Welcome to the blog – advice, opinions and musings on how to make words work
Most of us don't like the way we look in photos. We wince slightly when we glance at a picture that includes us. Despite how it might feel, though, this has very little to do with how we actually look. It’s because the face we're seeing is not the face we see in the...
Let's start out with a quick question. Look at the line on the left in the image below. Which one on the right do you think is most similar: A, B or...
Much of what we write often sails way over our readers’ heads. The problem is that we take our own knowledge for granted and assume that everyone...
The headline almost leapt out of my screen. It was June 2020. Every day was bringing another batch of harrowing news stories. Yet this one, on the...
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...
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...
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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...
Writer, broadcaster, politician and chef: Clement Freud never ran short of ways to fill his time. This was true until the very end. He died at his...
He’s a shrewd one, that Sir Alan Sugar. As he announced in the opening episode of The Apprentice, he realises that knowing every word...
We should all be eating more pollack, for cod’s sake. So say the environmentalists trying to save the perennial partner to chips from an...
The health sciences have their own language. And those who don’t understand it can simply feel like they’re not part of the club. If...
If you're suffering from writer's block at the moment, spare a thought for the civil servants behind today's G20 summit. By 3.30 today, they have to...
Thinking about jumping onto this bandwagon. But where will it all end? So might read my inaugural ‘tweet’ – by definition: an...
We had this question from a former course attendee: Hi there Please can you settle a dispute! Is it Mother's Day or Mothers' Day? Many thanks Here's...
Council leaders have banned some 200 examples of the worst management jargon. But there are signs they've fallen into the lazy-writing trap...
Today, as you may have noticed, is Friday the thirteenth. If that bothers you, then you're not alone. In fact, the fear of Friday the thirteenth...
Clear writing is dangerous writing. If you edit out all the padding and get to the point, you might actually say something, and this can be quite...
Last Thursday marked the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin: an event that did not go uncelebrated at Emphasis HQ. And even as we hung the streamers...
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. So said Benjamin Disraeli (and later Mark Twain, who was quoting him). Yet...
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