Writing is writing is writing. Right? Wrong. In so many ways, all the types of pen to ink find their differences. In this instance, we’re talking about the actual writing process. The following is a direct comparison of how various aspects of the writing process differ when done for pleasure and when done for work. Agree or disagree as you please.
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Business owners have very particular ideas about how they want things to sound. As they should. It’s their business, their baby. They want everything about it to be perfect.
But not all of us have a way with words. Few are able to craft just the right formula for verbiage. Even fewer can weave it into good storytelling. That’s where your prospective writer comes in. Writing styles differ just as much as business owners’ grand visions. So there must be someone out there for everyone, right? It would be fantastic if you could find that perfect person who finishes your sentences (and in this case, starts them too).
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It’s a very hot term, increasingly thrown around amid other buzzwords like thought leader and target. And despite its popularity, SEO, or search engine optimization, is still a term not everyone understands.
As complicated (perhaps even daunting) as it may sound, SEO is actually a very simple principle.
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Like a bright red cherry on top of an already mesmerizing cocktail, certain words pack a punch that can liven up your entire body of writing. They can act like a pair of really flashy shoes, pulling together a generic outfit and making it memorable.
But which words to use? The English language has by far the highest volume of words to choose from than any other language. Which means you’re fresh out of excuses when you’re trying to find the right one. Now, what qualifies as “beautiful?” Beauty is, after all, in the eye of the beholder. And, in this particular case, dear readers, we are the beholders. Agree or disagree at your own volition. The real beauty in these words lies in their infrequency of use. It’s just refreshing to see rare words make an appearance in your everyday vocabulary so as to break the sameness of regularity.
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Although your excuses for finding the right word are limited with the vast possibilities in the English language, sometimes not even a thesaurus has the right fit for that word that’s just what you’re looking for.
So how do you go about this sort of predicament?
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It’s not uncommon to see double negatives in writing.
Now, wouldn’t that have read better if we said it’s common instead?
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When isolating thoughts with commas, dashes and semicolons, people tend to mix and match these marks of punctuation for some odd reason. As if they don’t want to leave any of them out of a particular sentence.
Let’s get one thing straight: it is absolutely correct to use more than one type of punctuation in a sentence. But if you want to isolate a thought, you need to use the same punctuation mark at the beginning and end. Unless a period is going to finish off everything.
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Saying the same exact thing twice in the same sentence is a waste of everyone’s time. Being redundant is almost like being irrelevant. And if you really think about it, saying something more than once is simply not necessary. It comes off as careless writing with less thought put in. If people see that you don’t show respect to the craft for writing, they could very easily take their reading elsewhere.
One instance of whatever it is you’re saying should be more than enough to get the message across. The following examples demonstrate some redundant phrasing that can be further refined.
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We can always question whether we’re using the right conditional word, even if it’s grammatically correct.
In many cases, if and whether can be used interchangeably. But there is a time and place where each one serves its own purpose more effectively. These discrepancies (although not a major mistake and often overlooked) still have the power to make some editors cringe.
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This is by far the most common correction an editor will come across. It makes sense, especially with someone who isn’t necessarily a writer, per se. People get lost in their own train of thought, and what should flow smoothly and read like a story ends up sounding like a big, bulky stream of consciousness.
Remember that in your writing, your end goal is to communicate with other human beings that are likely less well versed on the topic than you are. So you need to make what you want to say clear. Again, you are trying to communicate. And it’s far more effective when you break up a longer sentence into two or three smaller ones.
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