Writing Matters

Treasure Trove of Writing Resources

My Proofreading Tips for Finding Errors in Your Own Writing post keeps generating feedback. Most recently, Cate Newton sent me a link to the writing resource page  she compiled for the Guide to Online Schools website. 

Cate wrote: “We are trying to build up useful resources for students of all ages…. We’ve compiled a list of the most useful grammar, proofreading and writing style guides on the Internet into one, easy-to-navigate article.”

Her writing resources are indeed a treasure trove. Among the gems on her list:

BBC Proofreading
Proofreading tips, practice exercises, and quizzes to test your skills. I aced the Level C (Superstar) proofreading test. But I admit that the question prompts and the multiple-choice format helped me catch errors I might have missed. 

The Online Grammar Guide 
The comprehensive guide to English grammar created by Jack Lynch, associate professor at Rutgers University, provides an alphabetic listing of grammar and word choice issues. Lynch offers this consoling take on the difference between that and which.

“Many of the best writers in the language couldn't tell you the difference between them, while many of the worst think they know. If the subtle difference between the two confuses you, use whatever sounds right. Other matters are more worthy of your attention.” He then offers a clear and pithy explanation of the difference. 

The University of Ottawa 
An online grammar course that covers the parts of speech, punctuation, pronouns, verbs, modifiers, clauses, sentences and spelling. This course lets you brush up on English grammar in the privacy of your office or cubicle. 

The Ultimate Style Guide Resources for MLA, APA, Chicago, and CSE
A list of good Internet style guide links. If The Chicago Manual of Style is your style bible, you’ll love the CMS Crib Sheet that summarizes the manual’s most important topics and rules.

School House Rock 
And finally, if you need a break from the rigors of correct usage, head over to Grammar Rock for animated music videos that teach the rules and make you smile. Busy Prepositions makes sense of the confusing rules for prepositions. You’ll spend the day humming the tune (guaranteed!). 

--Marilynne Rudick

How the Humble Checklist Helps You Get E-Mail Right

I'm a devout list maker. I have shopping lists, to-do lists, vacation packing lists, work project lists, and lists of my lists (not yet!). I've always been a little apologetic about relying so heavily on lists. That is, until I heard Atul Gawande, a surgeon, making the rounds of talks shows (including The Daily Show) to promote his book The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right.

Gawande's premise is that life has gotten so complicated that people are overwhelmed with information. The result is that we make preventable mistakes. Years ago, Boeing found that a simple pre-flight checklists for pilots dramatically reduced crashes. Gawande applied the checklist concept to medicine. A simple pre-surgery checklist that included such seemingly obvious questions as Do you have blood on hand? cut death rates by over one-third in the first eight hospitals that used it.

While workplace writing isn't normally a life-or-death occupation, I've found that checklists have saved me from embarrassment and helped me do my job better. So I'm offering up two of my favorite e-mail writing checklists:

• E-WRITE's Before-You-Send Checklist

Does your e-mail pass the "blush test?" Use the Before-You-Send Checklist to keep yourself from sending embarrassing e-mail. (If only Governor Mark Sanford had used the checklist!)

• E-WRITE's Customer Service E-Mail Checklist

Would you like to make sure all of your customer service e-mails are great? Use this checklist when answering your customers' e-mails. 

Do you have a "life saving" writing checklist? E-mail it to me and I'll share it with our readers.

--Marilynne Rudick

Tips to Help You Write When You'd Rather Not

Chances are, if you are facing a writing deadline, you’ve got a clean refrigerator. That’s because given the choice between writing and cleaning the refrigerator, or writing and root canal, or writing and most anything else, you’ll opt for the non-writing alternative. And there are dozens of ways to avoid writing that don’t even require leaving your desk.  Hmm. I wonder what’s in my spam folder?

That’s why, in the face of several writing project deadlines, I was surfing the web looking for advice on how to improve my writing productivity. Turns out, writers have a lot of seat-of-the-pants productivity advice:

•  Reward yourself.  Set word or time goals and reward yourself for meeting them. For example, set the alarm clock for an hour and do nothing but write. Matthew Stibbe, author of the Bad Language  blog uses this ruse: “Write another 500 words [and] you can have a cup of tea and a biscuit.” Other rewards suggested by writers: Jaffa Cakes, cigarettes (creates other problems!), and my reward of choice—Trader Joe’s chocolate covered espresso beans.

