- Susan Weiner Investment Writing

Secret of regular blogging

January 11, 2022/2 Comments/in blog, marketing, writing/by Susan Weiner, CFA

In 2010, a portfolio manager told me his most powerful tip for blogging on a regular schedule:

I speak my thoughts into Dragon NaturallySpeaking.

This speech recognition software transcribes his words, so he need not type his first draft. This is a great time saver.

Back then, Dragon software was your main option for automated transcription of whatever you said. Since then, your options have multiplied. Your smartphone probably offers a voice assistant that can transcribe your speech. There are also options from third parties, such as Otter.ai or the automated transcription service from Rev.

If automated transcription services’ errors, such as typing “NASA allocation” for “an asset allocation,” are too annoying, you can hire a human transcriptionist.

The bottom line: If dictation helps you to write more regularly or quickly, use it.

Note: This was updated in February and November 2021.

Go from short to long!

January 4, 2022/in grammar, writing/by Susan Weiner, CFA

Rearranging elements of a sentence “from short to long, from simple to compound, increases the ability of the reader to understand them,” says Bruce Ross-Larson in Edit Yourself: A Manual for everyone who works with words, one of my favorite editing books.

Ross-Larson has three related rules.

First, count the syllables. This will let you identify shorter words to put first.
Then, “if the number of syllables is the same, count the letters.” That can be a tie-breaker.
Finally, “Put the compound elements last.” As an example, he suggests that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” reads better than “liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and life.” I guess that’s why the Declaration of Independence uses the suggested order.

Of course, these three rules don’t always apply. As Ross-Larson says, don’t follow the rules if that’ll:

Put elements out of chronological or sequential order
Create unintended modifiers
Upset a familiar or explicit order, such as “the birds and the bees” or going in order from more conservative to less conservative asset classes

Small changes like this can make your writing easier to read. That means you’re likely to convey your message more effectively.

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.

Use calendar invitations to keep your experts on schedule

December 14, 2021/in communication, writing, writing process/by Susan Weiner, CFA

Do you ever struggle to get your authors and subject-matter experts to return their edits and comments on time? I’ve learned a new way to nudge them.

This year a new person took over coordinating an editing project that I’d worked on before. I was surprised that the project ran more or less on schedule, in contrast to my earlier experience.

Luckily for you, my contact told me her secret. Every time I gave an author a deadline, the coordinator sent a Microsoft Outlook calendar invitation for that deadline to the author.

That’s brilliant!

An electronic calendar invitation acts as a gentle reminder of a deadline, especially if the recipient monitors their calendar and sets reminders about items on the calendar.

Try this to see if it works for you!

My 2021 reading with suggestions for you

November 23, 2021/in writing/by Susan Weiner, CFA

This year I devoted much of my serious reading time to learning more about race through nonfiction and fiction. I also grappled with some issues of race on my blog in “How to edit articles about Black people” and “Working with a sensitivity reader.”

Race—nonfiction

Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People by Mahzarin R. Banaji—I also enjoyed a Zoom presentation by Banaji, which I wrote about in my NAPFA Advisor column.

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson—this is a very powerful book.

Don’t Let It Get You Down: Essays on Race, Gender, and the Body by Savala Nolan

Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America by Ijeoma Oluo

The Memo: What Women of Color Need to Know to Secure a Seat at the Table by Minda Harts

Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir by Natasha Trethewey

So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo

The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee—this book is upbeat about what people can achieve by working together.

Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man by Emmanuel Acho

Race—fiction

Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue

The Kindest Lie by Nancy Johnson

One of the Good Ones by Maika Moulite

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

Memoir

Dinner with Edward: A Story of an Unexpected Friendship by Isabel Vincent

The Honey Bus: A Memoir of Loss, Courage and a Girl Saved by Bees by Meredith May

The Unwinding of the Miracle: A Memoir of Life, Death, and Everything That Comes After by Julie Yip-Williams

Baking

Artisan Sourdough Made Simple: A Beginner’s Guide to Delicious Handcrafted Bread with Minimal Kneading by Emilie Raffa—this is my favorite sourdough bread book because the author’s blog got me started on my sourdough journey after I received a gift of sourdough starter from my local Buy Nothing group. Also, the bagel recipe in this cookbook turned out well.

