Make Your Writing More Readable

A guest post by Rick Holton

Many people recognize that business is fast paced and that if you want to communicate successfully, you've got to make the reader's task as easy as possible.  Here are four tips for increasing readability and getting your message read.

Use an Effective Subject Line or Title

When I think of using an effective subject line, I think most often of email, where people are often tempted to write subject lines like "Hi," or their name or the day of the week.

I'm a lot more likely to read your email, however, if it says something like "Financial data for housing report," or "Resolution to seating problem."  Then I know why your message is important to me.  On a longer document, a title serves much the same purpose.

Break Up the Text

You can also use format to your advantage.  It is much easier, for example, to read relatively short paragraphs than it is to read an entire page with no breaks.  I recently read a novel that was written as a single paragraph.  It was an excellent book, but business, unlike literature, is transactional.  The reader needs the information we're sending to solve a business problem now.

You can further help the reader to understand your message by trying to limit each paragraph to one idea, while remembering to create transitions between paragraphs. 

Use Subheads That Are Complete Thoughts

Instead of using subheadings like "Argument" or "Causes," which tell the reader very little, use subheadings that are complete thoughts.  This makes the reader's task much easier, and even if the reader reads nothing else, he will still come away with your key points.

Summarizing every three or four paragraphs in a few words, however, is not as easy as it sounds.  It takes practice.  Here's where clear thinking comes to your rescue.  If you understand your purpose and what message you intend to deliver, it becomes easier to identify your key points.

Also a caution.  Subheads may not be appropriate in many emails or in other short documents, like a one-page letter.  Adding subheads to a short personal communication might imply that you think the reader is too dumb to understand your message unless you spell it out for him.

If you can't use subheads that are complete thoughts, use topic sentences.  In other words, in the first sentence of the paragraph, indicate what the key idea of that paragraph is going to be.

Use Diction to Increase Readability

Choosing the right word will make your message clearer, and you can achieve this, in part, by using ordinary language, by omitting needless words, and by using verbs.

If you use jargon or other words that are unfamiliar to your audience, they will not understand you, so keep in mind their level of expertise in the subject you are writing about.  Remember: your goal is to communicate. 

You can omit needless words by looking at what you've written and seeing what you could leave out without changing your message.  Or see what's irrelevant to your purpose.  Do not use expressions like "at this point in time" when you can say "now."

Using verbs will also enliven your style and help you omit needless words.  Avoid, for instance, expressions like "she made the decision that..."  Say instead, "she decided..."  And try not to overuse colorless verbs like is and are or words like make, have and give.

These simple steps can simplify the reader's task and help you get your message across.

Rick Holton is owner of The Holton Group, which specializes in business writing and consulting.

Quotation for the Week of June 26

"Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all."
-- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

How Much Does Rank Matter?

All authors want to be bestselling authors. Am I right?

Let's think about that a moment. Sure, being a bestselling author means you've sold a lot of books, which is good. However, are we all going to become bestselling authors? Does it matter? Is that the point of being a fiction writer?

I suggest you take a look at Seth Godin's blog post, The Grateful Dead and the Top 40.

I'd say that sums it up nicely. :)

Quotation for the Week of June 19

"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is stoned to death."
-- Joan D. Vinge

Spam, Spam, Spam, Amazon and Spam

It's one thing to hear about ebooks being pirated from various illicit online sites. Not everyone will bother to mess around with such sites or trust that what they get from them will be free of viruses and other problems.

It's quite another to hear that people are simply plagiarising authors' ebooks in their entirety from Amazon's DTP and selling them as their own on same, at least according to this article.

And while we're at it, get a load of this! According to the article:

Thousands of digital books, called ebooks, are being published through Amazon's self-publishing system each month. Many are not written in the traditional sense.

Instead, they are built using something known as Private Label Rights, or PLR content, which is information that can be bought very cheaply online then reformatted into a digital book.

These ebooks are listed for sale -- often at 99 cents -- alongside more traditional books on Amazon's website, forcing readers to plow through many more titles to find what they want.

Aspiring spammers can even buy a DVD box set called Autopilot Kindle Cash that claims to teach people how to publish 10 to 20 new Kindle books a day without writing a word.

Heavens! :-0 I'd just like it noted for the record that all the words in my .99 ebooks were, in fact, written by me. :)

PS: While I'm talking ebooks, I'd like to put in a quick plug for SHAKEN: Stories for Japan. The proceeds of sales go entirely toward Japan's disaster relief efforts. This anthology includes 20 short stories written voluntarily, i.e., nobody is making a dime off this book, people, except the charity, of course.

So, please consider paying the very reasonable amount of $3.99 for a download. Or you could read a sample of my story "Cherry Blossoms" first. See what you think. I hope you enjoy it. :) Thank you!

Quotation for the Week of June 12

"The nice thing about egotists is that they don't talk about other people."
-- Lucille S. Harper

Quotation for the Week of June 5

"The older I grow, the less important the comma becomes. Let the reader catch his own breath."
-- Elizabeth Clarkson Zwart

Social Media and the Writer

Since I like to provide resources that are actually useful, I hope you'll find this one to be. This article provides a set of Twitter hacks, i.e., the closest thing I've seen to a user guide. Not too shabby, eh? :)

Now, when it comes to social media strategy, I'd follow the advice of Guy Kawasaki. I must say, I like the way this guy thinks.

Of course, not to put too fine a point on it, but doesn't it really come down to three simple words? :)