imagine they are basically interchangeable.

Enter the dash and hyphen.

But wait. These actually have quite different purposes, and both are vital parts of the punctuation toolbox.

The lowdown

Dashes

Use them:

• to go on to explain, paraphrase, or draw a conclusion from whatever you’ve just written (in this sense they act in much the same ‘arrow’ way as colons can do). For example:

It’s only rock and roll – but I like it.

• in pairs, where you might otherwise use brackets – think of it as an aside that you want people to hear. Where brackets (or parentheses) can effectively tuck away such commentary (can’t they?), double dashes highlight it more. Either way, the sentence would still make sense if you lifted the section inside the punctuation out.

His favourite song – much to my embarrassment – was actually The Macarena.

• to show a range or sequence – the dash replaces the word ‘to’. You don’t need spaces on either side.

1999–2001; 2007–09
London–Brighton bike race
9am–5pm.

Get to know them:

• In Britain, generally we use the en-rule/en-dash (–). In the US, the longer em-rule/em-dash (—) is more common.

• It is twice the length of the humble hyphen.

• Put a space on either side of it, except when using it to show range or sequence.

• In Microsoft Word, you can create an en-rule by holding down Ctrl followed by the subtract key (or numeric hyphen); if you want an em-rule, type Ctrl + Alt + subtract key. Alternatively, hold down Alt and type 0150 for an en-rule, or 0151 for an em-rule. Often, the AutoCorrect function automatically turns a typed hyphen into a dash (when you leave a space either side and continue the sentence), but it cannot always be counted on to do this, so check back.

• In Mac OS, an en-rule is made by typing Option + hyphen. For an em-rule, it’s Option + Shift + hyphen.

Hyphens

Use them:

• when joining words together in order to act as an adjective before a noun. This is known as an adjectival phrase and the hyphen makes clear which word is being modified. For example:

He’s a rocking-horse enthusiast.

Bread-making machines: imagine that!

There are twenty-odd members of staff at Emphasis.

Still not convinced? Well, compare the hyphen-less versions:

He’s a rocking horse enthusiast. (Loves headbanging; loves showjumping.)

Bread making machines: imagine that! (Run for the hills! The baked goods are getting organised!)

There are twenty odd members of staff at Emphasis. (We prefer the term ‘pleasingly eccentric’.)

• for some compound terms, such as:

Eye-opener, cost-effective, up-to-date, self-assured.

If in doubt, look it up. If it’s not listed as one word or a hyphenated word, split it into two.

• with prefixes, to distinguish from a deceptively similar word eg

I heard a confusing rumour by the water cooler: did Jones resign or re-sign?

• for double-barrelled names:

Resign? Mr Spear-Shaker almost chased him out with a stick!

Get to know them:

• No spaces on either side are needed.

• Often used in web addresses (like www.writing-skills.com), where they are sometimes mistakenly referred to as a dash. If you want people to find your website, it’s important to get this right.

To sum up, we love dashes and hyphens – they are very useful for clarifying meaning – and hope that you will all be dash- and hyphen-lovers now, too.

Tags: dashes, difference between dash and hyphen, how to use dashes, how to use hyphens, hyphens, Writing tips blog
Posted May 21st, 2010 in Punctuation | 1 Comment »

Writing to the Queen (and other titles)

Posted by Catie Holdridge

Ever wondered about the etiquette of address in letters?

Write Now reader Joanne King asked us for a guide to using salutations and ‘Yours sincerely/faithfully’ for titled individuals, such as service men and women, religious leaders and people who have been honoured or decorated.

Happy to oblige, Joanne.

It seems that the necessary formality of this task these days is not what it was, and the occasional slip will be more readily forgiven. But even in today’s informal, fast-paced, flick-a-switch world, the courtesy of addressing people correctly still counts.

Salutations

These days, ‘Dear’ is almost always the best place to start (rather than, say, ‘My lord’ or ‘Very Reverend Sir’). That is, unless you have cause to write to the Pope, in which case, you should begin ‘Your Holiness’ or ‘Most Holy Father’.

Religious leaders

Apart from when dropping an email to his Holiness, the best rule of thumb is to begin ‘Dear [position]’, so just ‘Dear Bishop’, ‘Dear Chief Rabbi’ or ‘Dear Vicar’ will suffice. For priests and rabbis, you might add their surname, eg ‘Dear Father Jones’.

Titled people

Here you will mostly find yourself writing (if not exclaiming) ‘Dear Lord’ (or ‘Dear Lady’), plus the surname, eg Dear Lord Albright. This rule goes for a peer, baron, viscount/viscountess and a marquess/marchioness. But there are some exceptions:

•   Earl/their wife – Dear Lord/Lady [place they are Earl ‘of’]
•   Duke/Duchess – Dear Duke/Duchess
•   Knight or Baronet – Dear Sir [first name], eg Dear Sir Sean (‘You’re still my favourite Bond…’)
•   Dame – Dear Dame [first name], eg Dear Dame Judi (‘Please petition to bring back Sean Connery…’)

Armed forces

These rules aren’t quite as strict as they once were, but politeness is still important. As, naturally, is rank, and it’s vital to note the differences between the different branches. For example, for a lieutenant in the Army, you write ‘Dear Mr [surname]’, while a Naval lieutenant should be greeted ‘Dear Lieutenant [surname]’.

