Plain language: Let’s get parenthetical

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Plain language makes your documents more appealing and easier to understand. But circumstances may require you to use jargon. For example, you may be a financial marketer or professional working for bosses or departments that insist on using technical or unfamiliar terms.

You can help reader comprehension by explaining the term in the sentence where it first appears. Parenthetical explanations are useful, whether you literally enclose the explanation in parentheses or set it off using some other technique.

Here’s a good example from The Wall Street Journal (June 28-29, 2014), p. A2:

“We are in a Goldilocks-like age at the moment,” said asset manager Jack Flaherty, referring to markets perceived as not too hot and not too cold—just right.

Goldilocks is a colorful image for readers who grew up with the story of Goldilocks and the three bears. However, it has a specific meaning in a financial context, so it demands explanation. Otherwise, the reader may wonder if “Goldilocks-like” refers to folks who wander into other people’s houses or try out different beds.

Option 1. Explain technical terms between commas

One classic approach to explaining technical terms is to use the term and then add an explanation that’s set off between commas. Here are examples:

  • “And the duration of the index, a measure of how sensitive bond prices are to changes in yield, has risen to seven years from 5.8.”—WSJ (June 30, 2014), p. C6
  • “Much of the focus on the ‘Volcker rule,’ which bans most speculative trading by banks, has been on how it forced them to rein in trading desks.”—WSJ (July 1, 2014), p. C12
  • “Foremost is free cash flow, or what is left over to reward shareholders after investment needs have been met.”—WSJ (July 2, 2014), p. C1

By the way, I’m using examples from The Wall Street Journal to combat the idea that your sophisticated readers will be insulted if you explain technical terms to them. Plenty of very smart investment professionals read The Wall Street Journal daily. I’ve never seen one throw it aside in disgust with its style of writing.

Option 2. Put the plain language first

Another approach is to start with the plain language and then add the technical term or nickname, as in the examples below:

  •  “The Australian dollar, also known as the Aussie, has risen 6.5% against the year, making it the second-best-performing major currency after the New Zealand dollar.”—WSJ (July 2, 2014), p. C4 — This is an example of introducing the less familiar term parenthetically.
  •  “David Einhorn of the hedge fund Greenlight Capital recently observed that some companies he is betting against—or selling short, in Wall Street parlance — have become the targets of takeovers, even though, in his view, they have significant weaknesses.”—The New York Times (August 8, 2014)

Option 3. Avoid using the technical term

When possible, it’s great to avoid using the technical term. I bet nine out of 10 financial experts would have used the term “spread” in the following sentence: “Investors have flocked to the $1.6 trillion junk-bond market in recent years, attracted by the income the bonds paid above debt perceived as safer issued by investment-grade companies at a time of historically low interest rates.”—The Wall Street Journal (July 25, 2014)

By the way, if you need help talking your executives into using plain language, check out my MarketingProfs article on “Seven Ways to Talk Your Financial Execs Out of Jargon and Bad Writing” (registration required).

Avoid this option: Enclose the explanation in parentheses

Did you expect me to recommend the use of actual parentheses? I didn’t find any good examples of parentheses usage in The Wall Street Journal. Actual parentheses can be distracting, as explained in “Better writing without parentheses,” by my friend Harriett Magee.

 

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Beating financial writer’s block with author Julia Cameron

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Every writer runs out of ideas or the will to write at some point. This happens to financial writers as well as novelists and other, more artistic authors.

What can you do? One option is to learn from the exercises of creative writers, such as those in Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life.

Here’s one of Cameron’s exercises:

Pretend that you are sitting under a large tree with your back resting on its trunk. On the other side of the tree, a Storyteller sits also resting against the tree trunk. Take a sheet of paper and number from one to five. Tell the Storyteller five things you’d like to hear stories about.

