Tag Archive for: mind mapping

12 steps to rewrite long articles

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What’s the best process to rewrite long articles written by someone other than you? You may get some ideas from my 12-step process. I start by assessing the article’s strengths and weaknesses. Next, I rewrite the article, including its graphs, callouts, and anything else that isn’t part of the main text. Finally, I run several checks on the document. You can rewrite long articles with confidence if you follow this process.

rewrite long articles

1. Diagram the article

When clients ask me to rewrite long articles, sometimes they’ll point out the problems they’d like me to address. But, more often, they’ll simply ask me to tighten up and improve the document. I need to quickly get a sense of what the article says, and whether its overall structure works. Mind mapping helps me with this.

I use mind mapping to diagram the current structure and main points of the article. I put the article’s topic in a circle in the middle of the page, then draw a line from that circle for each section. From each “section line” I draw more lines—typically one for every paragraph. I then add as many details on separate lines as I feel are important for me to understand the article.

As I go through, I also note text that will need more work, poorly placed or designed exhibits, and anything else that will need work during the rewriting process. I might mark this on a printed copy of the article.

Next, I look at the mind map to grasp the article’s main points. This high-level view also helps me to spot missing or poorly arranged information, as I explained in “Mind maps: can they win buy-in for your writing?”

Here’s a mind map that suggests the need to add a new topic—frontier markets—to a paper about investing outside the U.S. I discuss it in more detail in “Mind maps: can they win buy-in for your writing?”

After mind mapping, I often write bullet points that say in my own language what I see as the article’s main points. I’ll typically bounce these off the client to get confirmation. However, busy clients—especially those who aren’t the subject-matter experts—often leave me on my own.

2. Rewrite your long article

I start rewriting by editing the introduction to ensure that it introduces the article’s important themes. I believe in giving away the main points in the article’s beginning. I feel this prepares the reader’s mind to accept the arguments that follow. I repeat this process at the start of each major section of the article. Sometimes I’ll have jotted down new introductory sentences for the sections while I was diagramming the article. That means I only need to adapt the sentence to work in its new home.

At the top of every paragraph, I check that the initial sentence gives the main point or topic of the rest of the paragraph. That way, I know that later the article will pass my first-sentence check.

I also work to simplify and clarify every sentence. My goal is to make the article as reader-friendly as possible. Wherever possible, I cut text that’s redundant or irrelevant.

During this phase, I use Microsoft Word’s comments feature to ask questions and make suggestions.

3. Improve graphs and other exhibits

Graphs and other exhibits can boost the power of your writing. But their significance often isn’t immediately obvious to your readers.

I like the approach that some of my clients take. They give the exhibit a short title, as most folks do. But they also add a caption that explains the exhibit’s meaning. I create or check captions so they’re easy to understand—or, at least as easy as a complex graphic can be.

I also check that the exhibit is located as close as possible to the text to which it refers.

4. Add callouts

Sometimes clients ask me to add callouts or pull quotes to engage people who skim their articles. Callouts are blocks of text—often quotes from the article—that are highlighted by their design or location. Similar to movie trailers, “They show just enough of the best stuff to get the reader to buy a ticket for the full show,” says Ann Wylie of Wylie Communications.

Callouts add visual interest. They can also help your designer avoid awkward page breaks by filling space that would otherwise go empty. That’s important when I’m filling one of my other roles, as the editor of a monthly print magazine. When you rewrite long articles to include callouts, you make it more likely that readers will read the entire piece—or at least skim it.

5. Perform first-sentence check

When your reader can grasp the gist of your argument by reading the first sentence of every paragraph, you’ve passed my first-sentence check.

I explain the details in “Quick check for writers, with an economic commentary example.” I also explain what to do when your article fails this test.

6. Run spellchecking software

Running spellchecking software may help you catch obvious errors. Still, the software isn’t infallible, as shown by the example of the “portfolio manger”—instead of “manager”—in an investment firm’s pitch book. That’s why I use other software tools, too.

