Q&A format for articles: Good or bad?

The Q&A format has its uses. An FAQ section covering frequently asked questions belongs on many websites. However, this format should be used sparingly for articles.

Q&A format for articles good or bad infographic

 

FAQs work, so why not Q&A articles?

Unlike articles, FAQs are meant to be searched or skimmed for one question, not read word-for-word. Their readers seek answers to specific questions or solutions for problems, such as “How can I fix it when I get Error Message XYZ?” An FAQ may include many questions, but the reader is interested in one—or only a few—Q&A pairs.

Q&As make it hard to grasp an overall message

The Q&A format makes it harder for readers to grasp your overall message than with an article. A traditional article can offer an introduction, headings, and a skilled writer’s transition between topics.

Q&A interviewees may hold you hostage

The Q&A format works best when your interviewees know how to hit your readers’ hot buttons, and they’re articulate. You can’t count on finding that in every interviewee.

When you choose a Q&A format, you deny yourself the use of paraphrasing. As a reporter, I learned that only lazy reporters always use direct quotes. Paraphrases, which restate what your source said, can be more economical and effective. Plus, a colorful quote stands out better against a background of plain vanilla text.

Q&A format is okay when…

A Q&A format works well when you:

  1. Write FAQs
  2. Keep it short—My gut tells me three questions is a good length. A Q&A may work well as a blog post. I often discuss reader questions on my blog.
  3. Interview a famous person whose fans care about every word he or she utters—Think Taylor Swift and young girls or Warren Buffett and investors.
  4. Add headings—They’ll make it easier for the casual reader to find information that interests them.
  5. Edit the interview transcript—Word-for-word transcripts don’t make anyone look good. At a minimum, cut out the ums, uhs, incomplete sentences that don’t work, and irrelevant material. If you’re interviewing a corporate employee for your company’s newsletter, you can take more liberties, as long as you check with the employee to make sure you haven’t misrepresented him or her.

What do YOU think?

I’m curious to learn what you think about the pros and cons of the Q&A format. If you’ve used it effectively, feel free to share a link.

 

NOTE: Originally published April 9, 2013. Updated Jan. 14, 2024.

Singular or plural–which is right for $5 million?

It’s not always easy to tell whether a noun is singular or plural. Take this example “$5 million was/were enough.”

When I informally polled some writer friends, four out of five voted for “was.” That sounds right to me, too.

The word “dollars” is plural, but “$5 million” becomes what grammarians call a collective noun.

Think of it this way, a portfolio management team is made up of people, but the team is a single entity so you say “The team was” instead of “The team were.”

On collective nouns, a Grammar Girl blog post written by Bonnie Trenga (but no longer available online) said the following:

Inanimate objects, such as “sugar” or “furniture,” are called mass nouns or uncountable nouns, and are always singular. So you would say, “This sugar is very sweet” or “My furniture is too old.” You can’t say, “This sugar are” or “My furniture are.” If you want to talk about individual grains of sugar or individual pieces of furniture, then you have to say something like “Eight grains of sugar were found” or “These pieces of furniture are new.”

However, as one of my friends and the Grammar Girl blog pointed out, the British treat collective nouns differently. They combine them with plural verbs. No wonder some of us are confused!

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

Note: This post was updated on Nov. 30, 2023.

My 2023 reading

Here are some of the most interesting, helpful books that I read during 2023. I hope you’ll find some titles that interest you.

Writing

Making Numbers Count: The Art and Science of Communicating Numbers by Chip Health and Karla Starr. This book has great examples of effective communication with numbers.

Rebel with a Clause: Takes and Tips from a Roving Grammarian by Ellen Jovin

Smart Brevity: The Power of Saying More with Less by Jim Vandehei, Mike Allen, and Roy Schwartz—The premise of this book resonates with me.

Stories That Stick: How Storytelling Can Captivate Customers, Influence Audiences, and Transform Your Business by Kindra Hall—This is an excellent book about how to write compelling stories to use in your marketing. The author providers practical rules and plenty of illustrations of how to apply them.

Watch Your Language! Mother Tongue and Her Wayward Children by Robert Gorrell—This book will interest those of you who enjoy learning about the history of English-language grammar and style. I prefer books that focus on helping me to write better, so this book isn’t for me.

By the way, if you want to improve your financial writing, check out my book, Financial Blogging: How to Write Powerful Posts That Attract Clients. Although it focuses on blogging, it teaches you a process you can apply to any type of writing.

