Tag Archive for: writing tips

Financial blog topic: write a letter

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A letter can be a great format for your financial blog. Writing a letter can help you tackle difficult topics or get a new perspective on an old topic.

I’m not thinking about the kinds of letter you usually write. I don’t mean prospecting letters, quarterly reports, or requests for documentation.

Instead, I am thinking about letters that tackle topics that you feel strongly about. Sure, you can write about those topics in a regular blog post. However, there’s something about a letter that makes it more personal.

Different letter recipients, different content

Imagine, for example, that you write a letter to one of the following people:

  • Your mom, whom you are grateful to for teaching you the value of saving and investing
  • Your son, who just started his first job with a 401(k) plan
  • Your client who holds no stocks in her retirement plan
  • Ted Benna, father of the 401(k) plan

Each of these letters might discuss retirement. However, your choice of recipient will affect the opinions you express, your tone, and the details you use to make your point.

Letter-writing benefits

The details that you use in a letter—especially a letter to your mom or son—are likely to deepen the reader’s sense of who you are. Are you a person like them? A person they can relate to? Your letter to a client will show if you can empathize, or you’re coldly logical. Your letter to Ted Benna may display your technical expertise.

I think that showing your personality, which I’ve written about in “How to add personality and warmth to your financial writing—part one”  is one of the strengths of a letter.

Another reason to use the letter format is to make your language more reader-friendly. I remember struggling with a topic in my essay-writing class at Radcliffe Seminars many years ago. To end my stilted language, my teacher suggested I write a letter to a classmate, telling her what I wanted to say. He hoped that would pull more conversational language out of me. Visualizing your ultimate reader always helps, as I discussed in “Your mother and the ‘fiscal cliff.’”

Have YOU ever written a blog post in the form of a letter? If so, please share a link in the comments.

By the way, this post was inspired by a book, Karen Tei Yamashita’s Letters to Memory, which takes the form of letters to historical figures and other people. It’s a provocative read about Japanese-American history that brings in Greek and Indian mythology and other diverse topics, thanks to her choice of letter recipients.

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7 tips to help you write more and be a better person

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Are you looking for tips to help you write or blog more frequently? Some of the tips from the “Work Well” chapter of Kate Hanley’s How to Be a Better Person may help.

1. Mono-task one thing a day

This is one of my favorite tips. Hanley says:

Multitasking is a fact of life and can sometimes be useful, but it’s not always the best choice. When you work on the most important thing on your daily to-do list, invite your best thinking by closing your email program, putting your phone on airplane mode, blocking yourself from social media, and doing one thing. You’ll get it done more effectively and efficiently when you do.

This works well for me. I’ve cranked out many of my blog posts writing on a steno pad on vacation, as I’ve discussed in “No batteries required: My favorite blogging technique.”

2. Make a learning plan

“If you want your career to continue to grow, you need your skills and interests to keep evolving too. Ensure your growth by making a plan to keep learning,” says Hanley.

I offer some learning tips for writers in “Confessions of a lousy writer—and 6 tips for you.” Also, I offer a financial blogging class.

3. Delegate better

You don’t need to prepare every part of your blog post, article, or white paper yourself. Outsource the parts that aren’t the best use of your time.  That’w what I do with the images and tricky formatting of my blog posts.

When you do outsource, don’t micromanage the person who’s doing the work for you. Hanley says to tell the person to “ask for help if the person gets stuck, but otherwise, let them at it. People who are doing something for the first time may make mistakes—focus on appreciating the effort more than the results at first and give positive feedback they can hear.”

4. Take on uncomfortable tasks

Are you scared to write a kind of article or other publication for the first time? Give it it a go.

Hanley says, “Accept your missteps and view them as ways to refine your skills. Growth can be uncomfortable, but so is staying in the same place for too long.”

5. Get better at prioritizing

You can’t do everything. You’ll just drive yourself crazy if you try to do it all.

