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 […]
AP StyleGuard: the answer to your proofreading prayers?
How can I create a document that’s free of errors and consistent in its usage? When I accepted a job editing a magazine that said it uses AP style, I figured that AP StyleGuard software might be the answer to my prayers. Does AP StyleGuard deliver? Yes and no. It has pros and cons. The […]
Mix up your style with this writing exercise
Could tweaking your style make your articles, blog posts, and white papers more effective? Try the writing exercise I describe below. The results may surprise you. In Stylish Academic Writing, author Helen Sword proposes a writing exercise in which you first evaluate something you’ve written in terms of the chart below. In other words: […]