Winning with words

Sam Leader

We’ve brought on some terrific new contributors in recent weeks, with more debuting soon.

Our new experts will be covering areas we’ve not addressed fully in the past, including financial management and understanding insurance.

Hurrah! I am feeling super proud of the site right now.

Back to newsletter-y business, I’ve been working on some style guidelines designed to help our new contributors. I thought I’d share some highlights in the hope they’ll assist your own writing.

These are my views on how to make an article a good read. They are subjective, probably grammatically controversial or worse incorrect. With that in mind, let’s get going:

I discourage the use of:

Headings With All Capitals
While Americanisations of the original Australian-English rules have become more accepted, you won’t see them on this site.Similarly you won’t find a skerrick of organize, realize and the like.

Brackets
My view is they weaken writing. Either a statement deserves a place in the paragraph or it doesn’t. It’s like talking to someone, then suddenly starting to whisper. Stand by your words or don’t say them.

Phrases in inverted commas
E.g. A client of mine “turned a corner” and “came up trumps” with the right solution.

If you spoke this sentence, you wouldn’t emphasise the phrases in this way. If you did, the listener would feel mighty patronised.

Never underestimate the reader’s ability to interpret your message. People aren’t dummies, if they were, apparently incomprehensible books like A Clockwork Orange or Trainspotting would never have been bestsellers.

Excessive punctuation
Commas, exclamation marks and hyphens are particularly prone to overuse. Punctuation is meant to add seasoning to words, it’s not supposed to be the primary flavour.

The word ‘etc’
“Etc” says to me “I can’t be bothered to finish this list.” Either do the job properly or put the word “and” in between the last two words.

There are lots of things I encourage the use of, but I’ll save that for another time.

What’s your view? Do you agree with my niggles or are you compelled to take me to task? Bring it on below.

Until next week.

Love your work,

Sam Leader is a director of Flying Solo and its editor. She is the co-author of Flying Solo - How to go it alone in business.

30 comments | Add your own 1 2 3 4 5 | Next» View all»

Totally agree... (you are right!!!), those are MOST annoying "flies in the ointment"... (LOL)
Another thing that vaguely annoys me is how people often spell lose, loose i.e. Where did you loose your cat? I have seen even journalists misuse this very common word in this way.
In high school English class, we were also taught not to use "nice" as an adjective as it's simply lazy writing. We also had to watch we did not become "eye doctors". That means you start just about every sentence with the word I. So the whole thing reads, I, I, I. Kim Buchanan from Auckland
Sam, you are very right in saying this. I am guilty of a few of those things, but never really looked at it. You have now made me more aware for next time. Thanks-Emma,www.divapromotions.com.au Emma Rhoades from Brisbane, Australia
Hi Sam
Whilst I agree with you on the all caps comment - it's probably not for the same reason. Purely from a legibility/comprehension point of view initial caps produce a better response. I'm in no way voicing a personal preference here - all the actual studies I've seen come to that conclusion.
I disagree with every other point you've made because there are definitely times when these practices are well and truly justified. It's about making language serve you and your reader, rather than your serving language.
This is especially the case in writing for sales or marketing, which can (and generally should) be more conversational. If breaking a grammar or punctuation rule leads to better results, then so be it.
The test of good writing is not black and white. Good writing is effective writing, and grammar and punctuation often come second to effectiveness, and even to meaningfulness.
Cheers
Christine Christine Sutherland from Perth, Western Australia
Hi Sam,
I agree if this is writing for promo' purposes (which I guess you had in mind).
Otherwise things can - and do - become trickier: punctuation may not be excessive; if meaning is clarified (rather than obscured). Evan from Sydney, Australia
OK, OK no more brackets from me (although I do like the way they enable me to add a reflective aside to my sentences). I do it when I talk too (except the brackets are less obvious).
Sam, you're forgetting something. Editors rule. You want it, you get it.
Karen (Morath)
Karen Morath from Melbourne | Read my articles
Thank you, Sam. As a professional writer these are things that bug me. I disagree with Christine. Yes, good writing is effective writing. However, in my experience, most people don't make grammatical mistakes in order to make their writing better, they do it because they don't know any better. Grammar and punctuation are tools to make writing easier to understand - the very simple rules that Sam has outlined above are good writing rules. Putting in too many commas, using brackets and cliches is never justified, unless done self-conciously to make a point.
As for sales and marketing stuff, you may have a point. However, you have to be very careful how you use it ... i.e. you need to know the rules to break the rules. Otherwise, you can come off as unreliable and shonky-looking. Leela Cosgrove - www.leelacosgrove.com from Melbourne, Australia

30 comments | Add your own 1 2 3 4 5 | Next» View all»

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