 

Race

The Conversation: How Seeking and Speaking the Truth About Racism Can Radically Transform Individuals and Organizations by Robert Livingston

Finding Me by Viola Davis

How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America by Kiese Laymon

Koshersoul: The Faith and Food Journey of an African American Jew by Michael W. Twitty

You Got Anything Stronger? by Gabrielle Union—I didn’t even know who Gabrielle Union was when I started listening to this audiobook, which I got free through The Wall Street Journal. The chapters of her memoir on blackface, blackfishing, and violence against Black people were especially compelling. As a woman without children, I also found fascinating the story of her fertility and surrogacy journey.

 

Self-Improvement

Better Each Day: 365 Expert Tips for a Healthier, Happier You by Jessica Cassity

Deliberate Calm: How to Learn and Lead in a Volatile World by Jacqueline Brassey, Aaron De Smet, and Michiel Kruyt

52 Ways to Walk: The Surprising Science of Walking for Wellness by Annabel Abs-Streets

Four Seconds by Peter Bregman

Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves

The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness by Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz

Happier Hour: How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most by Cassie Holmes

Happiness is a Choice You Make: Lessons from a Year Among the Oldest Old by John Leland

How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing by K.C. Davis

This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism by Ashton Applewhite

Tranquility by Tuesday: 9 Ways to Calm the Chaos and Make Time for What Matters by Laura Vanderkam

You Belong: A Call for Connection by Sebene Selassie

Memoir

Blue Plate Special: An Autobiography of My Appetites by Kate Christensen

Hell and Other Destinations by Madeleine K. Albright

I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

Solito by Javier Zamora

You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith

 

Disclosure: If you click on an Amazon link in this post and then buy something, I will receive a small commission. I provide links to books only when I believe they have value for my readers.

Quotation websites for your writing

“What quotation websites do you recommend?” A friend’s question in response to my discussion of “Famous quotes make your commentary memorable” prompted me to ask my virtual assistant to research quotation websites. I’m sharing the results of her research, along with my ideas for other ways to find quotes to spice up your writing.

Quotation websites for your writing infographic

Quotation websites

My VA thinks BrainyQuote is the best of the bunch. It does have the most attractive appearance, and it’s relatively light on distracting advertisements.

Here are the websites she identified, along with some sites I’ve identified since my VA’s initial research.

  • BrainyQuote—This website lets you search by author or topic. You can also sign up for a quote of the day, which may help you discover an unexpected gem. If you post quotes on social media, you may enjoy BrainyQuote’s QuotePictures, quotations against the backdrop of an attractive photograph. You can share the QuotePictures to social media—including Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest—with a couple of clicks.
  • Quoteland—This website has online forums with topics such as “I need a quote.” I haven’t tried the forums, but they might help you when you’re stuck.
  • The Quotations Page
  • Lib Quotes
  • WisdomQuotes.com
  • Quotabelle described its selection as  “inspirational stories + quotes of real women & girls” when I first visited it, but it appears to have gone out of business.

Online searches

You can find quotations by doing an online search. Here’s what I found when I did a Google search on “quotations about money.”

This kind of search may help you to identify other websites that are good sources of quotations.

Some of the sites may be general. For example, Goodreads, a membership site, has a quotations page. The Goodreads quotes page is driven by members adding and tagging quotes they like. You can browse the quotes by their tags. When I checked, one of the top post for “money” was one that I doubt many financial professionals will use in their writing, except as an example of what not to do.

“Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.”
― Oscar Wilde

Cool Funny Quotes is a niche site with a humorous twist. Here are the site’s money-related quotes. Like BrainyQuotes, it offers social-media-ready images of quotations.

If you’re thinking in terms of visuals, Pinterest is another site to search. Here are Pinterest’s quotes related to money.

Books

Some books are rich in useable quotes.

Buffett’s Bites: The Essential Investor’s Guide to Warren Buffett’s Shareholder Letters by L.J. Rittenhouse has plenty of great quotes. Unfortunately, it lacks an index.

When you’re looking for quotes, a Kindle or other e-reader may make your research easier. At a minimum, a great index will help.

Compile your own collection of quotations

If you enjoy using quotes in your writing, them save great quotations as you see them. You can find them in anything you read or listen to.

In the old days, I recommended scribbling them in a paper notebook. These days, it’s probably more efficient to save quotes online in a Word document or an app like Evernote or OneNote.

Did they really say it?

Plenty of quotes are mistakenly attributed to famous people. I enjoyed reading a Wall Street Journal review of Garson O’Toole’s Hemingway Didn’t Say That.

