Tag: Editing
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Drop the Fluff and Start Producing Sharper Prose Today
“Composition is a discipline; it forces us to think. If you want to ‘get in touch with your feelings,’ fine, talk to yourself; we all do. But, if you want to communicate with another thinking human being, get in touch with your thoughts. Put them in order; give them a purpose; use them to persuade,…
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Developing Your Writing Personality Without Going Overboard
I once read a blog post that opened with three exclamation points, deployed the word “amazeballs” without irony, and included so many emoji that my screen looked like a teenager’s phone had exploded across it. The topic? B2B software implementation. The writer was trying to be lively. I respect the impulse. But somewhere between “conversational”…
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Craft Excellent Blog Posts: Seven Actionable Tips for Today’s Creators
I used to think writing was like magic, the kind where you pull a fully formed rabbit out of an empty hat. So I’d sit down at my keyboard, stare at a blank screen, and wait for the rabbit. Sometimes for hours. The rabbit, unsurprisingly, rarely appeared. Eventually I learned that productive writers don’t think…
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Coping With Proofreading Fatigue After a Career of Catching Errors
Me: “Hey, Brain, time to proofread.” My Brain: “We don’t want to.” Me: “This article isn’t complete until we proof it.” My Brain: “Our eyes are tired.” Me: “There might be a mistake I want to correct. Or I might find ways to make it even better.” My Brain: “We want to eat chocolate chips.”…
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Adopting Hemingway’s Bold and Simple Writing Style
Whenever I tell business people to write like Hemingway, someone inevitably says: “Hey, I’m no Hemingway!” To which the only reasonable response is: exactly. You’re not. Neither am I. That’s not the point. The point is that Hemingway chose to eschew obfuscation at every turn, to write simply and clearly instead of hiding behind flowery…
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A Five-Phase Writing Workflow That Eliminates Three Common Frustrations
I once asked a room full of writers to name their biggest struggle. The answers poured in, dozens of them, but they all collapsed into the same three complaints: I can’t get started. I can’t stop rambling. I can’t finish. Sound familiar? (If it doesn’t, congratulations, you’re either lying or you don’t write.) Here’s the…
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A Detail-Oriented Writer’s Twelve-Step Preflight Guide for Blog Posts
I once watched a writer accidentally publish a half-finished draft to a site with six figures of daily traffic. The post went live with a placeholder headline that read “WORKING TITLE, FIX THIS.” It sat there, in all its glory, for forty-seven minutes before anyone noticed. That writer was not me. (This time.) But it…
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Editing Techniques That Turn Rough Drafts Into Compelling Masterpieces
I used to think writing was the hard part. Then I became an editor and learned the truth: writing is the first part. Editing is where the work actually happens, where you take the raw ore of your thoughts and hammer it into something that gleams. The content people share, bookmark, and email to friends…
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Six Essential Ingredients Every Engaging Article Needs
Ask most people what their content marketing strategy is, and after you cut through the jargon, it boils down to something roughly translated as: “More eyeballs. Please. Any eyeballs.” This is not a new impulse. The quest for attention is as old as commerce itself. And it does matter, ask anyone trying to build a…