7. Run PerfectIt

PerfectIt is software that’s particularly good at finding problems of inconsistent usage. For example, did you hyphenate a term in one place but not another? Or, did you refer to a financial planner as both an “advisor” and an “adviser”? Of course, human judgment is required because sometimes such inconsistent usage is correct.

I’ve written about PerfectIt in “My three main software tools for proofreading.”

8. Run Grammarly

I use Grammarly grammar-checking software, which checks different issues than PerfectIt. However, like PerfectIt, it also incorrectly flags some usages as wrong. Ultimately, it finds enough errors that I continue to use it when time permits. I find it good at identifying missing articles and unnecessary words.

9. Use Speak

I use Speak, Microsoft Word’s text-to-voice function to read an article paragraph by paragraph. As I explained in an earlier post about my use of a text-to-voice function, when you read only with your eyes, “you naturally fill in missing words and correct other mistakes in your mind.”

10. Check for the client’s style

When a client’s style guide calls for a style that I don’t typically use, I try to check on any major differences. For example, I love the serial comma, but not all of my clients do. Or, they may spell out “percent” while I’m accustomed to using a percentage sign. These differences are easy to check using Word’s search function.

11. Double-check exhibits and formatting

I scan exhibits to see if they have all of the necessary elements, such as a title and a source line. I also check the article’s formatting, especially to make sure that the hierarchy of headings is correct.

12. Review comments

I check that my comments using Microsoft Word’s Comments feature are reasonably easy to understand.

Hit “send” with confidence!

After completing step #12, I’m ready to send the revised text to my client.

If you follow my process, you can feel more confident that you’ve caught errors and improved the document that you’ve rewritten.

How to weight and organize evidence

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In a typical financial white paper, you must organize evidence to support your argument. John R. Trimble’s Writing with Style suggests how you can do that.

Step 1. List the evidence

In Trimble’s example, a writer starts by listing all of the evidence. Next, the writer weighs the arguments. This is important because “the shotgun approach—a blast of unconnected reasons—is out of the question,” says Trimble.

Step 2. Categorize

Next, it’s time to organize the arguments by category. “This is a crucial part of the writing process, he knows, for his reader will expect the proof of this is sorted into neat, logically developing stages.” In Trimble’s example, the evidence is divided into moral, economic, political, and legal reasons.

Categorizing is a step that lends itself to mind mapping, a technique that I discuss extensively in Financial Blogging: How to Write Powerful Posts That Attract Clients. With Trimble’s example, I’d create “branches” for moral, economic, political, and legal reasons around a central circle holding the paper’s topic. That mind map would give me a bird’s eye perspective, which would help me work on Trimble’s next task.

Step 3. Put in the right order

Figuring out the sequence for presenting the arguments is an important related task. This poses questions, says Trimble:

Should the most persuasive ones all come first, or should he build his argument from least persuasive to most persuasive, or should he mix them? Or would he be wiser to eliminate most of the marginally persuasive reasons and go for quality rather than quantity?

Trimble votes for quality over quantity. I agree.

However, he also votes for an “increasingly persuasive order of arguments.” That’s often not the best approach, in my opinion, especially if the arguments are discrete, and don’t build on one another. In that case, you might lose your readers before they reach your best arguments.

My take on the right order

I’d prefer to start with the strongest argument. That helps you to capture your readers’ attention so they’ll stick with you throughout your white paper.

With the evidence in Trimble’s example, I might start with the strongest category and the strongest point within that category, and then move through the weaker points in that category. Then, I’d move on to the second-strongest category.

Of course, starting with the strongest category’s strongest point isn’t always possible. Sometimes that strongest point rests on a weaker point in that category—or in a different category. Such complex relationships are why I enjoy mind mapping to help me visualize the relationships among the points I want to make.

 

Whether or not you agree with every detail of Trimble’s approach, he’s right that you must categorize and weight the evidence to persuade your readers.

 

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.

The image in the upper left is courtesy of Tony Webster [CC BY-SA 3.0]

Mind maps: can they win buy-in for your writing?

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“Do you ever circulate mind maps for buy in from executives at firm that you are writing for? For example, chief investment officer or marketing executives?” This question arose during my latest investment commentary webinar. I am a big fan of using mind maps in the writing process.

