Jan 27, 2017 | Effective Writing
There are many more people playing baseball in France these days than were 15 years ago, but how good do you think French baseball is? That occurred to me when I saw the headline on a short New York Times piece, “We are all writers now.” Well, maybe not....
Jun 6, 2016 | Effective Writing
Hesitations (u-m-m-m), hedges, and other cautious expressions reflect a weak language style that can diminish credibility. For decades, social psychologists have found that a communicator’s language affects how the person is perceived by listeners, and...
Jul 7, 2011 | Effective Writing
The simple, direct sentence is a key element of clear writing, but if you want to distinguish your prose from all the mediocrity, vary sentence structures. The ability to craft sentences for a purpose, such as to create variety or emphasis, is a hallmark of good...
Aug 5, 2009 | Effective Writing
There are many more people playing baseball in Sweden these days than were 15 years ago, but how good do you think Swedish baseball is? That occurred to me when I saw the headline on a short New York Times piece, “We are all writers now.” Well, maybe...
Jul 29, 2009 | Effective Writing
Reading a piece about what’s wrong with corporate memos, I noticed that the writer didn’t distinguish between e-mail and any other type of internal memo. That’s good, because in most cases, there isn’t any difference. Not any more. Some people...