• Find the magical hour. Write first thing in the morning or late at night when there are few distractions. “The dark, the silence, no one to distract you, [are] all good arguments for working close to midnight,” says JCN (commenting on Stibbe’s post).

• Use low-tech tools. A surprising number of writers said that using a basic text editor, instead of a full-featured word processor, forces them to focus on words and not be distracted by formatting or graphic enhancements.  Those recommended text editors include:

o     Notepad, the no-frills text editor that is bundled with Microsoft Windows.

o   WriteRoom (for Mac), a back-to-basics lightweight text editor recommended by productivity guru Merlin Mann as the right tool “if you need to get your head out of your butt and put some words on the page."

o       Q10, a slimmed-down text editor that lets you set a timer to schedule writing and break time. Q10 consists of one small, portable file. Load it on your thumb drive and write anywhere: Starbucks, the library the beach.

Note: I haven’t personally used WriteRoom or Q10. But I’ll take them out for a test drive (a great way to avoid writing!) and report on them in future posts.

• Use no-tech tools. Freelance writer Dustin Wax offers a reminder of the merits of the tried-and-true pen and paper. “A lot of people find that the feel of pen and paper keeps their creative juices flowing and their mind focused.” While hand-written text needs to eventually be typed, “that’s a good time to do editing and revision.” 

And finally, if all else fails:

• Punish Yourself. Write or Die lets you set a time and word limit. (For example, 200 words in 20 minutes). Don’t meet your goal? Choose your punishment—a mildly unpleasant sound or the kamikaze: your writing disappears! 

Add your productivity tip to this list. Post a comment or send me an e-mail.

--Marilynne Rudick

Social Media Press Release: Tips and Examples

Does the traditional press release format work in the world of 24-hour news, blogs, Facebook and Twitter? Many media professionals think the 100-year-old press release format is ineffective and obsolete. They're calling for a new approach. Read my companion post: The Social Media Press Release: A New Approach to the Old Problem of Getting Noticed.

Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your Social Media Press Release (SMPR)

1. Think modular. Whether you are using the template approach or a traditionally written press release enhanced with multimedia and social media elements, make sure each component or section of the release can stand alone.
2. Link, link, link. Optimize links for search engine visibility. If your SMPR is being distributed by a news service, make sure to link back to a landing page or newsroom at your website. Include links to related information at other pages on your website. Link out to social bookmarking and social media sites, such as delicious, Digg, and Technorati.
3. Post content in multiple channels. In addition to including multimedia elements in your SMPR, post components of your release to appropriate sites for increased search engine visibility. For example, post your videos on YouTube and your photos on Flickr.
4. Write your SMPR content for online readers. They scan rather than read word for word. Write short, use bulleted lists, and write message headings.
5. Use keywords to maximize search engine ranking. Repeat the keywords in headlines, subheads, and in the text of the social media release.
6. Use visuals. Include your logo, a headshot of your organization's CEO, maps and charts, and photos of products or services. Also include video. Videos don’t have to be professionally produced. YouTube-quality videos help reporters understand your product, and that helps them explain it to their readers.
7. Incorporate interactivity. Engage in a conversation with the media and customers by providing a way for them to comment or ask questions.

Social Media Press Release: Resources and Examples

• “Anatomy of the Social Media Press Release,” a presentation delivered at the 2008 Public Relations Society of America conference, explains the concepts behind the SMPR and includes a good annotated sample.
• The National Restaurant Association lists its social media releases going back to December 2008,including “Winners of 2009 Restaurant Neighbor Award for Outstanding Community Service“ and “Healthy Kids’ Meals, Local Produce, Mini Desserts Among Hottest Menu Trends for 2009.”
• The 2008 GovGab SMPR announced the first birthday of GovGab, the U.S. government blog. The multimedia elements in this SMPR include audio, commenting, photos of the GovGab bloggers, and links to their bios.
• “Second Life Reforestation Project Qualifies as a Finalist in American Express Members Project,” distributed by RealWire, is a good example of an SMPR that uses the full gamut of social media elements, including video, tags, and commenting.
• Dupont’s release on Nomex® On Demand™ , fiber technology that protects firefighters, is a good example of a wire service traditional release enhanced with multimedia elements, including a YouTube video that shows how  Nomex® On Demand™ actually works.

