The way we consume information has changed drastically over the last few years, meaning that the way we as organisations have to present this information has had to change too. The way we read online is very different to how we read a magazine or newspaper, and with more and more of us relying on our digital devices for our news and information and having a much shorter attention span, we have therefore had to adapt our writing styles in order to continue to be effective.
We have delivered many sessions on writing skills for various organisations (in fact we have a beginners writing skills 101 coming up for PRCA next week), and we wanted to share some of the key commandments of effective writing that apply nowadays no matter what you are writing:
1. Have a framework
Your content needs to be concise – easy to read, understand and take away. Make sure you plan what you are going to say and how it will be broken down. This will prevent you from waffling or losing focus (and potentially your readers). Don’t be afraid to use lists, numbers and subheaders to give your text added structure.
2. Make it easy to scan
In this Internet age, we prefer to scan rather than read long form, which means the start of your paragraph packs the most punch – so put your key message up front, rather than the traditional style of building up to a message at the end. Write short paragraphs, surrounded by lots of white space and break up long sentences to make scanning easier for the reader. Use bold, italics or underlines to draw attention to any important point in the middle of your text.
3. Remove non-essential words
You don’t need to words to describe the same thing. I could have titled this point ‘Remove non-essential redundant words’ but they are giving the same message, if it’s not essential, effectively, it is redundant! The general rule: If in doubt, leave it out!
4. Don’t repeat words
Some words may be essential, a part of your key messages, or simply a common word for the topic you are writing about. Even so, try not to repeat these words throughout the text, use synonyms where you can.
5. Avoid jargon
Keep your audience in mind, and bear in mind that, particularly in this part of the world, they will all have different levels of English, different experiences and knowledge. Explain industry terminology and spell out abbreviations the first time that you use them, so that everyone feels included and on the right page.
6. Keep it simple
Your audience will flick their eyes over your content in a few seconds. They need to understand what you are saying, without having to re-read or try and decipher your sentence, so make sure you use simple grammar and spelling. Don’t try to be too clever and end up alienating, confusing or boring your audience.
7. Be dynamic
To keep these short attention spans, you need direct action, so use simple sentence structures (subject-verb-object) for maximum impact. Try to refrain from using auxiliary verbs, ie change the phrase ‘we will be launching’ to ‘we will launch’.
8. Use active tenses
In order to remain dynamic and keep people’s attention, try to avoid using passive tenses , ie instead of saying ‘xx was introduced by xx’, it is much more impactful and effective to say ‘xx introduced xx’)
9. Maintain consistency
With Dubai being the melting pot of nationalities that it is, language (whether English, Arabic or French) has many different variations. Make sure that you are clear about what spelling (American/English) and style (dates, times, numbers, quotes) you have for your writing and stick to it!
10. Stop overcapitalising!
My biggest bugbear! People seem to want to capitalise everything nowadays. Capitals should be used to start a sentence and for specific proper nouns (the names of people, specific places and things). I repeat the word specific because this is incredible important as general nouns should not be capitalised, ie it is correct to say ‘I went to visit Oxford University today’ but if you are not using the full specific name, then capitals are not needed for the university, ie ‘I went to Oxford to visit the university today’. Capitals can be used for the main words of a headline or title, however standard practice now is to only use one capital at the start.
These are just a few of the rules that come up often when we’re editing documents, to find out more or join one of our workshops, please message us sam@footstepcommunications.com
