Archive for the ‘Effective writing’ Category
Formatting a document for conversion to eBook
Very few authors start out with the intent of creating an electronic book. Usually it is an afterthought once the basic manuscript has been written. That is of no concern provided the manuscript is properly formatted and that means …
Issues of Copyright 2
This post adds to http://thecreativegenie.com.au/copyright-2/issues-of-copyright-1/
The Creative Commons
In recent years there has been a concerted effort to extend the knowledge community by making some works—with the author’s or creator’s permission—available to others without payment. This system is known as …
Using the Notebook Layout View in Word 2011
MS Office users migrating to Mackintosh computers will note a number of immediate differences as compared to their programs running on a PC. For PC users, the latest version of Office is Office 2010 while for Mac users it is …
Applying readability tests to a document
In Britain and America (and probably Australia), the average reading age of the population is about 13 years. This means that a magazine has to pitch its articles to this age group in order to be understood by the bulk …
Writing for an international audience
Our new course Advanced English Skills for International Business is all about writing plain English in business, and writing it well. Writing good English will give you and your company, the competitive edge. This means using words that are universally …
So you think you don’t need an editor?
In this day of automatic spelling and grammar checkers, the need for an external editor is often overlooked. For any major writing project this is faulty logic. Whatever writing project you are engaged in, the assistance of an editor …
In writing, quality counts
We have already noted that standards of written English are poor in many parts of the English-speaking world and that mastery of writing is an essential ingredient in building a successful business career.
Within an organisation, the quality of your …
The need for advanced English writing skills has never been greater
In today’s information economy, writing good English has never been so important. And as business has gone global, being able to write for an international audience that crosses both national as well as cultural boundaries adds a further dimension to …
Formatting lists
Many people have problems with correctly formatting their lists. Do you capitalize the first word of a list item? What closing punctuation should you use? These are common questions that confound many writers when they begin composition. If you are …
Indexing your document through titles, subtitles, subject and category
With any project that takes a significant amount of your time, you will want to be able to retrieve your document at some point in the future. And if you are publishing on the Web you will want others to …
Using mind maps to plan a writing project
Before you can start writing, you have to know what you are going to write about. For a project of any length and substance you would normally start with the design aspect of writing. This involves defining our purpose and …
The importance of understanding your audience
From Effective Writing – combining creativity with productivity
Workplace writing is a genre that stands on its own. The underlying concept of effective workplace writing – whether it is in a commercial office, an educational institution or government – is …
The communications strategy
From Effective business writing, workingwithwords.com.au
In business writing, the communications strategy is part of the planning process.
There are usually three distinct parts to a communications strategy:
(1) Writing the message
(2) Delivery of the message and
(3) Monitoring your …
Audience and stakeholder analysis
Audience analysis is an important concept in many writing forms but especially in business writing. Audience analysis is about understanding your readers; what they need to know and how best to influence them – how might they best be persuaded? …
The fundamentals of workplace writing
Module 6 of our course in effective business writing looks at the fundamentals of writing in the workplace. This is a writing genre all of its own and we will use this blog to outline some of our ideas.
Perhaps …
Childhood holidays
Australia has changed greatly from the days of my youth. I grew up in Adelaide during the 1960s and when I was at school, Bob Menzies was the Prime Minister and had been there for so long it seemed like …
Our changing climate – Why Australians should be concerned
This article was one of a series published in late 2009 ahead of the Copenhagen climate conference. The recent Queensland flooding has rekindled some discussion of climate change, extreme climate events and climatic vulnerability and this article is one of …
Stories from the gate
Every day, runaway workers can be seen milling around the gate at the entrance to the Labour Office of the Philippine Embassy in Abu Dhabi. Despite the risk, they run away because of ill-treatment. Overwork, no pay as well as …
White slavery
Reza comes from the province of Zambales in the Philippines. Her home is a small town just north of the Subic Bay Freeport. She is 29 years old but no longer working. She is seeking to recover from tuberculosis which …
The importance of punctuation – Dashes and hyphens, inverted commas
The appendixes to Effective Writing provides a succinct list of common writing errors. It is not a complete list but rather a compilation of some of those I come across most frequently as an editor.
Dashes and hyphens
There are …
Five questions that lead to effective writing
Communication is both an art and a science. It involves the ability of the author to relate essential facts and ideas to the reading audience in a manner that the audience is able to understand and then, as needed, act …
The importance of punctuation – use of capitals, colons and semi-colons
The appendixes to Effective Writing provides a succinct list of common writing errors. It is not a complete list but rather a compilation of some of those I come across most frequently as an editor. A handy reference to have …
The importance of punctuation – sentence construction
From Effective Writing – combining creativity with productivity
Correct sentence construction involves a number of rules and here we mention only those that cause common problems.
Brackets and the variants
There are three types of brackets now commonly used in …
Getting a better return from MS Office
Are you among those that are still using Office 2003 or earlier because the user interface of later Office suites appears too daunting? Or have you migrated to Office 2007 or 2010 but keep asking yourself “how do they do …
A hard lesson to learn
March 2010
A hard lesson to learn
The approval rating of Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou has fallen once again and unless there is a dramatic turnaround his chances of winning re-election are almost zero. While the administration would like to …