Hanley says,

Here are some guidelines for setting priorities in a way that helps you focus on the important instead of merely the urgent: Think about the things on your list that make the biggest impact and that mean the most to you—those are your highest priorities. Next come the things that have a big impact, even though you may not love them. For things that don’t move the needle and that you don’t enjoy, either delegate them or bang them out in one concentrated burst.

6. Work smarter, not harder

Identifying your priorities, as suggested in Tip #5, will help you to work smarter instead of harder.

Hanley says,

The eighty/twenty rule—otherwise known as the Pareto principle for the late nineteenth-century economist Vilfredo Pareto who noticed that 80 percent of the land in Italy was owned by 20 percent of the people—says that 80 percent of your results comes from 20 percent of your efforts. Spend some time thinking about the simple actions that, when done consistently, result in big strides toward your goals—strengthening relationships with the 20 percent of your clients who generate 80 percent of revenue, for example, or making sure you get ninety minutes (approximately 20 percent of an eight-hour day) of focused time to produce your best work (no meetings or Facebooking allowed). Now make sure you prioritize those needle movers when planning what you’ll get done in a day or a week. Small, meaningful steps taken with consistency can take you everywhere you want to go.

7. Make time for your soul work

Hanley says,

Every job comes with a long list of responsibilities, but you have an obligation to do the work that speaks to your soul too, even if it doesn’t show up anywhere on that list. When you plan your week, make sure to block out a chunk or two of time that you can devote to the work that’s speculative—the proposal for the new project, or even the art you create on the side that keeps you a passionate and engaged person—because that energy will spill over into the narrower confines of your “job,” too.

Blogging is soul work for me. I do it because I enjoy it more than I do it for an ROI measured in dollars and cents.

 

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.

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What if your article has 5 points, but 1 is a digression?

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Imagine that you have five important points to make in an article, quarterly commentary, or white paper. Four of the points hang together. The fifth point is a digression. It doesn’t have much to do with the other four points. How can you best manage your oddball point?

Solution 1. Delete your digression

In the best of all possible worlds, your piece has a clear focus. Don’t dilute it by adding irrelevant information.

Solution 2. Move it to the end

Deleting the unrelated content isn’t always possible. I often encounter this in quarterly client letters.

For example, a letter may discuss the developments that drove portfolio performance during the past quarter. However, it’s also relevant to discuss the firm’s new hire.

In this case, discuss the new hire at the end of the letter. If possible, set off the announcement with a new heading.

Solution 3. Put it in a sidebar box

If you’re writing a longer piece that will be printed or published as a PDF, you have more options. You can put your digression into a sidebar box. That box gives a visual cue that its content is not essential to the main thrust of what you’ve written.

Other ideas?

If you have other ideas for handling a digression, please share them with me.

 

If you enjoyed this post, you may also enjoy “5 steps for rewriting your investment commentary.”

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Learn more about my financial blogging class!

My 2017 reading, with book recommendations for you

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Here are some of the books I read (or referred to) in 2017, divided by categories. The starred books are books that I refer to in 2017 blog posts, some of which haven’t been published yet.

Biography/autobiography

* Bossypants by Tina Fey

* Turner: the extraordinary life and momentous times of J.M.W. Turner by Franny Moyle

Elder care

I learned about the first two books in this section from New York Times columnist Ron Lieber’s article, “Hard-Won Advice in Books on Aging and Elder Care.” I imagine the other books he reviewed are equally good.

The 36-hour day: a family guide to caring for people who have Alzheimer disease, other dementias, and memory loss by Nancy L. Mace and Peter V. Rabins — This book has many practical tips.

A bittersweet season: caring for our aging parents—and ourselves by Jane Gross

Seven Steps to Managing Your Memory: What’s Normal, What’s Not, and What to Do About It by Andrew E. Budson and Maureen K. O’Connor — One of the authors spoke at my local library. I missed his talk, but the book seems solid.

Marketing

* Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger

* One Perfect Pitch: How to Sell Your Idea, Your Product, Your Business–or Yourself (Business Books) by Marie Perruchet

Personal finance

* Breaking Money Silence: How to Shatter Money Taboos, Talk Openly about Finances, and Live a Richer Life by Kathleen Burns Kingsbury

Garner's Modern American Usage

Reference books for writers

* Associated Press Stylebook by Associated Press

* Garner’s Modern American Usage by Bryan A. Garner — This has become a “go to” reference for me.

