Full Frontal PR Report
Jay Bailey

We all write a lot, and the most honest among us will readily admit that we can always stand to be informed or reminded of key truisms about effective written communication.

Here are 10 tips that we all need to learn, use, and remember.

Are specific words the best ones to use? Have you used too many of them?

A minimum quantity of appropriate words will always communicate your ideas more effectively. You’ll be surprised to find that often the first draft of a sentence can be cut down by 1/3.

A good communicator leaves little open to interpretation. Use bold, specific, unambiguous vocabulary. The most important rule in any kind of writing (marketing, fiction, user guides or memoirs): The reader shouldn’t have to think about the words themselves when reading. Your ideas—and the images they create—should go directly “into” the reader’s head. In the final analysis, this is what defines good writing.

Put the guts of the sentence up front.

It’s a quick trick that has improved the grades of many a college student. Better than:

“The people here have serious concerns about the age and health of the horse.”

…would be:

“The horse’s health and age are the subject of serious concern.”

The difference—and this comes back to making the reader think as little as possible—is that the reader knows from the second word what you are talking about. The first sentence, while grammatically correct, leaves the “point” until the end. The “guts” can usually be equated with the subject of the sentence, but occasionally it’s simply a useful (colorful, descriptive, strong) verb or adjective.

Chop it up.

Readers prefer short sentences, even though long ones might be grammatically acceptable. This is especially true in marketing, where we compete for a few seconds of attention.

Here is an example:

“Competition for business begins as early in the morning as 8 a.m., when the local restaurants and pizza shops do what they can to attract the first crowds as they emerge, bleary-eyed, for their morning coffee.”

…and here is a rewrite using all the rules discussed thus far:

“Local restaurants and pizza places begin competing for customers early in the morning. They aim to attract the breakfast crowd as they emerge, bleary-eyed, for their morning coffee.”

NEVER use vague terms like “thing,””later,”“stuff,” or any other word that can be ambiguous.

Again, avoid making the reader think about language. Saying “The best thing about this” is much less clear than “The most innovative feature of this product.”

Also, replace vague statements like “We are currently dealing with this problem” with “We are currently analyzing and addressing the application failure.”

Stop being you, for just a minute. Think like your audience.

Before sending out a communication, put yourselves in the reader’s seat and try to review the text without any of the “built-in” understanding you have of the situation. The goal is to produce a statement that’s most easily understood by the reader. The uninitiated reader rarely has the time, inclination, or need to spend time thinking about what you are trying to say.

Emphasize your call to action.

In a message indicating you need something or expect a response, say so as unambiguously as possible. This is a no-brainer for marketing e-mail, but it’s important for internal messages as well. When writing to colleagues, don’t fall into the trap of laying out the facts, the challenges, the questions, and leave any question in the reader’s mind about what you need from him. Even if you begin your letter with, “we don’t have enough information about…” end with something concrete, like “Please send me the relevant information immediately so that I can…”

Semicolons are your friends. No, really.

Semicolons separate two independent clauses; each clause could be its own sentence and the second (not capitalized) usually clarifies the first. The previous sentence is an example of proper usage. They actually simulate the way we speak most of the time, which is using vaguely connected statements rather than stand-alone ones.

Commas are NOT used to indicate taking a breath.

Don’t use a comma like this: “We are trying to figure out how to most quickly, solve your problem.” It may sound right verbally, but it’s confusing to read.

Commas separate a sentence into nice, clean chunks, where each section has a separate idea or subject. The sentence above has a single “subject” (the problem).

For example:

“This document is informal, useful for the corporate communicator, but is not a classic school text.”

There were three ideas expressed above. Note that (generally) conjunctions like: is, while, but, since, and, etc., are almost always preceded by a comma.

“Regarding the information we are waiting for I just want to clarify the list.”

In the sentence above, place a comma after the word “for”. For more clarity, reverse the two clauses (see rule 2, above).

Always proof and spell-check.

Any documents—letter, memo or e-mail—should be spell-checked. With current technology, there’s no reason to send out correspondence with spelling errors.

Reread the first three rules.

You can tweak and massage a sentence to death, trying different words and structures. But the first three rules above make the difference between a reader’s frustration and his instant understanding of your message—which yields appreciation in the form of the reaction you want.

Jay Bailey is director of marketing for GuruNet, the creators of no doubt the most useful site on the Web, namely Answers.com.