--Marilynne Rudick

Download our Web Editorial Style Guide: Get Answers to Burning Questions About Correctness

Early this summer we wrapped up a great project and we'd like to share the fruits of our labor with you. After about 18 months of discussion, development, and drafts, the Web Editorial Style Guide we wrote for the Energy Information Administration (EIA) has finally been published as a wiki on EIA's intranet. While we can't offer you access to their intranet, we can offer you the Style Guide as a PDF download.  Just complete the Style Guide download form and you'll get the 66-page Style Guide. Though the Style Guide is illustrated with EIA-related examples, its common sense advice is useful for anyone who wants to publish correct, consistent content.

We realize it's the height of the summer vacation season and the Web Editorial Style Guide will never make your list of books to take to the beach, but we think it's a great resource for:

• Documenting editorial style decisions and settling editorial conflicts. The Style Guide puts the rules about writing in writing. For example, for EIA website is one word. End of discussion.
  
• Establishing a climate of collaboration in online publishing. This is especially true for EIA's Style Guide, published as a wiki. Though the EIA web management team has placed limits on users' abilities to change the Style Guide wiki, their choice to publish the Style Guide as a wiki enables them to update the Guide easily and frequently.  For example, a recent request from an EIA employee in Dallas on how to handle the phrase "Lower 48 States" led to a decision, published in the Style Guide wiki: capitalize the word State, omit the hyphen. 
• Providing guidance on editorial issues large and small. In addition to recording rules for writing correctly, the Style Guide includes advice on writing well. For example, the first chapter of the Guide contains this advice:

Consider your audience. The best writers anticipate, and answer, their readers’ questions.  Identify your intended readers before you begin writing.  Think about what they already know and what they will want to know about your topic. While planning and drafting your content, keep your readers in mind.  Consider their level of technical expertise, their depth of interest, and the uses they will have for the information you provide.  

We hope this Web Editorial Style Guide may serve as a model as you update or develop a style guide for your online writing. We're also interested in how you "govern" online writing in your organization. Leave us a comment to let us know whether you use a style guide. If so, did you develop it yourself? We'd love to take a look at your guide, so provide a link, if you're willing.

-- Leslie O'Flahavan

Wikipedia: A Bold Experiment in Community

I’m a big fan of collaborative writing. So no wonder I found Andrew Lih’s book about the world’s largest collaborative writing project fascinating: The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World’s Greatest Encyclopedia.

Wikipedia is often my first read when I need a quick explanation or overview of a topic. I knew that Wikipedia was user generated, but I hadn’t given much thought to how it came about or just how many users it took to generate more than 13,000,000 articles in more than 260 languages. Turns out, what was started by a group of hackers now counts more than 75,000 Wikipedians as active contributors. In his book, Lih tells the story of  Wikipedia’s unlikely conception and its phenomenal growth.

 I found Wikipedia’s vision even more awesome than its size: “Free access to the sum of all human knowledge.” The concept of free extends far beyond not paying to access the content. Wikipedia embraces the concept of “copyleft.” Anyone is free to copy, modify and redistribute content.

Wiki technology pre-dates Wikipedia. Jimmy Wales, one of Wikipedia’s founders, thinks that Wikipedia's genius is not technology. Wales sees Wikipedia as a social innovation: a way of creating community. Anyone can become part of the community and create, edit, or verify content.

Surprisingly, the Wikipedia community operates with few rules. (One of the rules is “Wikipedia does not have firm rules.”) Its underlying principle is grounded in the computer hacker culture which embraces sharing and assumes good faith: “Unless there is strong evidence to the contrary, assume that people who work on the project are trying to help it, not hurt it.”

A few core policies reinforce Wikipedia’s purpose:

• Neutral point of view. It's an encyclopedia not an editorial.
• Verifiability. Wikipedia articles are heavy on citations.
• No original research. As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia’s goal is to summarize existing writing and scholarship.

