Writing Advice

The most natural-sounding videos are carefully scripted

shooting videos

If you’re shooting a video and want comments from company officials, customers, and other stakeholders to sound completely natural, make sure you script them before they say a word. Think it’s counterintuitive that the best way to make the people in your videos sound unrehearsed is to put words in their mouths and have them … Read more

The seven easiest ways to improve your writing

improve your writing to connect

Whether you think of yourself as a skilled writer or dread reaching for the keyboard, writing probably plays a critical role in your daily work. You may not be authoring articles for professional journals, but you probably have to create emails, reports, and other items that require some writing skill. Following a few simple, easy-to-remember … Read more

Here’s exactly how long marketing copy needs to be

long marketing copy measurement

What’s the ideal length of copy for websites and other marketing materials? I’ve noticed a lot of people seem to view themselves as experts on the subject — although what most don’t realize is their answers are based on personal preference or learned prejudice. The simple answer is that the correct amount of copy is … Read more

Don’t let technicalities ruin your technical communication

technical communication

Companies and other organizations develop technical documents like white papers and blogs to explain the advantages they offer or to educate their stakeholders about situations or issues. Unfortunately, all too often, those efforts fall short of their objectives. Their target audiences come away not knowing any more, so the organization’s team has essentially wasted the … Read more

When you can’t start writing, try beginning in the middle

technical communication

“I hate staring at that empty screen and that #%#^$% blinking cursor. I know exactly what I want to say, but I can’t get started.” No matter who you work for and no matter what your role may be, your job probably involves some writing. If you’ve faced times when the right words wouldn’t come, … Read more

Seven easy ways to improve your writing

improve your writing

Whether you consider yourself to be a skilled writer or you dread reaching for the keyboard, writing probably plays a critical role in your daily work. You may not be authoring articles for professional journals, but you probably have to create emails, memos, reports, and other items that require some writing skill. Following a few … Read more

When people aren’t reading, you really need a copywriter

copywriter needed

Nobody reads copy anymore. At least that’s what everyone tells me. Nobody pays attention to the printed word, so keep it to a minimum and don’t even think about using a word with more than two syllables. Much as I hate to admit it, there’s some wisdom behind that. Couple the oversupply of information to … Read more