Change one word in the following line to make it a more effective sentence.
The Standard and Poor’s 500 Index rose and the Barclays Capital Aggregate Bond Index fell.
Post your rewrite in the comments.
I’ve got a writing lesson in mind as I pose this puzzler. I’ll circle back later to explain it, although I wouldn’t be surprised if one of my savvy readers beats me to it.
You CAN edit your own writing.
Here’s a tip that will help you check how well your piece is structured. Read the first sentence of every paragraph. In combination, do they give the reader a good idea of your main points? If so, you’ve written something that’s likely to survive a busy reader’s scrutiny.
This first-sentence check works because strong business writing typically starts each paragraph with a topic sentence that summarizes the paragraph’s main point or topic.
You can also incorporate the first paragraph into your quick check of your writing. When I write something longer than a blog post, I like to set up my main points in the first paragraph. This lets me convey my argument to readers who don’t have the patience to read any more.
Let’s use “Today’s employment report,” a piece of economic commentary by Cumberland Advisors in Sarasota, Florida, to test the first-sentence approach to checking your writing.
Below you’ll see the first sentences of the first six paragraphs of the commentary. By the way, I’m not copying all of the first sentences because I don’t want to infringe on the firm’s copyright.
After reading these sentences, do you have a sense of the author’s opinion on the employment report? I think so. To check the relationship between this six-sentence summary and the original commentary, go to “Today’s employment report.”
I like the commentary on the Cumberland Advisors website. It states opinions in an appealing style. I almost feel as if I’m in a conversation with the firm’s investment professionals. You can read more by visiting Cumberland’s commentary archive.
If your writing flunks the first-sentence test, you may simply need to tweak your content.
For example, if all but one of your first sentences work, you can zero in on the problem sentence’s paragraph of origin. Your problem may be that the topic sentence doesn’t sum up or introduce the paragraph’s main point. You can fix this by rewriting the first sentence.
Alternatively, the offending first sentence may be a sign that the entire paragraph doesn’t belong. Perhaps you’ve gone off on an unnecessary tangent. If so, you can axe the entire paragraph.
Another possibility: Your sentence and paragraph are fine, but belong higher or lower in the commentary. Move the paragraph and you may be set to go.
Image courtesy of Jonathan Baker Photography via flickr licensed under CC BY 2.0
“Omit needless words,” advises William Strunk in the original edition of The Elements of Style, a bible for writers. He then says
Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.
I agree.
Grammar, punctuation, and word usage questions come up every day–even for someone like me who prides herself on being a good writer.
We can all benefit from online resources that help us figure out answers to our writing challenges.
I often Google my writing questions.
But sometimes Google’s results aren’t on target or the sources don’t seem reliable. This is when I turn to GrammarGirl and Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab (OWL). Both are trustworthy sources that explain things clearly.
Jane Straus’ GrammarBook website was brought to my attention by Jill Brogan of Martingale Asset Management after I originally drafted this post. I plan to visit this site more often. Although founder Jane Straus passed away, her husband plans to continue her work.
I use the hard-copy versions of the following two resources, so I imagine they’re worthwhile for organizations with budgets.
What’s YOUR opinion on the best online resource? Have you discovered new resources? Please share your new discoveries.
Note: This post has been updated since it originally appeared on Feb. 27, 2011.
Investment professionals, mark April 1 in your calendar if you’re interested in expanding your professional publications.
April 1 is 
the deadline for submissions for potential publication in the September 2011 issue of the New York Society of Security Analysts’ new online peer-reviewed journal.
The society says it is “particularly interested in articles on financial regulation and risk management.”
The journal is aimed at practicing investment professionals. Here’s how it describes its goals.
Start writing today!
“You” is one of the most powerful words in the English language. You’re much more likely to read a sentence that addresses “you” 
than one that starts with “we.” But sometimes alternatives work, as in a recent ad by Bessemer Trust, which uses “smart people” instead of “you.”
Do you think of yourself as one of the “smart people”? Bessemer Trust plays on its audience’s desire to be smart in its recent ad. If you still have The Wall Street Journal from yesterday, you can see it on page A5.
The ad starts with the following text:
THERE’S NO SUCH THING
AS SMART MONEY.
ONLY SMART PEOPLE.
THE MONEY JUST GOES
WHERE THEY GO.
Bessemer’s text hooked me. I’ll bet it also snared your attention.
