Welcome to the blog – advice, opinions and musings on how to make words work
One of the biggest killers of great ideas (and even greater careers) has to be impostor syndrome. I've met countless professionals who were held back by a lack of confidence in their own knowledge and expertise. It’s almost always unjustified and it always breaks my...
I've got a quick question for you. How many people live in the Australian capital of Sydney? Is it two million? Five million? Seven million? The...
A paper to the board can be incredibly powerful. But you have to tell them what you want and make sure they actually read it.
Organisations are full of documents that don't work. The CEO of a London bank recently told me that he'd spent 20 minutes of his last board meeting...
If you're putting off writing a tricky email or text right now, you're not alone. According to a recent poll by YouGov, almost one in three adults...
Getting someone to read a document is often a bit like pushing a car that won't start. You have to overcome a ton of inertia at first. But it then...
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People read your documents until they can stop. Then they do. But that's not because we have limited attention spans. The truth is that we can focus...
One of the biggest business-writing myths has to be that shorter is always better. 'Less is more,' say those who claim to be in the know. Keep it...
Imagine you've just got a text from a friend. Which of these two messages would you react to more strongly? A: 'The forecast doesn't look great...
Have you ever written what you thought was a perfectly clear email, only to get a reply ten minutes later that left you scratching your head?...
Ask most scientists, engineers and technologists why they got into the profession and they’re unlikely to say it was because they love...
It's amazing how many good ideas are lost in translation – not from one language to another, but from the brain to the printed page. One...
Whether the message is good, bad or indifferent; now is no time for silence, says Rob Ashton. During the ancient wars, if you wanted to...
For such a tiny punctuation mark, the apostrophe has an enormous tendency to confuse and irritate people. The reaction to this all-too-common...
Expert trainer Kathy Gemmell explains how to use design to create easy to read, high-impact documents. Learn how to: Make a document look readable...
Someone once said that writing is easy. You just sit at your keyboard and wait – till the beads of blood form on your forehead. For anyone who...
The power of language is often harnessed to persuade. And love them or hate them – it’s usually one or the other – advertisements...
Last month we announced the launch of our index tracking the use of the words ‘green shoots’ and ‘recovery’ in the...
The meeting room is booked and you’re waiting for your clients to arrive. The reception is strangely quiet and no-one turns up. It’s a...
The police often have a hand in giving out long sentences. Now they’re writing them. A potentially record-breaking 102-word single sentence...
Ever seen the TV game show Supermarket Sweep? The premise is pretty simple. After answering a series of questions, the contestants are instructed to...
Am I the only one who is taking the decision to ban the ‘i before e’ rule a little too much to heart? It’s been deemed too...
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