The review introduced me to the Quote Investigator website, which explores the origins of famous quotes.

 

NOTE: updated on Jan. 17, 2021; March 8, 2022; Nov. 4, 2022; and Oct. 5, 2023.

When to use numbers instead of bullets for lists

When should you use numbers instead of bullets for indented lists? I agree with Edward P. Bailey Jr., who says in The Plain English Approach to Business Writing:

I suggest numbered lists when the order of the items is especially important; otherwise use bulleted lists.

If you use numbers when the items’ order is not important, readers may mistakenly assume that the order is important.

When you write lists, don’t forget to use parallel construction. That will also help readers to understand your message.

 

Disclosure: If you click on an Amazon link in this post and then buy something, I will receive a small commission. I provide links to books only when I believe they have value for my readers.

Automation to improve your writing

Automated tools can improve your financial writing.

Proofreading

Some of my favorite tools are Speak, PerfectIt, and Grammarly, as I’ve discussed in “My three main software tools for proofreading.” They help me with proofreading. I’ve gone into more detail on one of these tools in “How I use Grammarly to improve my writing.”

If your organization uses Associated Press style, you may like AP StyleGuard, which I discuss in “AP StyleGuard: the answer to your proofreading prayers?” However, having a basic proficiency in AP style, and feeling annoyed by StyleGuard recommendations that didn’t suit my needs, I’ve switched to an online subscription to the AP Stylebook, which offers the ability to add entries customized to your needs, integrated with a subscription to Webster’s New World Dictionary.

If you follow The Chicago Manual of Style, there’s an online version of that. PerfectIt offers integration with that style guide if you subscribe to both services.

Writing more concisely

If you’re looking to write more precisely, check out the Hemingway app and website, which I discuss in “Free help for wordy writers!” Some readers have told me that the simple act of running their writing through Hemingway has significantly improved their writing.

The Writer’s Diet is another tool that tackles similar issues, as I discuss in “Editing tool: the Writer’s Diet.”

Keep it short with the Fog Index!” includes links to tools that can calculate the Fog Index—a measure of wordiness—of your writing. Alternatively, you can run the readability statistics calculations in Microsoft Word.

None of these tools will make changes for you, but they’ll help you by letting you know that a problem exists.

Using AI to draft articles

ChatGPT, an AI writing tool, seemed to burst on the scene late in 2022. It may turn out to be a useful tool. Before experimenting with it, make sure you understand its limitations, some of which are explained in Brian X Chen’s “How to Use ChatGPT and Still Be a Good Person.”

Integrate automated tools into your writing process

Of course, you’ll enjoy a more productive automated proofreading and editing process if you include your tools as part of a well-developed writing process.

I walk you through every stage of the writing process in my book, Financial Blogging: How to Write Powerful Posts That Attract Clients. Although the book focuses on blogging, its process applies to almost any kind of writing.

For a quick overview of how to integrate automated tools into rewriting, read my “12 steps to rewrite long articles.”

 

 

Note: I made a small change to this article on Sept. 30, 2022, and January 20,2023

Why I love Speak for proofreading

If you’ve ever tried to proofread the gazillionth draft of an article, you know it’s painful to reread a familiar piece. Plus, you naturally fill in missing words and correct other mistakes in your mind, not on the page. The Speak feature in Microsoft Word is helping me overcome this challenge. (Note: I initially used—and blogged about using—Adobe Acrobat for this purpose.)

Speak’s key feature is its ability to read documents out loud in a deadpan voice that makes mistakes and weak writing glaringly obvious, at least to me.

How to use Speak

For ease of use, add the Speak feature to your Quick Access Toolbar in Microsoft Word. The Speak icon is the white word bubble with the right-pointing green bubble in the image below.

Next, highlight the test that you’d like read aloud and then click on the Speak icon. Follow the text with your eyes as Speak plods through it. You may be surprised at what you discover.

I typically highlight one paragraph at a time, unless I’m confident that the piece is in excellent shape. If I make a lot of changes to a piece, I may review one sentence at a time.

Speak is particularly useful when I make heavy edits to client-written pieces because I might not realize that a change I made in one spot will require a corresponding change in another spot. I also find ways to streamline the writing.

How to use Read Out Loud in Adobe Acrobat

Before I upgraded to a version of Word with Speak, I relied on the Read Out Loud feature of Adobe Acrobat. Back then, I used it after converting Word documents to PDF documents. Today I use it when proofreading PDFs.

