Being a better writer is not always about writing. Sometimes it’s about reading. You read every day. It might be emails, newspapers, websites, reports from colleagues, a novel; you might be reading the blurb for a film or the instructions for how to prepare your ready meal. Whatever it is, someone is trying to send Read More
Month: July 2011
Two steps in IP
The government has taken one step forward and one step back in its policy over intellectual property (IP). The step forward is the appointment of IP attachés to UK embassies around the world. These attachés will pressure foreign governments to crack down on infringements of the IP rights of UK companies and citizens, it announced Read More
Top tip of the week on grammar
#28 Be sure your verb tenses make sense. Think: are these things happening at the same time? If not, then make sure the reader sees that they are not See more top tips here. Read More
Investigative journalism works: Pilots cleared after 17 years
Two dead RAF helicopter pilots have been cleared after an investigative journalism campaign of 17 years. Flt Lts Trapper and Cook were cleared last week of the accusation that they flew the copter into the Mull of Kintyre killing all 29 on board. The dead included senior British intelligence officers and their special forces minders. Read More
Making information accessible
The key to making information accessible is a simple question: Why does this matter to the reader? Answering this can help you overcome the all-too-human temptation to deluge the reader with as much information as you can find, without bothering to tell them why they should care. Let’s say you’ve been asked to recommend whether Read More
10 lessons from the NoW closure
1 To paraphrase the Sun: “It’s the advertisers whot won it.” Senior News International executives talked about the loss of trust by the readers as the cause of the closure of the NoW. It wasn’t any such thing. It was because the advertisers bailed out. It was a ruthless closure inflicted on a team which Read More
Choosing the right words for the web
Why isn’t everything that appears on the web optimised for search? Well, maybe it is but doesn’t look like it is. Read More
“Represent” is not “is”
If you use the wrong word in a report or story and you don’t know it was wrong, some others will. They will judge accordingly. Take the word “represent”. Here’s an online definition. The meaning is to stand in for something. Yet I heard, on the BBC of all places, a journalist say that the Read More