Editing tool: the Writer’s Diet
It’s hard to be objective about your own writing. I know that’s true for me. That’s why editing tools, like the Writer’s Diet, can help. Writer’s Diet editing tool identifies weaknesses The Writer’s Diet is a free, online tool that assesses what you enter into its text box. It evaluates your use of verbs, nouns, […]
My suspicion about “best” lists
I’m grateful to be named occasionally to “best” lists that circulate via social media. I’m also a bit suspicious. I imagine that many of the list creators are sincere. I get that sense, especially when they don’t describe me with a blurb drawn word for word from my website. On the other hand, I suspect […]
Word repetition—good or bad?
“Can I repeat this word throughout my report, or is it better to mix things up?” That’s a question I hear sometimes. Many people think that repetition is bad. I like the following quote from Roger Rosenblatt in Unless It Moves the Human Heart: The Craft and Art of Writing: Read Hemingway’s short stories, where he […]
Writing for financial experts
How should you tailor your financial writing for experts like institutional investors or financial professionals? I have many gut feelings about what you should do. But this time I’m drawing on other people’s research. Nielsen Norman Group (NNG) performs great research about how people read on the web. NNG’s Hoa Loranger and Kate Meyer discuss […]
Catch e-newsletter non-openers with this technique
Do you feel disappointed when some of your e-newsletter subscribers fail to open your newsletters? It happens to everybody. The average “open” rate for financial e-newsletters is about 18%, according to Constant Contact. I’ve learned a technique that has boosted my open rates significantly in two tests. First, I increased the open rate on one […]