Reading time: Less than 2 minutes Do your teeth hurt? Imagine what it would be like to have severe dental pain that persisted for years and no hope of treatment… I’m seldom able to be public about crisis communications in which I’m involved. My column today is the happy exception. No harm will come from publicizing the […]
Reading time: Less than 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a metaphor from Bob Morris… My mother died 10 years ago last month. I still remember the inexorable hours I spent in her hospital room, comforting her, feeding her and negotiating with doctors.
The figurative language of Bob Morris… Read More »
Reading time: Less than 1 minute Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: adducing. When I don’t know a word I enjoy guessing at its meaning. My husband is better at this than I am because of his scientific training, which
What does adducing mean? Read More »
Reading time: Less than 3 minutes Is a messy desk hurting your writing productivity? One of my classmates in high school had such a messy desk that our teachers — nuns — frequently hassled her and sometimes gave her detentions for her untidiness. In retaliation she posted a sign saying, “a clean desk is the sign of a
Do you suffer from Irritable Desk Syndrome? Read More »
Reading time: Less than 1 minute This is my weekly installment of “writing about writing,” in which I scan the world to find websites, books and articles to help other writers. Today I discuss a blog post about the late William Zinsser….. William Zinsser, who died on May 12 of this year, has long been one of
Good writers got better and bad writers… Read More »
Reading time: Less than 1 minute Lessons in crisis communications come from all sorts of places. I would never have predicted that a particularly telling one would come from FIFA president Sepp Blatter. I’m not much interested in organized sports. My pursuits run more along the lines of hiking, canoeing and walking. But if forced to watch a
No longer the president of everybody Read More »
Reading time: Less than 2 minutes Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: villanelle I’ve suddenly become an enormous fan of the journalist, blogger and science writer Clive Thompson. A reader sent me a copy of a video in which
What’s a villanelle? Read More »
Reading time: Less than 3 minutes If you habitually write copy that’s shorter than you want or need, here are some tips on how to lengthen word count… Here’s my dirty little secret about writing: I often write too short. Give me a word count of 750 words and I’ll produce 600. Ask for 2,000
Is your writing too short? Here’s how to fix that Read More »
Reading time: Less than 1 minute This is my weekly installment of “writing about writing,” in which I scan the world to find websites, books and articles to help other writers. Today I discuss a Harvard Law School blog post on mindmapping… I love it when my readers forward interesting articles to me. (Keep on doing this,
Mindmapping helps lawyer; could it help you? Read More »
Reading time: Less than 1 minute Don’t let jargon cause you to make embarrassing typographical errors. Everything you write needs a proofreader, even if you can’t afford having a professional do it… I volunteer at my local high school, where I’m the debate coach. I love working with teenagers — I find their energy infectious. But
Why you need a proofreader… Read More »