Does the Wikipedia community work? For the most part it works astonishingly well. While errors occur in content, and there are turf wars, the massive number of contributors and users assure its accuracy. The more popular an article, the more likely it is to be accurate, since the large number of eyeballs policing it ensure that errors are quickly fixed. Because each article contains numerous references, it’s easy for users to check the source of the information to determine credibility and accuracy.

Like me, you might find the idea of contributing to the world’s largest encyclopedia intimidating. What if I screw it up? Since Wikipedia tracks each change, it’s hard to mess up: you can always revert to the previous version. (To see the log of changes for an article, click on the history tab.) Afraid of committing a grammar offense? A battery of volunteer editors corrects usage errors.

 If you are still feeling timid about clicking the edit tab, you can start small. The Help Out section of the Community Portal page contains a list of tasks you can do. (For example, expand an article, copy edit, verify sources). Still not ready to become a full-fledged Wikipedian? Play around with the editing functions in the Sandbox.

One warning about getting involved in the Wikipedia community. Lih recounts how many people become addicted or even obsessed. (More productive than frittering away time with online solitaire or poker). Forewarned!

--Marilynne Rudick

Are Hyphens Obsolete?

You probably don't think about hyphens until they cause trouble. For example, here’s the work description I recently got from a landscaper: relay flagstone. The absence of a hyphen completely changed the meaning from laying again (re-lay) to passing something along to a person (as in relay race). There's this classic: "I resent the e-mail" rather than the intended "I re-sent the e-mail."

Hyphens are a conundrum. Traditionally, you've had three choices: hyphenate (real-time), two words (real time), one-word (realtime). We now see a fourth choice: camel case—two words smashed together with the first letter of the second word capitalized (realTime). Given the confusion over the three traditional choices, I predict the increasing popularity of camel case—avoiding the hyphen dilemma completely.

There are few hard-and-fast hyphen rules. That adds to the confusion. Many hyphen decisions are governed by style conventions. For example, most—but not all—style guides call for hyphenating compound words when they function as an adjective before the noun: time-sensitive report. But if the compound follows the noun, no hyphen is used: The report is time sensitive. Even more confusing, words often evolve going from two words or a hyphenated compound to one word: web site, web-site, website. And we’ve seen how quickly e-mail morphed into email.  

It’s not just the writing class that finds hyphen confusing. So does the ruling class. No less an authority then Angus Stevenson, editor of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (a two-volume "Cliffs Notes" of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary), ditched 16,000 hyphens in the most-recent 6^th edition (September 2007). “People are not confident about using hyphens anymore,” he said. “They’re not really sure what they’re for.”

 So, are hyphens obsolete? Can you use them willy-nilly? Before you jettison the hyphen, consider the hyphen’s most important raison d’être: clarity.

1. Use a hyphen to avoid ambiguity (relay / re-lay; re-sent / resent).
2. Use a hyphen when it clarifies the meaning (little used car / little-used car; twenty odd people / twenty-odd people).
3. Use a hyphen to avoid “letter collision” (shelllike / shell-like).
4. Use a hyphen to indicate that the word is con-
   tinued on the next line. (Happily we don’t have to think about this too often since most word processing programs hyphenate automatically.)

 Need more hyphen guidance?

• Consult an up-to-date dictionary, such as Dictionary.com or the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary  to see whether the word is normally hyphenated.
• Reference the Chicago Manual of Style’s guidance on Compounds and Hyphenation.
• Read “A Little Used Punctuation Mark" in Eats, Shoots & Leaves. The author, Lynne Truss, gives practical and witty advice, including this caveat from an old Oxford University Press style guide: “If you take hyphens seriously, you will surely go mad.”

--Marilynne Rudick

 

The Best of. . . Writing Tips for 2009 That Are Really Useful

It’s tempting to start the new year with a writing resolutions blog (write more, procrastinate less) or the evergreen Writing Tips for the New Year.  But even better is not having to write a top tips blog because it’s already been written. John Roach solicited tips from top writers  to compile his 2009 list for Pro Writing Tips.

This list goes beyond the hackneyed (punctuate correctly, use spell check) to provide useful and unique tips that can help novice as well as experienced writers.

