Take a rain check on the clichés
Office-speak and clichés are so well established, it’s easy to play buzzword bingo in management meetings. It’s less difficult to spot in writing, but a very easy habit to fall into.
Say no to the splice
Commas are a really useful writing tool. You could compare them to taking a breath when writing a sentence. However, it's easy to go over the top and use them incorrectly.
Sentences are the new paragraphs
Brevity is a beautiful thing, but an increasingly used shortcut is becoming so ubiquitous it can no longer escape a little musing...
Do you really need all those words?
This month's writing tip is about less is more. Literally. It's about using fewer words to communicate more clearly and effectively.
Want punchier writing? Don’t bury your verbs
Nominalisation is one of our pet hates. It's also one of the commonest ways in which writing falls down.
Can you tell a story in just six words?
You may have heard the tale of how, in the 1920s, Ernest Hemingway bet ten dollars that he could write a complete story in just six words. He wrote: "For Sale: baby shoes, never worn." He won the bet and often referred to the story as his best work ever.
Keep it simple like Leonardo
When he wasn't busy painting masterpieces or inventing helicopters, all-round-Renaissance man Leonardo da Vinci found was one of the leading thinkers of his day.
Accessing new jargon
What is it with the word 'access' all of a sudden? You can't move these days without people 'accessing' education, 'accessing' information on the web, 'accessing' resources in the library, or 'accessing' lists of annoying words.
Should it be spelt with a ‘c’ or an ‘s’?
English is renowned for its quirky, often logic-defying spelling rules. Gives it character, a mark of our mongrel heritage, we're told. It doesn't make it any easier to write, though. One common area of confusion is when seemingly the same word has two spelling variations - one with a 'c', and one with an 's'.
Getting your message across clearly and concisely
Good writing is all about clarity - getting your message across clearly and concisely. But in the wrong hands, words can often cloud, rather than clarify, the intended message.
Try to align your tone with your brand
One of the key purposes of business writing is to write in a way that reinforces your brand. It's also one of the main areas where much business writing often fails. If your brand is about dynamism, energy and modern thinking, your writing needs to support that. So that means using appropriate language, tone and structure.
Is the web making us lazy?
Isn't the web great? There are all sorts of great writing tips out there. I came across this excellent - and funny - article about writing for the web. It cocks a bit of a snoop at some of the web-writing theories about how people read online.