improve writing

We’ve kept this piece brief, consisting just of useful writing advice, to give you time to explore more of this week’s Content Marketing World sessions.

Even talented writers value advice on how to write more persuasively. Additionally, readers value writing that is more effective. Their attention spans are short. They only have little windows of time to ingest stuff.

Do you compose and edit your work with the idea that readers will only read it briefly? Try these two writing suggestions for material that speaks more to your audience.

Tip 1: Use short, simpler words

Everyone enjoys sounding intelligent, but if your audience doesn’t grasp what you’re saying, they’ll stop listening. Don’t use overly complicated language in your content so as to persuade your viewers to quit reading it. Avoid forcing your attentive audience to navigate away from the website to look up a definition.

Short words are simple to comprehend. Long or difficult words make reading more difficult. Key points may be missed by readers, or they may stop reading altogether.

See how these before-and-after examples demonstrate the effectiveness of simplification.

BEFORE

• tracking of workspace usage in real time.
• Because of the data silos brought on by rigidity, it is challenging to
• Due to a split in customer tastes, text is favoured over email.

AFTER

• monitoring of workplace use in real time.
• It is difficult to… due to rigid data silos.
• Despite the differences, more customers choose text over email.

Save your best vocabulary terms for your ground-breaking book or your upcoming Scrabble match. In your content marketing, use straightforward language. Even readers who are familiar with difficult subjects value clarity in writing.

Tip 2: Make short, concise sentences.

Therefore, readers who enjoy short word length will also enjoy brief sentences.

A statement with less than eight words was understood by every reader in the poll. And 90% of people could comprehend a phrase of nine to fourteen words. Comprehension declined as the number of words rose. Only 10% of the information in a statement that included 43 words or more was comprehended. Even though the study was conducted over ten years ago for newspaper writing, content marketing might benefit from its findings. And it stands to reason that now, shorter could be preferable.

Do you frequently employ conjunctions and clauses in your sentences? Could those be divided into a few simpler, stronger sentences?

Let’s examine one of the introduction’s most difficult to write sentences. You want to grab the interest of your readers and encourage them to keep reading the information. The key is to speak clearly.

Let’s run through this illustration. I’ve altered a few details to protect the author’s privacy:

“Over the last several months, we have observed the trend of remote work, which calls for more individuals to utilise their home internet for business-related activities and raises cybersecurity threats.”

That statement is excessively lengthy at 31 words. How can we condense it while keeping its meaning?

First, think about the unimportant things.

The sentence is dated by the phrase “during the last months.” Is time a crucial element? Since it isn’t in this instance, it is cut.

The usage of home internet for professional reasons is becoming more common due to the trend of remote work, which also raises cybersecurity dangers.

The sentence now has 27 words.

Next, the present perfect first person is used to express “we have seen.” The sentence is not essential since attribution is not required, even if the verb tense might be changed to a simple past or present tense. Additionally, remote work is a well-known trend in 2020. There’s no need to state that:

“More individuals are using their home internet for professional reasons as a result of remote employment, a development that also raises cybersecurity threats.”

The sentence is now 20 words.

Additional edits: Remove the phrase “requiring additional employees” because remote workers are a given. There is no internet at home for your dog. the verb be changed to active voice.

“The growth of remote work necessitates the usage of the home internet for professional reasons,” introducing cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

The sentence now has 18 words.

Keep in mind that we already erased the “trend” viewpoint. We must repeat the process.

“Using home internet for business reasons is a requirement of remote employment, posing cybersecurity hazards.”

The sentence now has 14 words.

The usage of the word “labour” twice is more obvious with the shorter text. Let’s remove one citation:

There are cybersecurity dangers while using the home internet for business.

There are now 11 words in the sentence. Although the intention was to remove one word, the editing opportunity exposed the idea’s redundancy. “Remote work” is better described as “home internet for work reasons.”

Is there anything else in the statement that is unnecessary? Yes. Let’s modify once more:

“There are cybersecurity dangers while using the home internet for business.”

The sentence now consists of eight words.

The main idea is still present even if the phrase is just eight words long instead of 31. Additionally, it hits the percentage of terms that all participants in the American Press Institute study could understand.

What quick suggestions do you have for writing better?

Every day, we create, edit, and read it – material with rambling phrases or difficult words.

Let’s surpass that material. Let’s keep in mind that our readers have limited attention spans and enjoy reading things that are simple. Because of it, our language and phrases must be concise.