Powerful language is the soul of effective communication. It\u2019s also the soul of successful marketing, business, and government. Remember \u201cMr. Gorbachev tear down this wall\u201d? We cannot measure the global impact of those six words.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the secret to better writing? Two necessities: more reading and more writing. Both are unglamorous; but both are effective and productive.<\/p>\n
Before you hire a writing coach, put your reading and writing on steroids with these seven principles.<\/p>\n
1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Master the fundamentals.<\/strong> Begin with Strunk and White\u2019s The Elements of Style<\/em><\/a>.<\/em> After 30 years of writing, I still keep this paperback on my desk. It\u2019s the best primer for when to use who or whom, singular or plural possessive, and active or passive voice. \u201cWriting is visual. It catches the eye before it catches the brain,\u201d said William Zinsser. If you get the fundamentals wrong, you\u2019ve lost your audience.<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Make The Wall Street Journal<\/a> <\/em>your literary vitamin.<\/strong> Written between the 11th- and 12th-grade levels, the WSJ<\/em> is full of strong words that carry the reader through each paragraph. The more words in your arsenal, the more potent your prose. Not just for the investor, the Journal <\/em>also informs and entertains on wine, real estate, and work life balance. In Saturday\u2019s Style & Fashion section, Dan Neil wrote about his time-worn Carhartt jacket and how the brand managed to stand apart as \u201cthe secret handshake of the American yeomantry<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n 3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Read On Writing Well<\/a><\/em> by William Zinsser and On Writing<\/a><\/em> by Stephen King.<\/strong> Business writing is replete with people who dialogue, interface, and talk about paradigms. \u00a0My first impression is not to do business with companies who sound so pretentious. \u201cA clear sentence is no accident,\u201d says King. \u201cRewriting is where the game is won or lost.\u201d Spend the time to write it right.<\/p>\n 4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Reread The Gettysburg Address<\/a><\/strong> and the context surrounding Lincoln\u2019s speech on November 19, 1863. It\u2019s difficult to find 278 words more powerful or memorable.<\/p>\n 5.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Study Warren Buffet\u2019s Letter to the Shareholders<\/a>.<\/strong> From one of the richest men in the world who lives in a sea of balance sheets, you might expect sophisticated, complicated, multi-syllabic ramblings. What you find is plain English that delivers clear answers and stunning financial results.<\/p>\n 6.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Think like a child.<\/strong><\/p>\n There\u2019s an art to writing children\u2019s books, and every time I read Arnold Lobel\u2019s Frog and Toad<\/em> series, I smile. Lobel\u2019s beginning reader books capture the simplicity and strength of good writing. If you can\u2019t remember how to write in the active voice with sentences that have subject-verb heft, read an award-winning children\u2019s book.<\/p>\n 7.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Start tweeting.<\/strong> Contrary to a belief that social media is the demise of standard English, I believe learning to inform and persuade with 140-character limits is a best practice for purposeful writing. If someone follows you on Twitter<\/a> and retweets your insight based on a compelling 140 characters, then you\u2019re excelling at clarity.<\/p>\n Practice does make perfect, but I agree with Nathaniel Hawthorne: \u201cEasy reading is damn hard writing.\u201d<\/p>\n Anne D Gallaher<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Powerful language is the soul of effective communication. It\u2019s also the soul of successful marketing, business, and government. Remember \u201cMr. Gorbachev tear down this wall\u201d? We cannot measure the global impact of those six words. What\u2019s the secret to better writing? Two necessities: more reading and more writing. Both are unglamorous; but both are effective … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-annedgallaher"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2723"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2732,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2723\/revisions\/2732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}