Most people know mind mapping as a visual, nonlinear way of brainstorming ideas. You put your ideas on paper so you can look at them from a bird’s eye perspective. This lets you identify patterns, prioritize ideas, and organize, without getting bogged down in details.

I rarely share mind maps with my clients, but I’ve found them powerful in the right situations. My experience sparked some thoughts about how you might use them to win over your bosses or subject-matter experts as you develop investment commentary, white papers, or other content for your investment or wealth management firm.

The right time to introduce mind maps will depend on the person whose buy-in you seek. Are they open to visual aids or do they need to see ideas fully written out? Will they brainstorm with you? Can they commit to content at the idea stage?

Here are some ways that you might introduce mind maps into your approval process. By the way, unless you’re a very neat writer, you should use mind mapping software to produce readable maps. I currently pay for a subscription to MindMeister, but there are many other options.

1. Brainstorm with your subject-matter expert or marketer

At the brainstorming stage, your mind map identifies what you think will be your main themes. However, you haven’t yet finalized your themes or organization. Your map will be messy. It may overwhelm a viewer who craves order or who’s not used to looking at mind maps.

However, if you’re working with a person who likes to brainstorm, then a mind map that displays relevant ideas can help you discuss which of the many possible paths you should take. For example, you might point to a cluster of ideas around a specific asset class. Do you focus a section on that asset class or do you integrate it into a discussion of a broader trend that also appears on your diagram?

This might be especially helpful if you work with subject-matter experts who typically go through several drafts because they need multiple drafts to spark new ideas. Your mind map could accelerate their ability to see new ideas and connections with different parts of your mind map.

Mind mapping software can help you and the other person collaborate. You can allow more than one person to edit the mind map. Participants can also add relevant links and documents, such as an Excel spreadsheet or a provocative article.

In the example below, the participants realized that they’d forgotten to consider frontier markets.

Mind map: what about frontier markets?

2. Review your overall approach to the topic

If you want someone to sign off on your “big picture” approach to a topic,  consider showing them a second-round mind map.

When I write complex stories, I use the first mind map to identify my themes and organization. Then, I draw a second mind map that’s organized to show only relevant information in the order in which I think it will work best. When you show someone a second-round mind map, they won’t be distracted by other potential directions. Plus, they can more easily grasp your plan than in a first-round mind map, where you may need to explain how you’ll reshape the raw data.

Why not just show them an outline? An outline takes more time to write. Plus, it makes the organization seemed more final. That’s not good if you want to encourage them to tweak your approach to improve it.

Viewing the next mind map helped the participants decide that their piece should be organized in terms of the three broad reasons to invest outside the U.S. The dotted lines show the topic areas from which they’ll draw their evidence.

review of mind map invest outside the U.S

3. Dig into the details

If your colleague wants to see all of the supporting details before you write, mind maps can help.

If you’re writing a short piece, you might drop all of your data into a mind map before reviewing it with your expert or other co-worker. For a longer piece, that’s too time-consuming. However, if you use software to attach a file or a link with detailed data, then you easily answer your co-worker’s questions about the nitty-gritty details.

4. Diagnose what’s wrong

In direct interactions with clients, I’ve most frequently used mind maps to diagnose what’s wrong with written pieces.

I’ve sometimes done this interactively with clients looking at my mind map in MindMeister from their desks somewhere else in the U.S., while I work in my office. I start with a map in which I’ve diagrammed the piece’s current organization. If the piece is short enough, I go paragraph by paragraph and sentence by sentence.

One of the big questions I ask is essentially, “Does the piece place like with like?” Placing like with like is a “Key lesson for investment commentary writers from my professional organizer.” The visual aspect of mind mapping makes it easier for my coaching clients to see that content is misplaced.

5. Harvest ideas for the next piece

Financial writers always need more ideas for future articles, investment commentary, and white papers. Look at your original mind map with your subject-matter expert or other colleague. You may identify gems that didn’t fit in your current project.

Don’t force mind maps on people

Some folks love mind maps. Others can’t stand them. Even if you love them, you can’t force someone whose mind works differently to join in your enthusiasm. Don’t push it.