Here are five topics that popped into my head:

  1. How to target your blog to attract ideal clients
  2. How to create a powerful social media presence in 20 minutes a day
  3. How to use your easily distracted personality to your advantage in marketing
  4. How to show your appreciation for your amazingly supportive connections on social media
  5. How to keep marketing when you’re busy with other stuff

I’m curious. What are YOUR five topics?

Also, what techniques do you use to beat writer’s block? I’m always interested in learning from you.

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

Confidence–good or bad for writers?

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“Confidence is a bad thing to have as a drug addict. No drug addict deserves confidence.” This quote by actress-writer Carrie Fisher in a Wall Street Journal Magazine‘s roundup about the topic started me thinking about the role of confidence for writers.

Confidence helps

A little confidence is a good thing. Without it, you’d never touch your fingers to the keyboard. Nor would you share your words with the world.

It’s important to write to help you refine your ideas and to educate and persuade your readers. Once you create a first draft, you can review and refine it.

Don’t become overconfident

Too much confidence can hurt writers. You may become sloppy or stop learning. Most writers believe that we must continue to work at improving our craft as writers.

 

Image courtesy of Grant Cochrane / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Ssh, don’t tell my husband: A writing tip

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I love Floyd Norris, the “Off the Charts” columnist for The New York Times. That’s what you shouldn’t tell my husband. However, if you’re an investment professional or financial advisor who writes, you should love him, too. Why? Because he writes clearly and in an engaging manner about markets and the economy.

You can find ideas in how Norris

  • Writes his ledes, those first sentences or paragraphs of your articles, blog posts, or investment commentary—I discuss this in “Snare more readers with this technique from Floyd Norris“
  • Uses charts and graphs, a key component of white papers, investment commentary, and many other financial communications
  • Uses words skillfully—I discuss this in “Plain English can bring your financial topic to life”
    Vary your paragraph length like NYT columnist Floyd Norris – See more at: http://investmentwriting.com/2008/08/vary-your-paragraph-length-like-nyt-columnist-floyd-norris/#sthash.bQXhEren.dpuf

For more examples of lessons I’ve learned from Norris, read:

Financial writers clinic: Lessons from Floyd Norris of The New York Times – See more at: http://investmentwriting.com/2010/03/financial-writers-clinic-lessons-from-floyd-norris-of-the-new-york-times/#sthash.OuCURNky.dpuf
Financial writers clinic: Lessons from Floyd Norris of The New York Times – See more at: http://investmentwriting.com/2010/03/financial-writers-clinic-lessons-from-floyd-norris-of-the-new-york-times/#sthash.OuCURNky.dpuf

 

 

Ask your reader’s questions, says Donald Murray

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When you write, ask the questions your readers want answered, as journalist Donald M. Murray suggests in Writing to Deadline: The Journalist at Work.Writing to Deadline by Donald Murray

Murray found that the most important questions

…were not the questions I wanted to ask or even the questions my editor told me to ask. They were the questions that the reader would ask and if I did not answer them the reader would be unsatisfied.

For example, let’s assume you’re writing about education savings accounts. As a financial professional, you may be fascinated by the gritty details of each account time, the exceptions to the account rules, or how the accounts can help you with a specific client in an unusual situation.

Your questions will differ from those of your readers. They may ask the following questions:

  • What are the “big picture” differences between account types?
  • Which account is right for me and my family?
  • Are there any pitfalls I should understand?
  • How do I open an account?

Murray suggests that writers should seek to identify five key questions from the reader’s perspective. Sometimes, he admits, you’ll end up with fewer or provide the information that your that your reader seeks. The main thing is to provide information that your reader seeks.

Murray also says that “When I come to write the story, I order the questions in the sequence I think the reader will ask them.” This is a good tip for you, too.

As I emphasize in Financial Blogging: How to Write Powerful Posts That Attract Clients, it’s important to understand the perspective of your target audience. When you address their concerns, you’ll deepen your connection with them.