Words

Hemingway didn’t say that: the truth behind familiar quotations by Garson O’Toole

The Story of Be: A Verb’s-Eye View of the English Language by David Crystal — Before I read this book I hadn’t thought about the many meanings of the word “be.”

Writing

Do I Make Myself Clear: Why Writing Well Matters by Harold Evans

* Stylish Academic Writing by Helen Sword — This book was my favorite discovery in 2017.Helen Sword, Stylish Academic Writing

* Unless It Moves the Human Heart: The Craft and Art of Writing by Roger Rosenblatt

 

 

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.

Bond market commentary rewrite

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The best bond market commentary is written so its writing style doesn’t interfere with readers’ understanding of the content.

Here’s a screen shot of some bond market commentary that I received via email in November. It could use some help. (By the way, I’m not out to embarrass anybody. Before I started critiquing this piece, I googled the text to make sure the author couldn’t be identified easily.) Let’s analyze and rewrite this piece.

bond market commentary

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

What’s good and bad?

One good thing about this commentary is that it was published promptly after the end of the quarter. Most commentary takes days if not weeks to get published. The speedy production cycle probably meant the author didn’t have lots of time to process his or her ideas. Nor was there much time for editing or proofreading. It’s not easy to pump out clean commentary under these circumstances.

Let’s look at the commentary’s weaknesses.

  1. It lumps together a bunch of sentences that don’t stick to a single theme. It jumps around chronologically, going from September to August to October to second quarter to June to September to October. The subject-matter progression is a little better organized, going from credit to risk assets to the Fed to the VIX. However, these subjects shouldn’t all be in one paragraph because the author doesn’t write about them in relation to each other.
  2. The paragraph lacks a topic sentence that says why all of these items are grouped together.
  3. The paragraph is dense and intimidating.
  4. It’s confusing that the paragraph writes about October as if it’s in the future, saying “The Fed will also start gradually unwinding its balance sheet in October.” Did the person mean to write “November”?
  5. It’s strange to start the Fed section with old news from June. it’s better to start the section in the present, as you’ll see in the rewrite below.
  6. The paragraph has grammatical errors. Credit doesn’t trade to “their tightest levels.” It should be “its tightest levels.” “The proposed Trump’s tax reform” should be “Trump’s proposed tax reform.” It’s a little light on commas for my taste.
  7. The paragraph has a spelling error. “Geopolitical” is one word.

Note: I give a pass to this commentary for using technical language, such as “credit,” “risk assets,” and “FOMC” because this commentary is aimed at practitioners. It’s fine to write in the language of your audience. In fact, it’s appropriate, as long as you don’t expect regular folks to understand you.

My thoughts about how to rewrite this piece

The main change I’d make to this piece is to reformat it. I think this piece was intended to provide some quick information without building a bigger argument, so I’m not writing an introduction or strong topic sentences. I am, however, adding bullet points and headings.

I don’t follow the bond market closely so I may make some factual errors in my rewrite.

I raise some questions about the content in red text.

My bond market commentary rewrite

Third quarter 2018 review

  • Corporate credit spreads: Corporate credit spreads tightened into September, after widening a little in August due to geopolitical tensions. Since the September sell-off, largely triggered by North Korea/US tensions, credit traded back to its tightest levels [tightest since when?] into the end of the third quarter.
  • Bond market fundamentals: Fundamentals have remained solid from a free-cash-flow perspective, as second-quarter earnings mostly exceeded analyst expectations with technology sector showing the strongest earnings growth. Rising oil prices improved profitability and credit metrics in the energy sector. However, non-financial leverage continued to rise, which is a negative.
  • Risk assets: The market’s expectations for Trump’s tax reform proposal contributed to positive returns for the S&P 500 index and other risk assets.
  • Fed policy: The fed funds rate is currently between 1% to 1.25%, following the Fed’s raising rates in June for the second time this year. The market-implied probability of a December rate hike increased from 25% in the first week of September to 70% as of the quarter’s end. The Fed is expected to start gradually unwinding its balance sheet in [what month or time period?].
  • VIX: The VIX has mostly remained subdued, with market volatility remaining low for most of the quarter.

