In a society fast
moving from considering writing as a domain of poets, literary writers and
novelists, we now see the need for (and a good supply of) writers coming in to
develop business content to help market a company’s product and help them sell
it online. The ultimate challenge that writers face today is the get the
message across using the Internet as a communication medium (through websites,
articles, blogs, tech ref manuals etc.)
One of the
earliest proponents of clear writing was George Orwell who suggested way back
in 1946, the 5 golden rules for effective writing:
1. Never use a
metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in
print.
Does the phrase “Low hanging fruit”
mean something to a layman? Can’t it be better written as “non-performing
employee” ? Now, how many people recognize the words and the sentiments behind
them?
2. Never use a
long word where a short one will do.
“In the entire world, XYZ is
selling like hot cakes and gathering a lot of revenues for the company”…
Imagine if we write this as “XYZ is the company’s universal best-seller”.
Many writers adopt the beating round the bush approach to increase word count
or achieve the desired keyword density. This is a strict no-no as it insults
the reader’s sensibilities.
3. If it is possible to cut a word
out, always cut it out.
Well, same as above (yea that’ a
shorter one. No need for another example!)
4. Never use
the passive where you can use the active.
“The man who was old was bitten by a
cat”. While there’s no rocket science behind the logic, still this is an
oft-disregarded adage. You can always replace the longer sentence with a
shorter and effective “The cat bit the old man”
5. Never use a
foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an
everyday English equivalent.
Keep your content easily accessible to
the average Joe. Readers will simply block out the content if they come across
a lot of technical jargons that they can’t comprehend
Now that you know
the rules, apply creativity and let your write up rise above the rest.
No comments:
Post a Comment