The text benefits from being short and plain, in addition to working the “smart people” angle. It has a nice conversational tone. It sounds more like a blog post than an ad by a firm that was founded in 1907.
If you saw this ad, I’d like to know what you thought of it.
You can view the entire Bessemer Trust ad campaign on the website of www.munnrabot.com. Go to “current work” and then Bessemer Trust. Click on the ad that appears there to see more ads. Thank you, Orson Munn, for letting me know this!
A simple subject line can make or break the open rate for your emails.
Subject: =?windows-1252?Q?Conference=20Planning=20Survey?=
I’m probably not alone in my instinct to trash this email. I figured it was probably the work of an unsophisticated spammer.
Looking at the snippet of email address displayed by my email service didn’t inspire confidence either. All I saw was “marketer-ese.” At best, I figured, this was an email from some market research firm.
However, I felt curious, so I expanded the email line. I discovered the email was from an organization I respect, but won’t name. The full email address was something like marketresearch@ORGANIZATION.com
If the organization had a better subject line, I would have opened it without thinking. Something simple, such as “ORGANIZATION NAME wants your input” would have done the trick.
Have YOU ever deleted or ignored an email because of a poorly written subject line?
Don’t write about something controversial as if it is an accepted fact.
“Research has shown that the most active managers can beat their benchmarks handily,” wrote Eleanor Laise in 
“The Return of The Market-Beating Fund Manager” in The Wall Street Journal.
Oh, really? Many financial advisors and investment professionals disagree.
Laise should have acknowledged that her statement was controversial. Her failure to do so undercuts the credibility of her article. Keep this in mind the next time you say something that isn’t widely accepted.
Laise could have rephrased her sentence along the following lines: “New research suggests that most active managers can beat their benchmarks handily.”
Laise’s article alerted me to an interesting research paper, “Active Share and Mutual Fund Performance,” by Antti Petajisto of NYU University’s business school.
Here’s a provocative quote from Petajisto’s abstract:
I find that over my sample period until the end of 2009, the most active stock pickers have outperformed their benchmark indices even after fees and transaction costs. In contrast, closet indexers or funds focusing on factor bets have lost to their benchmarks after fees. The same long-term performance patterns held up over the 2008-2009 financial crisis.
My LinkedIn contacts responded with scepticism when I quoted Laise’s sentence. What do YOU think about the performance record of actively managed funds?
Who are you writing for? Answer this question correctly and you’ve taken a big step toward writing a successful blog post, article or other communication.
When novelist Michael Cunningham asks this question of his students, 90% say they write for themselves. Cunningham thinks they’re missing an important point.
“…writing is not only an exercise in self-expression, it is also, more important, a gift we as writers are trying to give to readers,” says Cunningham in “Found in Translation,” an essay that appeared in The New York Times on Oct. 3, 2010.
Read Cunningham’s op-ed story about Helen to gain a better understanding of why and how your reader matters.
I agree with Cunningham’s assertion that for authors “It had better be apparent, from the opening line, that we’re offering readers something worth their while.”
White papers, articles, and investment commentary are great marketing tools. But it’s not easy for your firm’s experts to find the time—or maybe the skill—to turn their insights into compelling prose. I can help. I can interview your subject matter experts, review research materials, and write a piece your company can publish under its name. If you prefer, I can edit your draft. Or even teach you how to do it yourself.
You may benefit from my writing, editing, or training services if you are a marketer or communicator for
- Investment managers—especially if you’re marketing to financial advisors
- Wealth managers
- Vendors to any of the above
If you are bursting with ideas, I can turn them into
- White papers
- Articles
- Market or investment performance commentary—commentary may be based on interviews or on attribution analysis and other materials provided by you
If you want to write a piece—or improve your draft—you have several options. You can hire me to
- Interview your experts and write your piece
- Turn source materials you provide into a polished piece
- Use a combination of methods 1 and 2
When you contact me, ask for the graphic of my typical writing process. You’ll get a better idea of how we can work together.
Contact me today to learn more! You can also check my testimonials on LinkedIn.
Want to help your subject-matter experts and writers deliver better content? Take advantage of my writing workshops. I’ve presented “How to Write Investment Commentary People Will Read” to CFA societies across the U.S. and Canada. I’ve also spoken about “Writing Effective Emails and Letters” and developed customized writing workshops for corporate clients.