After opening my newly created PDF document, I follow these steps:

  1. Click on the Read Out Loud from the View Tab and choose Activate Read Out Loud. NOTE: The steps may vary if you have a different version of the software.
  2. Click on the text I’d like the software to read out loud. Usually I highlight one paragraph at a time for reading out loud as I follow along on a printed page. I am ready to click Shift + Control + C to pause the reading so I can type a correction or scribble an improvement on my hard copy.
  3. Input edits into the document.
  4. Repeat the Read out Loud process if I’ve made many edits.

I know I could read the document out loud myself. However, I’m impatient, so I usually give up after a few sentences.

Integrate text-to-speech into your process

I describe how I integrate Speak into my process in “12 steps to rewrite long articles.” Give it a try! If you need to develop more of a process for your writing—from brainstorming through distribution, check out my book, Financial Blogging: How to Write Powerful Posts That Attract Clients.

 

Note: I updated this article on Jan. 18, 2015; August 8, 2022; and Dec. 18, 2022.

My 2022 reading

Here are some of the books that I enjoyed reading during 2022.

Writing

Actually, the Comma Goes Here by Lucy Cripps.

The Plain English Approach to Business Writing by Edward P. Bailey—This book offers sound suggestions for good writing.

By the way, if you want to improve your financial writing, check out my book, Financial Blogging: How to Write Powerful Posts That Attract Clients. Although it focuses on blogging, it teaches you a process you can apply to any type of writing.

 

Aging/health/transitions

Breaking the Age Code

Breaking the Age Code: How Your Beliefs About Aging Determine How Long and Well You Live by Becca Levy—I discuss this and two other books in this section in my November “From the Editor” column in the NAPFA Advisor.

Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life by Louise Aronson

Never Pay the First Bill: And Other Ways to Fight the Health Care System and Win by Marshall Allen—This book offers lots of suggestions for containing health care costs. For a taste of his advice, check out “When My Teenage Son Went to the Emergency Room He Put a Limit on What He Agreed to Pay.”

Stupid Things I Won’t Do When I Get Old by Steven Petrow

Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes by William Bridges—I was interested to read how there’s usually an extended period of transition.

What color is your parachute? for retirement: planning a prosperous, healthy, and happy future by John E. Nelson and Richard N. Bolles

Food

Bittman Bread

Bittman Bread: No-Knead Whole Grain Baking for Every Day by Mark Bittman and Kerri Conan—Since reading this book, my sourdough baking has switched to mostly using whole wheat flour. I love the scallion pancake recipe in this book, which I often make with chives from my garden. I also make Kerri’s sandwich loaf and whole wheat focaccia.

Flour: A Baker’s Collection of Spectacular Recipes by Joanne Chang and Christie Matheson

How to Cook Everything: 2,000 Simple Recipes for Great Food by Mark Bittman

King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking: Delicious Recipes Using Nutritious Whole Grains by King Arthur Flour

Race

I received four of these books through The Wall Street Journal’s free book program, which I wrote about in my September 2022 e-newsletter.

Black Food: Stories, Art, and Recipes from Across the African Diaspora, edited by Bryant Terry

Dorothy Dandridge by Donald Bogle

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers—This is fiction, but it says a lot about race.

The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography by Sidney Poitier—It was interesting to read this around the same time as Harry Belafonte’s memoir and the Dorothy Dandridge biography because they all knew and worked with one another.

My Song: A Memoir by Harry Belafonte and Michael Shnayerson

Raceless: In Search of Family, Identity, and the Truth About Where I Belong by Georgina Lawton

South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation by Imani Perry

Self-improvement

Better Each Day: 365 Expert Tips for a Healthier, Happier You by Jessica Cassity—This isn’t a book you’d sit down to read straight through. But it might be useful if you’re looking for a few small tweaks to make in your life.

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski

Find Your Unicorn Space: Reclaim Your Creative Life in a Too-Busy World by Eve Rodsky

Getting to Yes with YourselfGetting to Yes with Yourself by William Ury—This is a very sensible book by a renowned negotiator.

Making Space, Clutter Free by Tracy McCubbin

The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again by Catherine Price

The Power of Voice by Denise Woods

Fiction

These are several of the fiction books that I enjoyed this year.

Except the Dying by Maureen Jennings—This is the first of the Detective Murdoch mysteries that form the basis of the Canadian TV series. I find it relaxing to read well-crafted mysteries like this.

The FlatshareThe Flatshare by Beth O’Leary—This was very entertaining.

Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid—I also read Malibu Rising by the same author. I enjoyed both books, so I’ll probably read more by this author.

