After reviewing hundreds of writing samples from workshops in 2011, three writing basics stand out as necessary to make writing positive and clear. Test your daily writing for these: 1. Positive wording:  Attitude, attitude, attitude.  Doesn’t it make a big difference? We all enjoy working with people who come at a problem with a constructive approach—those who take time to consider all possible solutions.  These people’s attitudes are reflected in [...]

By Andrew Moore I recently had a chance to review your work and what I found shocked me. Of course, I don’t know you from Adam, but did I get your attention? Are you curious to know what shocked me? An opening line that draws in your readers is the best way to generate interest in your writing. In journalism, it’s called the lead, and it’s the most important sentence [...]

By Andrew Moore Have you ever opened an email to realize you need to block out half your day to get through it? How many of us have opened one of these monsters and scrolled to the end before even beginning to read it, just to mentally prepare ourselves? Email has revolutionized the workplace, but like all communication, it’s only effective if it gets and maintains our attention.  And in [...]

By Barry Mohn Occum’s Razor, loosely interpreted, is a principle stating that the simplest method is often the best.  Philosopher William of Ockham surely would have approved of clustering then. Clustering, believed to have started in Roman times, is a technique that helps create a hierarchy of ideas around a central purpose or problem.  Circa 75 BC, Cicero etched clusters for his speeches on clay tablets.  Today, third graders mark [...]

By Andrew Moore In a famous scene from the Steve Martin remake of “Father of the Bride,” Martin’s character heads to the supermarket in a huff, tasked by his wife to buy something for dinner. Frustrated that hot dogs come in packages of eight and buns in packages of 12, Martin begins opening the bun packages and ripping out the extra buns, telling a stunned clerk that he is removing [...]

In school, we were taught to write sentence by sentence and paragraph by paragraph, and to package that writing into a neat narrative.  Maybe our teachers thought we would all grow up to be journalists or authors.   I don’t know about you, but the dreams of hiding out in a rustic mountain cabin, sipping scotch, and laying down eloquent words onto the pages of my next great novel ended a [...]

Don’t kid yourself.  No matter how well spoken you are, your writing may betray you.  What can you do to improve your confidence and skills related to your writing? 1. Write often. Interesting research exists on the benefits of writing in a journal.  One study cited in Prevention magazine showed that those who write in a journal about losing a job may dramatically increase their chances of landing a new [...]