 

If you’d like to read some well-written fixed-income commentary, check out the links in my post on “Who are the fixed-income commentary winners–and why?”

 

Writing question: how do you know when you have too many details?

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How do you know when you have too many details in your writing? That question from a participant in my investment commentary webinar made me think of these six tips. Try them if your writing gets bogged down by details.

1. Go with your gut

Seasoned writers rely on their instincts to know when they’ve stuffed too much into their drafts. They look at the rhythm of the piece or simply go with their guts. That’s fine for experienced writers who’ve honed their instincts through feedback from teachers or editors. But it’s not much help for non-professional writers. That’s why I provide more suggestions for identifying when you have too many details.

2. Word count

How long is your draft and its components? To oversimply, if you’ve written a 20,000-word blog post or a 1,000-word sidebar, it’s too long. It probably includes too many details.

3. What advances your argument?

Too many details may overwhelm your readers instead of convincing them. To cut the excess, ask “What’s the absolutely minimum of details that will make my point?”

Pare your story back to the basics. If it’s compelling, you’re finished.

4. Rule of Three

Examples work better in groups of three as I discussed in “What number of examples is ideal for persuasion?” Do your examples comply with the Rule of Three?

The Rule of Three isn’t an absolute. There’ll be many times when more is better. But it’s a way to filter for easy cuts to your excessive details.

5. Ask what your readers want

Do you have family or friends who are members of your target audience? Show them your draft. Ask them for feedback, including suggestions for what you can cut.

6. Are your sections balanced?

If your piece has three sections and one section is way longer than the others, it’s possible that section is too long. But that’s not always the case. Use your judgment.

Your suggestions?

If you have suggestions for how to recognize when your writing has too many details, please let me know.

Image courtesy of iosphere at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Powerful financial article abstracts

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How do you get the most out of your financial article abstracts? I’m not talking about executive summaries for white papers. I mean formal abstracts that appear at the start of journal articles.

To supercharge your financial article abstracts, you need to know your goal. In Stylish Academic Writing, Helen Sword got me thinking about what your goal should be. She says:

The purpose of a scholarly abstract is not merely to summarize an article’s content, but to persuade one’s discipline-based peers that the research is important and the article is therefore worth reading.

One way that authors strive to assert the importance of their research is to say that it “will plug a ‘gap” in the existing scholarship,” as Sword says. Surely this is important.

But, Sword argues that starting “human conversations” in abstracts may be even more important. “Authors who adopt an impersonal ‘academic’ tone are neglecting one of the most powerfully persuasive tools at the stylish writer’s disposal: the human touch,” she says.

One way to do that is to give “a voice and presences to human subjects,” Sword says. To do this in finance, you might write about the people affected by your research.

Another way is to write in the first person. Use “I” or “we,” instead of writing impersonally.

Sword also pushes for “clear, comprehensible language” in both your abstract and the body of your academic paper.

Another suggestion for your abstract: Describe “not only its what but its why.” Sword asks, “What is the main point of your article, dissertation, or book?” Also, “Why is it important, whether to you or to anyone else?” These are great questions for the writers of any document.

Check out Stylish Academic Writing

Helen Sword’s Stylish Academic Writing isn’t just for academics. It offers advice that will help any nonfiction writer. It also sparked several posts on this blog.

 

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.

Don’t give up on being different

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Do you worry that nothing can make your writing stand out from the rest of the pack?

Here’s some inspiration for you from Roger Rosenblatt’s Unless It Moves the Human Heart: The Craft and Art of Writing:

Eventually, we all tell the same stories, yet none of our stories sound like anyone else’s. Think of your dullest family member, the pixilated uncle who tells the same family anecdote over and over every Thanksgiving. Even he never tells his story the same way twice.

