- Susan Weiner Investment Writing

Bloggers, start with what interests you the most

December 18, 2018/in blog, writing/by Susan Weiner, CFA

In the first of her The Writing Coach podcasts, Rebecca Weber mentioned that she often starts an article by writing the part that interests her the most. Then, she says, it’s easy for her to fill in the other parts, especially if she already has an outline. That’s a great way to overcome writer’s block, in my opinion. It may also be a great way to find a new focus for your blog post.

Benefit from your passion

Blog posts benefit from passion. For starters, you’re more likely to enjoy writing them. That cuts your tendency to procrastinate.

Also, when you write about what interests you, you’re likely to convey your enthusiasm. Your enthusiasm will give your readers a better sense of who you are. If they care about the same things—or if they like your positive energy—you will captivate your readers.

Perhaps there’s more that you can say about that topic to develop it into a complete blog post. Not sure how to expand your topic? Try mind mapping or freewriting, both of which are discussed in my financial blogging book. See where those techniques take you.

Avoid turning off readers

If parts of your outline touch upon topics that don’t excite you, that may deaden the tone of your writing. Your readers may pick up on your lack of enthusiasm. That’s a turn-off.

Of course, there are times when you can’t avoid writing about dull stuff. After all, some of it is essential.

Do your best to write in a reader-friendly manner. Focus on the benefits to the reader, and you may still achieve good results.

Another take on refining your focus

I’ve written about the usefulness of pursuing your interests from a different angle in “Writing tip: Pop the balloon or make it your focus.”

Down with (“The Index”) parenthetical notes!

November 20, 2018/in writing/by Susan Weiner, CFA

Have you noticed how many financial documents have unnecessary parenthetical notes? I mean phrases like the XYZ Fund (“The Fund”) or The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (“The Index”). Those parenthetical references strike me as unnecessary. However, I assumed that lawyers insisted on those parenthetical references.

Parenthetical notes NOT required by law

To my surprise, I found two respected legal stylists arguing against such parenthetical notes. Here’s what Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and Bryan A. Garner, author of Garner’s Modern American Usage and The Elements of Legal Style, wrote in Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges.

Give the reader credit for having a brain—and show that you have one, too… If your brief repeatedly refers to the Secretary of Transportation and mentions no other Secretary, it is silly to specify parenthetically the first time you mention the Secretary of Transportation “(hereinafter ‘The Secretary’).” No one will think that your later references to “The Secretary” denotes the Secretary of Defense, or perhaps your own secretary.

In short, you don’t need those parenthetical references to (“The Fund”) and (“The Index”). Of course, you should consult with your firm’s legal and compliance professionals before eliminating them. Unfortunately, however, it’s rare for legal and compliance departments to get in trouble for saying no to simplification requests.

I hope this quote from Scalia and Garner will help you purge these parenthetical references from your publications.

Some parenthetical notes work

However, sometimes parenthetical references are good, as I explain in “Plain language: Let’s get parenthetical.”

Disclosure: If you click on an Amazon link in this post and then buy something, I will receive a small commission. I link only to books in which I find some value for my blog’s readers.

My 2018 reading, with recommendations for you

November 13, 2018/in writing/by Susan Weiner, CFA

Here are some of the books I read (or referred to) in 2018, divided by categories. I hope you find something useful in my reading.

Business

The Million-Dollar One-Person Business: Make Great Money, Work the Way You Like, Have the Life You Want by Elaine Pofeldt has an over-the-top title, but some good advice on picking a focus for your business and prioritizing.

Here’s one quote that I liked:

Uncovering an idea that you will enjoy thinking about every day—whether that is when you are writing copy for your website or answering a customer’s question about it—is the secret.

I feel that way about writing. I doubt that I’m going to turn my writing into a million-dollar business, but I could become more efficient with Pofeldt’s tips.

Personal finance

Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping by Judith Levine—Levine’s story about her year of living frugally may give you ideas for topics to blog about. At one point, she’s wearing $15 Nike slides, and writes, “Next to the vacationer strolling down the $40,000-a-night beach in her diamond flip-flops, I am Gandhi.”

Personal organization

The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson—Like many people, I sometimes receive gifts that I don’t need or want. I liked this statement by Magnusson:

If you receive things you don’t really want from your parents or someone else who wants to reduce the number of their possessions in their home, you should be honest and say, “No, thank you. I don’t have room for this.” Just moving things someone does not want in their house to your house is not a good solution for anyone.”

Reference books for writers

These two references will always be on my reading list.

* Associated Press Stylebook by Associated Press

* Garner’s Modern American Usage by Bryan A. Garner—This has become a “go to” reference for me.

Upbeat books

Some people can be upbeat in the face of challenges that overwhelm others. Here are some examples.

Dying: a memoir by Cory Taylor—Taylor wrote this book in the year before she died from cancer. Anticipating her death, she says, “…my circumstances were less a cause for sorrow than an opportunity to feel thankful for my unearned good fortune.”