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

How to capitalize financial acronyms

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Is it “LIBOR” or “Libor”? I’m startled by seeing the acronym for the London Interbank Offered Rate spelled with only the initial letter capitalized. I believe that every letter of an acronym should be capitalized to communicate that the word is an acronym, a form of abbreviation created from initial letters or syllables of a term such as the London Interbank Offered Rate.

Garner’s Modern American Usage agrees that using all capitals is common in American English, but the British tend to capitalize only the first letter. Perhaps the U.K. is the origin of this practice spreading to the U.S. According to Amy Einsohn’s A Copyeditor’s Handbook: A Guide for Book Publishing and Corporate Communications, many newspapers now use “Initial cap only for acronyms five letters or longer that are pronounced as words.” For example, “Nafta” or “Erisa.”

I don’t like the trend to mix the upper and lower cases in acronyms, turning LIBOR into Libor. Spelling an acronym using only upper-case letters gently reminds the reader that the term is an acronym. This is helpful, in my opinion.

To define and use parentheses or not?

Acronyms are often spelled out when first used in a document. For example, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). However, Einsohn says, “In documents addressed to scientists, technical experts, and other professional experts, acronyms that are standard in the field may usually be used without any introduction.”

In the case of LIBOR, the spelled-out term doesn’t mean much to readers. It’s useful to describe how LIBOR is used, for example, as a benchmark for short-term interest rates.

 

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

It’s wrong to be right

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Writers, sometimes it’s wrong for you to write in a way that’s technically correct.

Here’s how Claire Kehrwald Cook explains this phenomenon in Line by Line: How to Edit Your Own Writing:

Idiom, the normal pattern of the language, sometimes runs counter to both grammar and logic, but it must prevail. A construction that sounds wrong to the educated ear works against you, even though it’s arguably correct.

In other words, if a sentence is correct, but sounds funny, consider rewriting it so you don’t distract your reader.

For example, Winston Churchill is reported to have said, “This is the sort of pedantry up with which I will not put.” He didn’t believe in mindlessly refusing to put a preposition at the end of a sentence.

Key Steps in Writing a Research Report

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Securities analysts want to write better. I know this from conversations and the fact that “Writing resources for equity research analysts” is one of my most popular blog posts. I’m delighted to share tips for writing securities research reports from Tom Brakke, author of Letters to a Young Analyst. Many of Tom’s suggestions apply to other forms of writing. For example, “Don’t try to tell them everything you know.”

Key Steps in Writing a Research Report
By Tom Brakke, CFA

“How do I write a good research report?”

There are many kinds of answers to that question, starting with this one: Good writers produce good research reports. The basics matter: a strong narrative structure, clear sentences, and compelling content can make a research report better, just as is the case with other forms of writing.

Taking a wider view, I think the responsibilities of investment professionals can be viewed as a combination of analysis plus communication. Throughout my years in the industry, I have observed that far too little attention is paid to the second half of that formula.

Therefore, the need for effective communications is a persistent theme in my book, Letters to a Young Analyst (which includes advice and commentary from me and a number of veteran investors, plus an extensive collection of resources). Most professionals – and most organizations – underestimate the power that comes from the proper delivery of an idea; they think that a good idea will naturally thrive on its own merits.

To stand out, you should care about and focus on the quality of your communications, whether they are verbal or written (and whether they are brief or encyclopedic). That pays dividends over time.

Of course, you have to work within the norms and templates of your organization. That can constrain your ability to communicate as well as you otherwise could. For example, look at the range of reports from sell-side firms. They are remarkably alike one to another and a great many are fill-in-the-blank exercises rather than sound communications tools.

Whatever the constraints within which you are operating, a few simple reminders can be very important (as I explained in greater depth on Quora):

Know your audience.

Don’t do what everyone else is doing. If you’re going to add value, your content needs to be different and, optimally, your presentation of it should be too.

Don’t try to tell them everything you know. Most analysts get tripped up here. Usually there are two or three things that matter. And sometimes one chart can tell the essence of a story.