Rosenblatt’s statement reminds us that everyone expresses things differently—and their own way of expressing themselves varies over time. As a result, the way that you express yourself is inherently different.

But, you may say, I don’t want to be a boring uncle. Of course not. That’s why you should build on your differences.

Ways to differentiate your writing

Consider using the techniques I discuss in “How to add personality and warmth to your financial writing, part one” and “Part two.” (The two posts are summarized in “Infographic: 5 ways to add personality to your financial writing.”)

Also, strive to make your writing achieve the three C’s of being compelling, clear, and concise.

Another way to differentiate yourself is to speak to a narrowly defined audience. Show that you understand your audience’s unique characteristics.

Do these things, and you’ll achieve a difference that attracts readers.

Disclosure: If you click on an 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.

Editing tool: the Writer’s Diet

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It’s hard to be objective about your own writing. I know that’s true for me. That’s why editing tools, like the Writer’s Diet, can help.

Writer’s Diet editing tool identifies weaknesses

The Writer’s Diet is a free, online tool that assesses what you enter into its text box. It evaluates your use of verbs, nouns, prepositions, adjectives/adverbs, and “it, this, that, there.” As the website explains, “The higher the percentage of highlighted words, the ‘flabbier’ your score.”

Let’s look at each item:

  • The verb test doesn’t penalize you for verbs in general. It counts be-verbs, which I’ve railed against in “The ‘Be’ test for writers.”
  • The noun test counts abstract nouns, also known as nominalizations, which I’ve discussed in “Quit hiding your meaning.” Abstract nouns are generally not a good idea, though sometimes they are necessary.
  • The preposition test counts common prepositions. Prepositions aren’t bad. But too many of them may make a sentence too complex.
  • The adjectives/adverbs test counts words with common endings for adjectives and adverbs. An occasional adjective or adverb is fine. Too many make your sentences hard to understand.
  • The “it, this, that, there” test counts those words. The author also calls this the “waste word test.”

Below is a sample analysis that I found on the Writer’s Diet website. Can you see how weak it is?

Writer's Diet website sample

 

Run multiple samples through this test, suggests Helen Sword, the creator of the Writer’s Diet, in her book, Stylish Academic Writing. “By the time you have tested three or four samples of your writing, you will have become aware of your signature usage patterns—for example, a predilection for abstraction (translation: too many spongy abstract nouns) or a tendency to begin every sentence with this.”

No editing tool is perfect

No online editing tool is perfect. The Writer’s Diet tool admits that. It says, “Many fabulous pieces of prose will receive scores of Flabby or even Heart Attack, because stylish writers have the confidence and skill to play around with language in ways that the test is not designed or intended to evaluate.”

Thewriters diet editing test example reverse is true, too. See the paragraph below, which I used as an example of bad writing in “Seven Ways to Talk Your Financial Execs Out of Jargon and Bad Writing,” my article on MarketingProfs (free registration required). The Writer’s Diet praised this awful sentence as “lean,” not recognizing that jargon made it difficult to understand.

Even my favorite online tool, which I discussed in “Free help for wordy writers,” can’t identify all problems. That’s why your writing will benefit from a combination of automated and human evaluation.

If you liked this post, you may also enjoy “Quick check for writers, with an economic commentary example” and “5 steps for rewriting your investment commentary.”

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.

Image courtesy of Keerati at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Word repetition—good or bad?

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“Can I repeat this word throughout my report, or is it better to mix things up?” That’s a question I hear sometimes. Many people think that repetition is bad.

I like the following quote from Roger Rosenblatt in Unless It Moves the Human Heart: The Craft and Art of Writing:

Read Hemingway’s short stories, where he uses the same words over and over, and the words gain meaning with every repetition. If you have someone say something, let him “say” it—not aver it, declare it or intone it. Let the power reside in what he says.

I love that last line: “Let the power reside in what he says.”

I took a stand for repetition in “How to discuss index and portfolio returns: My case against synonyms for ‘return’.” I prefer plain old “returned.” However, many of my survey respondents favored more colorful words. I’m glad I found Rosenblatt’s quote to make my case.

Disclosure: If you click on an 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.