Eyes Wide Open: Overcoming Obstacles and Recognizing Opportunities in a World That Can’t See Clearly by Isaac Lidsky—Lidsky’s TED talk, “What reality are you creating for yourself?” is on my to do list, but I may never get to it because I prefer written to video content. Lidsky went blind, and built a successful career. I liked the first part of the book, where he tells his personal story, the best. The book isn’t as compelling when he speaks more broadly about how you can apply the lessons from his life.

The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathan Haidt

How to Live Well with Chronic Pain and Illness: A Mindful Guide by Toni Bernhard—Bernhard has a friendliness practice. She says, “When I leave the house, I resolve to be friendly to everyone I see, including people I don’t know. I look at each person who comes into view and silently say, ‘May you have a lovely day’ or ‘I hope this day will be fun for you.'” I’d like to try this. As Bernhard says, “Kindness to another person, even if we only offer a heartfelt smile, takes us out of being preoccupied with out own lives.” Is there anyone who couldn’t benefit from that?

Writing

How to Write and Present Technical Information by Charles H. Sides. This book has inspired some posts for my blog.

Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges by Antonin Scalia and Bryan A. Garner. I refer to this book in several 2018 blog posts.

Looking for more recommendations?

For more recommendations, see my reading list from 2017.

Disclosure: If you click on an Amazon link in this post and then buy something, I will receive a small commission. I link only to books in which I find some value for my blog’s readers.

5 things my English teachers failed to teach me

October 30, 2018/2 Comments/in writing/by Susan Weiner, CFA

I was a B student in my high school English classes. But even if I’d been a star, I doubt I would have emerged from high school as a strong writer. Looking back, I see five things my English teachers failed to teach me about writing.

1. It’s OK to give away your main points in your introduction

My English teachers taught me about the importance of building an argument. They got that right.

However, they put so much emphasis on the argument that they overlooked the importance of a strong introduction.

I’m a big believer in giving away your conclusion in your introduction. When you tell your readers your main points in the beginning, you prepare your readers to seek and absorb the supporting evidence. I believe that you make them more receptive to your argument.

2. Wordiness is not a virtue

My high school English teachers failed to curb my long-winded sentences. I wish they had. It has taken me years to make my writing more concise.

People’s attention spans are short. In fact, they’re even shorter now that people do much of their reading on tiny phone screens, instead of printed materials like when I was in high school.

Shorter is better in terms of overall length, as well as the length of paragraphs, sentences, and even words.

3. “Which” and “that” are different

When I opened my Ph.D. dissertation to a random page, I found the following sentence misusing “which.”

Perhaps it was this accomplishment which led Finance Minister Takahashi Korekiyo to say of Goto, during the summer of 1932, “he smells of the Minseito, but as an agriculture minister he is splendid, serious, and able to accomplish his work.”

The “which” in that sentence should be “that.” For an explanation, see “Which vs. that: Which is right?”

And, yikes, the example also illustrates how I was unaware of lesson #2.

4. Don’t use “pride capitals”

True confession: my Ph.D. thesis advisor put a lot of effort into breaking me of the habit of “pride capitals,” a lesson I failed to learn in high school or college.

While I correctly used capitals in my example above referring to Finance Minister Takahashi Korekiyo, I probably referred elsewhere to Takahashi, the Finance Minister. That’s wrong.

5. Don’t leave two spaces after periods

To be fair, two spaces after periods was the standard back in my high school days. But times have changed. Today, one space after a period is standard, although somewhat controversial.

What did YOUR English teachers fail to teach you?

I’m curious. What do you wish your English teachers had taught you?

Let’s be fair to my English teachers

I think my high school English teachers did a decent job, given the curriculum and expectations of their time. I don’t think my English teachers failed overall.

They taught me well enough that I wrote reports that earned As in Advanced Placement Social Studies. My writing got me into college, where I took no more English classes. So, I must credit my high school English teachers with giving me writing skills good enough to get me into graduate school at Harvard.

My posts that attracted the most views during 2018’s third quarter

Write like an effective lawyer

October 2, 2018/in writing/by Susan Weiner, CFA

Lawyers persuade judges when they “communicate clearly and concisely, according to Antonin Scalia and Bryan A. Garner in Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges. I believe the same rule applies to your writing.

Why clear, concise writing matters

Why is this important? Because judges, like your readers, lack the time and patience to decipher unclear, wordy writing. “They are an impatient, unforgiving audience with no desire to spend more time on your case then is necessary to get the right result.” Similarly, the readers of your financial blog posts, white papers, or other communications are looking for information to solve their problems. They want to find it as quickly and efficiently as possible.

“The power of brevity is not to be underestimated,” say Scalia and Garner. “A recent study confirms what we all know from our own experience: people tend not to start reading what they cannot readily finish.” By the way, the source of that research is Susan Bell, Improving Our Writing by Understanding How People Read Personally Addressed Household Mail, 57 Clarity 40 (2007).

I agree with Scalia and Garner that “Every word that is not a help is a hindrance because it distracts.” I also like their editing suggestion that “The final read-through should be exclusively devoted to seeing whether certain points can be put more clearly, more vividly, more crisply.”