Baking Sourdough Bread: Dozens of Recipes for Artisan Loaves, Crackers, and Sweet Breads by Göran Söderin

The Elements of Pizza: Unlocking the Secrets to World-Class Pies at Home by Ken Forkish

Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza by Ken Forkish

The Sullivan Street Bakery Cookbook by Jim Lahey

Super Sourdough by James Morton

Personal growth

Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close by Aminatou Sow, Ann Friedman

The Blue Zones: 9 Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest by Dan Buettner

Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time by Brigid Schulte—I quit reading this book partway through because it felt focused on mothers. Skip it if you’re not a mother.

Together: Why Social Connection Holds the Key to Better Health, Higher Performance, and Greater Happiness by Vivek H. Murthy

Writing

Write Right! by Jan Venolia—similar to Edit Yourself by Bruce Ross-Larson, which I mention in my “My five favorite reference books for writers,” this is a reference book that’s approachable for folks who aren’t professional word nerds.

Other nonfiction

The Devil’s Financial Dictionary by Jason Zweig—this is an entertaining, somewhat snarky, and informative book by an insightful columnist for The Wall Street Journal. Because of its snark, I’m not sure if it really belongs under “nonfiction.” For example, it defines “fair-value pricing” as “a guess.” My impression is that definition sometimes but doesn’t always apply. However, I think students of financial services who already understand most of the vocabulary will be amused as they leaf through the book’s pages. Zweig writes, “…the definitions presented here should not—quite—be taken as literally true. But most of them are very close; no matter how cynical you are about Wall Street, you aren’t cynical enough.”

The Light of Days: Women Fighters of the Jewish Resistance by Judy Batalion

Stranger in the Shogun’s City: A Japanese Woman and Her World by Amy Stanley—having earned a Ph.D. in Japanese history, I like to read about Japan occasionally

Other fiction

At the End of the Matinee by Keiichirō Hirano—this is another book I enjoyed partly for its connection with Japan.

The Siege Winter by Ariana Franklin—this was my favorite mystery in 2021. I also greatly enjoyed the Ruth Galloway mystery series, including A Dying Fall, by Elly Griffiths.

Under the Midnight Sun by Keigo Higashino—another Japanese author’s book

When do you need to cite sources?

October 5, 2021/in writing/by Susan Weiner, CFA

You don’t always need to say where you obtained the information you use in your writing. But sometimes it’s necessary for your credibility or to keep your firm’s compliance professionals happy. So, when do you need to cite sources in your blog, white paper, or other publication?

Common knowledge doesn’t require citing sources

If you’re citing a commonly known fact, you don’t need to know the source. For example, no one will ask you to document how you know that the U.S. has 50 states—not 49 or 51.

The same goes for somewhat more specialized yet broadly known statistics, such as “The estimated population of the U.S. is more than 330 million.” Still, if I were using that 330 million statistic, I’d probably do a Google search just to make sure the population hasn’t sneaked up to 340 million since I originally fixed that number in my mind.

Here’s a good discussion of “common knowledge” from Yale University’s Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning.

Graphs and other depictions of numbers

It’s a good idea to provide sources for graphs and other exhibits derived from numbers. This information bolsters the credibility of your exhibits. It also satisfies your firm’s compliance professionals.

Sources usually go below the exhibit. For example, “Source: Bloomberg.” That’s a bare minimum citation. You may need to add more information about the source and the date of the data. Giving the date can be especially important when discussing economic or market data because the situation may have changed since the most recent published data.

The Chicago Manual of Style is a good source for how to treat that information. Don’t have a copy of the manual? Look at the guidelines for the CFA Institute’s Financial Analysts Journal or the Financial Planning Association’s Journal of Financial Planning.

Does your exhibit rely on data generated by your company? Document that, too, using “Source: YOUR COMPANY NAME.”