One tip that I particularly like is from Lynn Gaertner-Johnston who writes Business Writing Blog:

“When you are struggling over how to craft a message, forget about what you have to say. Instead, write what the reader needs to know. A successful message focuses on the reader.”

After reading John Roach's list, I wondered who else had useful and unique tips. So I combed the blogosphere (write more, procrastinate less). I like Angela Booth’s Top Ten Writing Tips to Help You Write More.  Among her tips:

"Pay attention to images. Your right brain thinks in images, and when you write, you translate images from your right brain into words. Usually this process happens so quickly that you're unaware of it. If you can make this process conscious, you can goose up your own creativity. Stephen King calls this process 'writing with the third eye '--- the eye of imagination and memory."

Among the most thought-provoking was Brian Clark’s Ernest Hemingway’s Top 5 Tips for Writing Well.  Clark applies Hemingway’s techniques to business writing.  Here’s one tip:

 “Use short sentences.  Hemingway was famous for a terse minimalist style of writing that dispensed with flowery adjectives and got straight to the point. In short, Hemingway wrote with simple genius. Perhaps his finest demonstration of short sentence prowess was when he was challenged to tell an entire story in only 6 words: For sale: baby shoes, never used."

Of course, reading all of these tips inspired me to send my top writing tip for 2009 to John Roach. He kindly added it to his list:

“Think of all writing as collaboration. Get feedback early and often from readers, reviewers, and good writers.”

With best wishes for happy writing in 2009!
--Marilynne Rudick

Grammar Girl Podcasts: Grammar Made Fun

Fun is not a word you normally associate with grammar. More frequent associations are root canal and hostage. But Grammar Girl's podcasts Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing address grammar and usage issues in a clear, breezy—and yes fun—way. Each episode is 2 to 10 minutes of easy listening, long enough to explain the topic and short enough to avoid grammar fatigue.

Grammar Girl is Mignon Fogarty, technical writer turned grammar tipster. If you have a grammar or usage question, good chance Grammar Girl has answered it. She’s tackled my pet peeve: Less Versus Fewer.  She’s taken on grammar’s equivalent of urban legends:  Top Ten Grammar Myths. (#1. You shouldn’t end a sentence with a preposition.) 

But Fogarty’s guidance isn’t limited to traditional English teacher fare. She has waded into the here-and-now with a podcast on Text Messaging Grammar . Even bolder, she’s created a style guide for tweets:  Grammar Girl's Strunk & Twite: An Unofficial Twitter Style Guide.  No piece of guidance is longer than Twitter’s limit of 140 characters.

Which takes us back to grammar and fun. Or more specifically funnest. Grammar Girl took on this usage firestorm after Steve Jobs pronounced his new iPod, “funnest iPod ever.” This created what Fogarty termed a “grammar emergency.” Her response is an interesting explanation of word evolution: Is “Funnest” a Word?  

You can get Grammar Girl’s tips as podcasts, transcripts, and a newsletter. But I think the podcasts are the funnest. 

--Marilynne Rudick

Elements of Style: A "Must Have" Writing Resource

A September 6th column by Jonathan Yardley, book critic for the Washington Post, took a new look at a classic writing resource, The Elements of Style  (William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White).  This slim, no-nonsense guide to writing is on everyone’s short list of recommended writing resources, including mine. But it’s been a long time since I actually looked at this book. I most often turn to The Chicago Manual of Style  when I have usage questions.

Yardley’s praise made me pick up my yellowed copy. (Second Edition, copyright 1972, price $1.65!)  What a gem.  Strunk and White set down in short form (my copy is 78 hand-sized pages) the writing issues that every writer faces. There is no waffling here: “Avoid fancy words.” “Use the active voice.” “Prefer the standard to the offbeat.” 

And the explanation of conciseness --“Omit unnecessary words”-- models this command:

“Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subject only in outline, but that every word tell.”

Yes, writing has changed since 1957—the year of first publication. There’s a new cyber vocabulary and new conventions (such as bulleted lists). But Elements of Style stands the test of time. It’s the first book a would-be writer should pick up and a touchstone for experienced writers.

In his introduction to  Elements, which is based on Professor Strunk’s rule book, White offers this praise:   “. . . It contains rich deposits of gold.”

--Marilynne Rudick