You’ve got to be a bit more canny when using hook intros than with a summary intro. Look for unusual parts of the story or details which you have seen or gathered from your reporting. Go through your notebook and have a look at the different parts of it and make sure that you’ve got Read More
Category: Effective writing
Don’t forget about links in your writing
It’s easy to forget about links in your writing. Once you’ve overcome the first major hurdle and actually made a start, there is a tendency to assume that the rest will just flow. Not necessarily. Good writers spend as much time thinking about how to keep people reading as they do about hooking them in Read More
Using the semicolon to power your writing
The semicolon is in your tool box of punctuation: use it to improve the power of your writing. It is heavier than a comma and lighter than a full stop. Here is one way to use it: As a divider in lists which are long and complex: “Three of them went on the picnic: Richard, Read More
Top Tip – Feature Writing
This week’s top tip: Learn as much about your reader as you can and when you start to write, imagine they are sitting in the corner of the room with you. Look at our Feature Writing course to find out more. Read More
Golden Rules for Email #1: Subject Lines
What is the core purpose of a Subject Line? [please choose one] 1. To inform the recipient of your email’s content 2. To motivate them to read the email Your Subject Line is the ‘headline’ for your email. So in some ways, informing the reader seems to make sense. After all, it’s there to give Read More
How authentic do you want to be?
It’d be very easy to think that ‘image’ is all that matters today. How you present yourself on social media. The bold claims you make on behalf of your organisation. So, image is clearly important, and something you should try and control. Even more important is the perceived ‘gap’ between your image and Read More
“Can you put that in writing?”
This is something we still hear every day, even in this digital age, and especially in business. We clearly still value the ‘tangible’ message, that record of an important conversation or agreement. It allows your contact or customer the time to evaluate and consider their options and preferences before making that all-important decision. So why Read More
Happy with your inbox?
What’s the first thing you do when you open your inbox in the morning? That’s right, DELETE. It’s an automatic response, to only leave you with the messages that are relevant, useful or meaningful. We can show you how your emails can avoid this fate. How to stand out amid the clutter of your audience’s Read More
You transmit over 4,000 messages every day.
Every day, you send out 4,000 messages, without once opening your mouth or tapping your keyboard. ‘Micro-messages’ are how humans actually communicate face-to-face, most of the time. Small actions or gestures, eye movements or glances, shifts in posture or body language; they all give a lot away – and much more than we think. We rely on them Read More
The Golden Rules of Communication
1st Rule of Communication – Context Hugely influences your message. Place, time, format, expectations, history, relevance, sentiment…the list goes on. Think about Context, first and last. 2nd Rule of Communication – Clarity There is just too much ‘noise’ and clutter. Your message needs to be absolutely clear, helped by your distinctive tone of voice. The clearer Read More