Quotes

Be careful to use accurate quotes. That’s especially true if you quote someone, but you’re relying on someone else’s repeating that quote from another source. That secondary source might have made a mistake. (I discovered this the hard way with my blog post quoting Woody Allen on the topic of success.)

Check that quote in the original source, if possible. Or, make it clear that you’re quoting someone else quoting that person. For example, “…as Warren Buffett said, according to L.J. Rittenhouse’s Buffett’s Bites: The Essential Guide to Warren Buffett’s Shareholder Letters.” If you use a famous quote, check its origins on the Quote Investigator website. You may be surprised by what you learn.

When you quote someone, give the person’s name and the source where you found the quotation. The detail that you provide will depend on the formality of where you’re publishing. An academic journal article requires a full footnote that may follow The Chicago Manual of Style. In a blog post, the person’s name and article title with a hyperlink to the article that you’re quoting may be enough.

If you wonder how much of a person’s writing you can quote, check out my post about fair use, which contains links to some great resources. Also, check to ensure that you’re not using proprietary data that you must license to use. I discussed one example of this in “Are you crediting your OECD data properly?”

Ideas

When you take ideas from other sources, even if you don’t quote them, you should name those sources. How much of an idea do you have to take before you need to attribute your idea to a source? The more distinctive the idea, and the more you take, the more likely that you should credit the source.

Again, check out my post about fair use for more on this topic.

Know your firm’s standards

Your firm’s compliance professionals may be able to share sourcing standards specific to your firm or their interpretation of the relevant SEC and other regulations.

You can save time on your interactions with compliance if you always source your key statistics and other information from outside sources. When I draft commentary for my clients, I usually footnote the sources of any statistics or interesting facts that I dig up, even if those footnotes aren’t necessary in the final, published product. This makes it easy for my clients to respond to sourcing-related challenges from compliance.

Compliance isn’t the only company function that may have opinions on your sourcing. Your marketing or editorial professionals may have a style guide or other standards that apply to your sourcing.

Disclosure: If you click on the 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.

Note: I updated this post on Sept. 30, 2022.

Writing tip: Why are you telling me this?

August 3, 2021/in writing/by Susan Weiner, CFA

“Why are you telling me this?” I ask this again and again as I read articles written by nonprofessional writers. Their articles don’t capture my attention because they don’t give me a reason to care about their topic.

Why nonprofessionals fall short

Nonprofessional writers display admirable enthusiasm for their topics, but they often have a hard time putting themselves in the “shoes” of their readers.

Nonprofessional writers often fail to answer the question, “What’s in it for me?” (WIIFM). Readers look for the WIIFM when they decide whether to read your article. If they’re reading online, they’re often looking for a solution to a specific problem they face. They’re not going to read your article just because you publish it on your blog or in your newsletter.

If people start reading your article because they have a relationship with you, they still want to learn the WIIFM, even if the answer is only “You’ll learn an interesting idea that you can share with your colleagues or on social media.”

Nonprofessional writers often suffer from the “curse of knowledge.” As I discussed in “Why hire a writer? Three powerful reasons,” it’s hard for them to explain things to outsiders because they know too much. They may use words that are too technical or they get bogged down in details. They can also forget to say why their topic is important because its importance is so clear to them.

Questions to help you

Here are two questions that can help you figure out why you are writing an article.

How do you want this article to help you or your organization?

For example, are you writing an article to gain new newsletter subscribers or to interest readers in a specific product or services offered by your company? Do you want to correct a misconception about your company being too conservative (or too aggressive), or not up on the latest investments, or not well-run?

You may not explicitly mention this goal in your article. However, understanding this goal will help to shape your article. And, your article may benefit from an explicit call to action, such as “For more tips, subscribe to our newsletter!” or “Schedule a call to learn about our XYZ service!”

What’s the WIIFM for your readers?