Learn more

Want to learn more about writing clearly and concisely? Check out my Financial Blogging book or class, and blog posts like “Does your article pass these writing tests?” and “Writing for financial experts.”

Disclosure: If you click on an Amazon link in this post and then buy something, I will receive a small commission. I link only to books in which I find some value for my blog’s readers.

Do you edit a printed copy of your draft?

September 25, 2018/in writing/by Susan Weiner, CFA

“At least one set of edits should be made on the printed page, pen in hand,” say Antonin Scalia and Bryan A. Garner in Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges. They favor working on a hard copy because “some failings–for example, a missing connection in argument or undue length–are more easily spotted in hard copy.”

My approach to editing

While I tend to edit short pieces on my PC, I agree with printing out longer pieces. My white papers usually get printed out at least twice. I think that editing on paper is better for longer pieces because it slows me down and forces me to consider the piece as a whole before I actually enter my changes into the document.

Please answer my one-question poll

What about you? Please answer my one-question poll. Do you do all of your editing on your computer, or do you sometimes edit a hard copy?

Disclosure: If you click on an Amazon link in this post and then buy something, I will receive a small commission. I link only to books in which I find some value for my blog’s readers.

Break it up!

September 18, 2018/in writing/by Susan Weiner, CFA

William Zinsser, a noted writer on writing, said, as quoted in Jon Winokur’s Advice to Writers:

Short paragraphs put air around what you write and make it look inviting, whereas one long chunk of type can discourage the reader from even starting to read.

I’m a big fan of short paragraphs, as you know if you’ve read about the rule of 42-14-2 in “Does your article pass these writing tests?”

Breaking up long blocks of text is almost always a good idea. It’s especially important when you write something for people to read online. People’s attention spans are shorter online than when they are reading printed materials. Also, people who are reading online tend to be scanning for specific information. Shorter paragraphs make it easier for readers to find the information they seek.

When in doubt, break up your long paragraphs into shorter blocks.

I.e. versus e.g.–which is correct?

September 4, 2018/4 Comments/in writing/by Susan Weiner, CFA

I.e. versus e.g.—do you know the difference between the two? I confess that I often do a Google search to remind myself of which is which. That’s one of the reasons I’d like to abolish these terms from the English language. But they’re not going away, so let’s examine them.

Meaning of i.e. versus e.g.

The bottom line: i.e. means “that is” and e.g. means “for example.”

I.e. is short for the Latin term “id est,” while e.g. is short for “exempli gratia,” according to my old edition of The Chicago Manual of Style, which was my close companion when I was finishing my Ph.D. in Japanese history.

Usage of i.e. versus e.g.

Use i.e. when you’re about to give a complete list of what the term in question means. For example, “non-U.S. stocks, i.e., international developed-market stocks, emerging-market stocks, and frontier-market stocks.”

Use e.g. when you’re only giving a sample of what the term in question means. For example, “non-U.S. stocks, e.g., emerging-market stocks.”

Common punctuation mistake

The key thing to remember about punctuating these two abbreviations is that each of them is typically followed by a comma, just as you’d use a comma in, “for example, mid-cap and small-cap stocks.” Far too often I see i.e. or e.g. without any punctuation next to it.

Workarounds

I agree with Bryan Garner, who says in Garner’s Modern American Usage, “Although the abbreviation is appropriate in some scholarly contexts, the phrase that is or the word namely is more comprehensible to the average reader.” The same goes for using “for example” instead of e.g.

You want your readers to understand you, don’t you?

Garner has many publishers agreeing with him, according to Amy Einsohn’s The Copyeditor’s Handbook:

Many publishers allow the common Latin abbreviations (etc., e.g., i.e.) only in parenthetical references and in footnotes. Copyeditors working under this policy are expected to substitute for the abbreviation or delete it, depending on the context.

Try to avoid using these Latin abbreviations. But if you do use them, please punctuate them correctly.

George Orwell’s writing rules and financial writing

August 14, 2018/in writing/by Susan Weiner, CFA

George Orwell proposes rules for writing that will benefit any financial writer. Here they are, excerpted from his essay, “Politics and the English Language”:

Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

Never use a long word where a short one will do.

If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

Never use the passive where you can use the active.

Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

I confess that I break rule #1, but I wish I could observe it. After all, the idea of volatility as a roller coaster ride gets boring after a while.

I am a huge fan of rules #2 and #3. I’d also add “Never use a long sentence when a short one will do.” A big part of my professional editing work consists of shortening sentences or breaking them into two or three shorter sentences, in addition to simplifying the writers’ vocabulary.

Active verbs generally best passive verbs. Not sure you could recognize or fix a passive verb? Check out the tips in this post about passive verbs.

Investment and wealth management are rich in the jargon referred to in #5. Orwell says that “If you simplify your English…., when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself.” This relates to my post on “Why experts love bad writing.”

Still, there are always times when it makes sense to break the rules, as Orwell says in #6.

Thank you, Doug Tengdin of Charter Trust for suggesting Orwell’s rules as a topic for this blog!

Note: This post was updated on June 9, 2019, when an observant reader noticed that I’d referred to five rules instead of six. Please keep the corrections coming!