Again, the general rule (no pun intended), is: ‘Dear [rank] [surname]’.

For the lowest ranks in each Force – a pilot or flying officer, a midshipman or a lieutenant (in the Army) – put ‘Dear Mr [surname]’.

And for the highest ranks, do your research and find out what titles they hold. An admiral, field marshal or RAF marshal would most likely also be a knight or a peer. Try to find out whether they prefer to be addressed by rank or as ‘Lord’ or ‘Sir’, and salute them accordingly.

Royals

Unfortunately, no-one but personal acquaintances should write directly to a member of the Royal Family. So if you are holding out to turn the tables on the Queen by sending her a one hundredth birthday card, along, perhaps, with a letter of commiseration for Prince Charles, you’ll actually need to send each letter to their Private Secretaries. Find out if this Secretary is male or female, then start your letter ‘Dear Sir’ or ‘Dear Madam’, and finish ‘Yours faithfully’.

Envelopes

It’s worth noting that although you don’t need to open your letter with the full name in the formal style, you should observe this on the envelope, including their full title plus any ranks, decorations or honours as applicable. For example, although your letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury began simply ‘Dear Archbishop’, the envelope would read: The Most Rev and Rt Hon the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. And your Christmas card to Gordon Brown would be addressed to: The Rt Hon Gordon Brown, MP, Prime Minister (for now at least).

Sign-offs

The straightforward rule for writing to any of the above is that if you are writing to an unnamed ‘Sir’ or ‘Madam’, you use ‘Yours faithfully’. If you are addressing a specific person, whether by name or by title/position, you use ‘Yours sincerely’. (And you only need to capitalise the Y, never the first letter of the second word.)

Once again, the Pope is the exception (as well he might be). If you are Roman Catholic, finish with, ‘I have the honour to be, Your Holiness’s most devoted and obedient child’. If you aren’t, go with ‘I have the honour to be, Your Holiness’s obedient servant’. And try to resist the urge to put ‘hugs and kisses’.

More etiquette advice

Since the sheer quantity of titles out there could rival the shelves in Waterstone’s, it’s not possible to create an exhaustive guide here. But, if in doubt, every eventuality of etiquette for forms of address is available from the very polite people at Debrett’s.

Tags: Debrett's, etiquette, letter-writing etiquette, letters, Writing skills blog, Writing tips blog, writing to religious leaders, writing to service men and women, writing to the Royal Family, writing to titled people
Posted April 30th, 2010 in Letters and CVs | 1 Comment »

iPad 2.0 could herald the paperless office (at last)

Posted by Rob Ashton

Printer manufacturers must be getting a bit twitchy about the iPad. Or if they’re not, they should be – because it could well make a serious dent in their profits, writes Rob Ashton.

Generally, I’m in the ‘pro’ camp when it comes to technology. I’ve bought a fair few examples over the years. And although I discarded some once the novelty wore off, others became an integral part of my life. The iPhone could have been invented just for me.

I realise that not everyone’s like this. And even I admit that modern technology is often no substitute for more traditional devices.

But in business, technology tends to be adopted wholesale when there’s a sound financial reason for doing so. And that’s why I think we might see a dramatic reduction not just in paper usage but in printer-toner sales in the next few years.

It wasn’t so long ago that we used to send documents to each other in the internal mail. Now we’re much more likely to email them. Yet most people still tend to print them out to read them. Despite the cost and the terrible waste of paper, we still like flipping through the real thing.

But the business world may not be far behind the newspaper industry in seeking to cut the use of paper. This is because there are huge potential cost savings to be made if technologists could produce a way of reading onscreen that more people would accept.

Influential technology blog Silicon Alley claimed last year that printing the New York Times costs twice as much as sending every subscriber an Amazon Kindle e-book reader on which to read the electronic version. Now universities in the US are experimenting with delivering textbooks this way.

Just before the iPad’s launch, the technology was already there for ‘acceptable’ forms of electronic reading. The world’s biggest technology show in Las Vegas earlier this year was awash with electronic alternatives to paper.

Electronic paper or ‘e-paper’, as it’s inevitably being dubbed, helps overcome objections from people who prefer the look and feel of real paper rather than a chunky electronic device. And documents displayed in this way should be much easier to proofread.

But problems with lighting mean that, at present, electronic paper can display only black and white images, as can e-book readers such as the Kindle. Such technology relies on electronically magnetised ink, which also needs good lighting conditions to be readable.

The iPad’s colour screen and LED back-lighting get round these problems. And while some have commented that these cause eyestrain, ophthalmologists have disputed this.

What’s more, the iPad electronically reproduces the action of flipping through a document, bringing the experience a step closer to the real thing – but without the waste of printing.

If the iPhone is anything to go by, it will probably be the second-generation iPads that truly find popular appeal, once Apple have ironed out any post-launch teething problems.

But whether e-ink, iPad or iPad 2.0 wins the day, the paperless office may – at last – be just around the corner.

Tags: business writing blog, iPad 2, paperless office, Writing skills blog, Writing tips blog
Posted March 9th, 2010 in Technology | 1 Comment »

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Posts Tagged ‘Writing tips blog’

Into or in to?

Top tips for high-impact documents

Graduate positions

Dash it! Or do I mean hyphen?

Writing to the Queen (and other titles)

iPad 2.0 could herald the paperless office (at last)

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