What is a problem that your readers face that your article can solve? It could be something specific to your firm, such as how to explain to their bosses why they’re sticking with your firm instead of switching to a firm with a better-known name. Or maybe it’s solving a challenge with their organization’s budgeting, or the need to have something interesting to discuss at their next social event.

I explain a way to identify your reader’s WIIFM in “Identifying ‘WHAT PROBLEM does this blog post solve for them?’”

Tell readers why you’re telling them

Once you’ve figured out your reader’s WIIFM, don’t forget to incorporate it into your article. Don’t phrase it as “I’m telling you this because.” Instead, identify the reader’s pain point, and say how your article addresses it.

I share one way to do this in “Make your writing easier with my fill-in-the-blanks approach for structuring articles.”

Keep it short with the Fog Index!

June 22, 2021/in writing/by Susan Weiner, CFA

Warren Miller, CPA, CFA, one of my longtime newsletter readers, urged me to remind you to write more concisely. As Warren wrote, “most of us overeducated people write sentences that have too many words, too many of which have too many syllables.” I admit that I’m sometimes guilty of this. And, I see lots of verbose financial writing.

Warren likes the Fog Index—also known as the Gunning Fox Index—to help you catch wordy writing. It measures how hard your text is to read, in terms of the number of words per sentence, and the use of longer words. Here’s an image of the index formula that Warren sent me:

Easy ways to calculate the Fog Index

Don’t feel like calculating the Fog Index yourself? These websites will calculate the Fog Index for you. For example:

Gunning Fog Index—I like that this website highlights words of three or more syllables. That helps you identify words to simplify. However, the website’s syllable detector makes mistakes. For example, it identified “weighs” as a word of three or more syllables. You and I know there’s only one syllable in “weighs.”
Readability Formulas has a page dedicated to the index. It also offers an array of other readability calculators.

The two websites’ calculations must differ because the Gunning Fog Index page yielded a score of 8.855, while Readability Formulas rated my sample as 9.3 and “fairly easy to read.”

How to lower your score

Readability Formulas says that a Fog score of 7 or 8 is “ideal,” and “Anything above 12 is too hard for most people to read.” So, what can you do if your score is too high?

Start by shortening long sentences. Sometimes you can cut a long sentence into two or even three pieces. Other times, you’ll need to rethink your approach to long sentences. Perhaps you can delete unnecessary adjectives or adverbs. Another option is to insert a short sentence to break up the flow of long sentences.

Then, look for words that are unnecessarily long or technical. Perhaps you used the word “rodomontade” or “fanfaronade.” Substitute “boasting,” and you’ll dramatically increase reader comprehension, in addition to cutting word length.

Another way to lower your score is to use the tool that I discuss in “Free help for wordy writers!”

However, please remember that shorter doesn’t always mean better. Emphasize reader-friendliness over shortness.

Use movement and description in your writing: A tip from Francis Flaherty

June 15, 2021/in writing/by website admin

Good nonfiction needs both movement and description, says Francis Flaherty, author of The Elements of Story.

One technique he suggests for incorporating both is writing what he calls “right-branching sentences.” These are sentences that, as he writes, “offer up a big dose of action in the beginning so that the writer can branch out into static descriptions in the later, righthand clauses.”

Here’s his example of a right-branching sentence.

The boat smashed into the pier, both because San Francisco’s famous fog blinded the captain, and because the two night watchmen had decided to warm up with some rum below decks.

Let’s test Flaherty’s hypothesis by rearranging his sample sentence to put the static descriptions first. How easy is the following sentence to understand?

San Francisco’s famous fog blinded the captain and the two night watchmen had decided to warm up with some rum below decks, so, as a result, the boat smashed into the pier.

I find Flaherty’s example much easier to understand. Because it quickly tells me that the sentence is about a crash, I interpret the fog and the rum-drinking watchmen in light of that result. In the second example, I don’t know where the sentence is heading. I don’t know why the writer is telling me about those things until the very end of the sentence. At that point, I might have to re-read the sentence to figure out how the whole sentence hangs together.

NOTE: This article was originally published in February 2010. I’ve expanded and republished it because it’s still relevant.