5 things my English teachers failed to teach me

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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.

Top posts from 2018’s third quarter

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Check out my top posts from the last quarter!top posts

They’re a mix of practical tips on newsletters (#1), marketing (#2), spelling (#3), punctuation (#4), investment commentary (#5), writing (#6, #7, #8, #10), and PR (#9).

I’m only listing one Mistake Monday post, although more were among the most viewed, because one Mistake Monday post is much like the others. Check out my Mistake Monday posts if you’d like to improve your proofreading skills!

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

  1. Do NOT send your newsletter via your email

  2. 4 tips for mutual fund fact sheet templates

  3. MISTAKE MONDAY for Jul.23: Can YOU spot what’s wrong?

  4. Why there’s no apostrophe in writers room

  5. Investment commentary—5 ways to outsource

  6. Writing and preventable mistakes

  7. George Orwell’s writing rules and financial writing

  8. I.e. versus e.g.—which is correct?

  9. Quit sending irrelevant press releases!

  10. Break it up!

Write like an effective lawyer

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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?

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“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!

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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?

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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

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

  1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
  2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
  3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
  4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
  5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
  6. 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!

Top posts from 2018’s second quarter

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Check out my top posts from the last quarter!

They’re a mix of practical tips on marketing (#1 & #8), writing (#2, #5, & #7), punctuation (#3), grammar (#4 & #6), proofreading (#9), and newsletter (#10).

I’m only listing one Mistake Monday post, although more were among the most viewed, because one Mistake Monday post is much like the others. Check out my Mistake Monday posts if you’d like to improve your proofreading skills!

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

  1. Is there a place for influencer marketing in asset management? This is a guest post by Joe Polidoro of Jove.

  2. No more conclusions, please I feel strongly about this topic, which affects white papers, blog posts, and anything you write that includes a conclusion.

  3. MISTAKE MONDAY for April 9: Can YOU spot what’s wrong?

  4. Only my latest grammar mistake

  5. Glossaries for investment and economic jargon

  6. Getting things as right as you can with a BuzzFeed copyeditor

  7. Does your article pass these writing tests?

  8. Use LinkedIn for a mass email without angering your connections

  9. Avoid this embarrassing mistake in your publications

  10. My newsletter experiment with confirmation requests

Writing and preventable mistakes

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“Does your advice stick?” is the title of an article by Moira Somers in the Journal of Financial Planning (May 2018). Based on her book, Advice That Sticks: How to Give Financial Advice That People Will Follow, it describes why clients fail to follow financial advice, and what advisors can do about it. Somers lists preventable mistakes that advisors make in their personal relationships with clients and prospects.

Some of the mistakes could seep into your writing, making it harder for clients and prospects to feel a connection with you. I highlight two of them below, with comments on how to address them.

Mistake 1. “Using incomprehensible jargon”

If people can’t understand what you’re saying, they can’t follow your advice.

If you’re not sure about the jargon level of your writing, you can run tests using Hemingway, the app I describe in “Free help for wordy writers!” You’ll find more tools in “Does your article pass these writing tests?”

Even better, get a member of your target audience to read what you’ve written. Then, don’t just ask them, “Do you understand what I’ve written?” Ask them to summarize it in their own words. That’s the gold-standard test.

Somers suggests that you ask even more from members of your target audience. She says:

Start by taking every piece of written information you might give to a typical client and hand it over to four or five people—either existing clients or people who would be similar to them in major ways. Equip them with a marker and ask them to highlight every sentence whose content they do not fully understand. Compare the results. Redo those documents in client-friendly language.

That seems as if you’re asking a lot of those people. However, it would be a valuable exercise.

When you rewrite your documents, you may find it helpful to use the techniques in “How to make one quarterly letter fit clients at different levels of sophistication” and “Plain language: Let’s get parenthetical.” You can also consult “Glossaries for investment and economic jargon.”

Mistake 2. “Allowing disapproval, disappointment, or disdain to taint the relationship”

Somers’ suggestion for this point focuses on in-person meetings. “Do a warmth audit of your team,” looking at “eye contact, nodding, and smiling.” Look at your writing through a similar lens.

Tone matters. Your blog posts and articles can suggest that your readers are making mistakes, but you shouldn’t imply “Oh, you idiot, stop making such stupid moves!”

I struggle with hitting the right tone as I write blog posts. It’s not easy. By saying that many people grapple with similar issues, I hope to avoid shaming people. After, most of my readers aren’t professional writers. It’s not reasonable to expect them to know the ins and outs of grammar, white papers, and the like.

Show empathy. You can do this focusing on the reader, suggests The Search Guru in “Discover how to show empathy in writing and why it’s important.” That means showing that you understand and empathize with the wants and/or needs of a relevant group of people.”

I offer more tips on this in “How to add personality and warmth to your financial writing—”How to add personality and warmth to your financial writing—Part One” and “How to add personality and warmth to your financial writing—Part Two.”

 

Purge these preventable mistakes from the writing you put in front of your clients and prospects! You’ll like the results.

 

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.

 

 

Your childhood writing and your future as a writer

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What can your childhood writing experiences tell you about your future as a writer? The haircut I gave the life-sized doll from my childhood accurately predicted that I have no aptitude as a hair stylist (see the scary photo below). Can childhood experiences also predict our writing skills as adults?

my doll after her haircut

Childhood writing indicators

Mulling it over, I see the following potential indicators of your future as a writer:

  • Your grades in English classes
  • The encouragement you received for your writing
  • The quality of your writing
  • Your skill with words and writing
  • Your love (or dislike) of writing

Were these good predictors for me?

My childhood didn’t instill in me a belief that I would become a reasonably good writer.

I believe I was a B-average student in my high school English class. Back then, social studies classes were my strong point (as you may know, I eventually earned a Ph.D. in Japanese history). As a high school senior, my heroes were Edwin Reischauer, Japanese historian and ambassador to Japan, and modern dancer Martha Graham. Nobody encouraged me to write—probably because I was an average writer. Looking back at later examples of my writing, as I did in “Confessions of a lousy writer—and 6 tips for you,” I feel confident that I didn’t show promise as a writer.

However, I wrote a lot as a kid. I filled many spiral-bound notebooks with my journaling. I also wrote a long fairy tale with a hero named Zoogoo. I slipped into another world when I wrote. Even today, I feel a similar sense of complete absorption when I write these blog posts. I feel satisfaction from sorting out my thoughts, even though I’m not tackling topics of lasting importance.

Childhood writing vs. adult writing

I think the good feelings I got from writing were the best predictor of my future as a writer. Through study and practice, I was eventually able to overcome my weaknesses as a writer.

What about YOU? What does your childhood writing experience tell you about your writing as an adult?