Let them understand the “how” of what you have done. The narrative of your analytical approach can be very persuasive.

Put your unique conclusions in the context of the prevailing opinions on the stock. Plus, you don’t need to reiterate what everyone knows.

Use images. And, please, use good ones. I’m aghast at the poor quality of charts and tables in most research reports.

A helpful set of steps for communicating stock recommendations comes from Jim Valentine, the author of Best Practices for Equity Research Analysts. (In my review, I called it “the book on equity research.”) His guidance for clients includes three steps:

Ensure the content has value. Valentine uses his ENTER™ framework as a guide: The information should be Expectational, Novel, Thorough, Examinable, and Revealing.

Utilize the optimal channel. There are so many ways to communicate your messages. Consider which (or which combination) will be most effective.

Ensure the message has value. This is his ADViCE™ framework. Aware, Differentiated, Validated, Conclusion-oriented, and Easy-to-consume.

Finally, be yourself. A unique voice is more valuable than a common one.

What Marilyn Monroe taught me about writing

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I hadn’t painted since elementary school when I went to the Paint Monkey during a vacation in Pittsburgh. My goal? To paint a fill-in-the-outlines portrait of Marilyn Monroe like everyone else in the class. The result? I was reminded of some important lessons that apply to writing.

1. Showing personality helps

I made Marilyn Monroe’s face purple and her lips yellow because I was feeling rebellious. I “knew” my painting would be awful, so I decided to make it outrageously colored. To my surprise, some of my friends “liked” the photo when I posted it on social media. Sometimes showing personality works.

I’ve written about showing personality in your blog posts in “How to add personality and warmth to your financial writing–Part one” and “Part two.”

2. You can benefit from following someone else’s structure

My painting of Marilyn Monroe is recognizably Marilyn, thanks to my painting in between the lines on the canvas provided by the studio. Believe me, my freehand attempt at painting Marilyn would look nothing like her.

Following a model when you write can provide similar results. My favorite model is to define a problem and then provide a solution. I elaborate on this in “Make your writing easier with my fill-in-the-blanks approach for structuring articles.” You’ll find another model in “Blogging with James B. Stewart of The New York Times.”

3. You learn by doing and re-doing

I made mistakes painting Marilyn, starting with mixing my paint colors. If I could do it over, I’d do a better job. I learned from my mistakes.

Do-overs are easier in writing. You don’t need to buy another canvas or tubes of paint. Just open up the file on your computer and start typing.

Writing a list? Use parallel construction

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Lists are a great way to provide easy-to-skim content. This accounts for the popularity of blog posts with titles such as “Top 10 Ways to…” or “3 fatal mistakes of…” However, please construct your posts well, or you’ll lose readers.

One of the most important rules for lists is to use parallel construction. What’s that? For example, if the first of your “Three best tips” starts with an imperative verb saying “Do this,” then the rest of your tips should do the same.

Let’s compare Example A, which uses parallel construction, with Example B, so you can see how much better Example A is.

Here’s Example A:

1. Review your blog post to see if it includes the right information.

2. Check to see if the information is presented in the right order.

3. Copyedit your text.

Here’s example B:

1. Reviewing your blog post to see if it includes the right information can be helpful.

2. Check to see if the information is presented in the right order.

3. The final step is to copyedit your text.

If you’re like most people, you found Example A easier to skim and absorb than Example B.

Even professionally edited publications sometimes forget about the importance of parallel construction. I wrote this blog post after reading an article that promised a list of mistaken investment beliefs. Some of the items fit the description of “mistaken beliefs.” For example, the author does not believe that “‘Volatility’ Is For Misguided Geeks.” However, another item on the list shared one of the author’s beliefs instead of someone else’s mistaken belief.  Yet another item on the list was the author’s request to readers. I appreciated the author’s colorful writing. His headings were intriguing. However, I wish that he’d followed the rules of parallel construction.

 

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