 

Disclosure: If you click on an Amazon link in this post and then buy something, I will receive a small commission. I provide links to books only when I believe they have value for my readers.

4-step process to define your audience

Do you take the time to define the audience for whom you’re writing? Writers who don’t do this before writing may produce content that doesn’t hit the mark. On this blog, and in my financial blogging book, I suggest how to narrow down your audience. However, I’m always looking for new approaches. That’s why I was intrigued by the chapter on “How to Define Your Audience” in How to Write and Present Technical Information by Charles H. Sides.

Here’s how Sides approaches this challenge:

My systematic method for audience definition is divided into four processes: (1) defining who the readers are; (2) defining what the readers know; (3) defining what the readers need to know; (4) defining what the readers will do with the information.

Sides talks about his processes in the context of the technology industry where, as he says, “Because of the daily technological advances in high-tech industries, you are often writing in a vacuum without specific knowledge about your intended readers.” That challenge isn’t unique to technology. Financial writers often lack contact with their targets, a challenge I address in “How to capture investment client questions when you lack access?

Let’s look at the Sides method in the context of financial services.

1. Define who your readers are

For example, are your readers potential clients? If so, are they individuals or institutions?  Or, are you targeting the press, social media influencers, referral sources, students, professors, or members of your own organization? Are your readers members of one narrowly defined group, or are you targeting a mix of groups?

As Sides says, “Readers come to a document with different backgrounds, different levels of knowledge about the subject, and different needs for the information that is provided.” He suggests that, among other things, you look at the professional and educational backgrounds of your readers. For example, a recent college graduate who majored in finance will respond differently from a recent graduate with a Ph.D. in Japanese history who will respond differently from a Japanese history Ph.D. who has also earned the CFA credential and worked for an investment management firm (like me).

2. Define what your audience knows about your topic

Your readers’ educational and professional backgrounds will give you a general idea of what they know about your topic. However, they may not know many specifics about the narrow topic that you’re writing about.

In the tech context, Sides says, “they may know a good deal about game-design architecture, but would need to be led clearly through a report about a new kind of virtual reality (VR) headset that your firm has developed.” In an investment context, an international stock analyst is knowledgeable about non-U.S. stocks in general, but may not know about the frontier market where your firm is pioneering investments.

Sides suggests that you ask yourself how much background is necessary to introduce your topic. On the one hand, you don’t want to bore or insult your readers with overly basic information. On the other hand, you may lose many readers if you don’t provide some basic information. I’ve written about how to manage this challenge in “How to make one quarterly letter fit clients at different levels of sophistication.”

3. Define what your audience needs to know

Sides suggests two useful questions for this step:

  • What information does your audience need from your report or paper to do their jobs better?
  • Will the information that’s included need a technical slant or a managerial slant, a marketing or public relations slant?

Your answers to the first question will help you to delete unnecessary information. Your answers to the second question will help you focus your writing.

4.  Define what your audience will do with your information

For example, will your readers use the information to perform professional tasks, such as picking specific investments? Or, are they simply using your information to increase their knowledge of the field?

Summing up

Sides concludes that “We might not always tell readers what they want to hear, but we should always give them what they need—and should want—to know.” To achieve that, it helps to define your audience.

I like his philosophy.

 

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.

Don’t be a monologophobe!

“A monologophobe…is a writer who would rather walk naked in front of Saks Fifth Avenue than be caught using the same word more than once in three lines,” wrote Theodore M. Bernstein in The Careful Writer: A Modern Guide to English Usage.

Bernstein admitted that “…avoidance of monotony caused by jarring repetition of a conspicuous word or phrase is desirable.” But, he said, “…mechanical substitution of synonyms may make a bad situation worse.”

Don’t overuse alternatives to “said”

I see this mechanical substitution most often when writers struggle to avoid using the word “said.” Bernstein illustrates this with a list of substitutes including “averred, asseverated, smiled, chuckled, grinned (plainly or mischievously), groaned, expostulated, ejaculated, declared, or asserted.”

But “said” is simple word that holds up well to repetition. Bernstein praised American writer Ernest Hemingway on this count. “If Hemingway did nothing else for American literature, he reestablished the virtue and dignity of say and exposed the folly of synonymomaniacs,” he said.

The investment world’s equivalent

In the investment world, the word “returned” is also subject to embellishment, as I discussed in “How to discuss index and portfolio returns: My case against synonyms for ‘return.’”

 

Don’t go overboard in introducing variety into your writing!