Writing a tight, logical summary is the most important business writing skill. Don’t agree? Then riddle me this: if they can’t make it past your summary, how can they approve the proposal you just submitted? Writing a summary will also help the writing process. To get the summary right (and if you are writing something [...]

There are plenty of tips about how to design a presentation. There are also plenty of tips on how to speak in public. But, for me, they all miss the point. Before a presentation can be shown or given it must first be written. So let it be written, so let it be done. To [...]

Over at my personal blog I just did a nice post about the structure of stories. It’s kind of geeky fiction writer stuff, but it makes a point that is valid for anything you might write: It has an underlying structure. If you are producing any kind of regular content with any expectation of quality, [...]

Rewriting a blog post about software development.

A standard bit of writing advice is, “Avoid the Passive Voice.” There’s nothing wrong with that, except that it doesn’t explain the passive voice. I have never used the term “passive voice” to describe a piece of writing. I know a few people who have, but they are no fun at parties. So what is [...]

The myth is that the a longer essay is better (or harder to write) than a shorter essay. And this is not true. The true skill in writing is to be able to convey a lot with a little. My 7th grade teacher, Sister Mary Helen, would always threaten me with a 10-page essay on [...]

In 1949, Claude Shannon defined information as “that which reduces ambiguity.” On this basis, much of what is written doesn’t qualify as information. Attention is a constrained resource. Every additional word a writer uses asks for a bit more of the reader’s attention. This relationship can be summed up by the following identity: The more [...]

For most of my life, headlines have paid my rent. Headlines have bought my beer and buttered my bread. I have written headlines in every state known to man. Drunk, sober, lovestruck, heart-broken, sick, healthy. Once upon a very bad time, I was shot in an attempted carjacking[1]. Two days later, I was writing headlines. [...]

In 1066 William the Bastard conquered England. After that he became known as William the Conqueror. And the English language doubled in size, almost at a stroke. For the next 200 years or so, the people who ruled the island spoke French, but the people who lived there spoke English. Things got confused and during [...]

If you don’t know ZeFrank, you should. He’s starting a new show ( http://ashow.zefrank.com/ ) and this video is how he kicked it off. It’s wise and wonderful and brilliant. Two things especially. I’m scared. Damn right. Everybody is scared at the beginning of something. If it’s the beginning of an email, it’s just a [...]

Every sentence, no matter how complicated or confused, can be broken down into smaller units of the form Subject Verb (Object). This order is how meaning in structured in English. It’s not the only way for a language to order meaning. It’s probably not even the best way. But if you are a native English [...]