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By Mark Nichol Some time ago, I posted some general guidelines for  writing for an online audience . Here are some specific time-tested tips for attracting and keeping site visitors with clean, clear writing: 1. Keyword Top Labels Use keywords for window titles and taglines, and keep them sharp and succinct. These labels are for helping Internet users get to your site because they typed them into a search engine and your site came up in the results, not for wowing visitors when they get there (assuming they get there, because you’re not using keywords to help searchers). 2. Keyword Display Copy Employ keywords, not clever words, to begin headings, headlines, and link names, and keep the display copy brief. Most Web site visitors scan just the first one or two words of display copy. In “Where to Go on Vacation This Summer,” the first keyword appears as the fifth word of seven. (Go isn’t a keyword, because you don’t yet know what kind of going is involved.) “Summer-Vacation Destinati...

By Mark Nichol The three types of essay most commonly assigned in school — the narrative essay, the persuasive essay, and the expository essay — conveniently correspond to those writing forms most frequently published online and in print. Your experience with these prose forms is ideal preparation for writing for publication. 1. The Narrative Essay This form, employed when reporting about an event or an incident, describing an experience, or telling a story, is the basic mode in journalistic writing. Practice in relating what happened when you witnessed an occurrence or writing about what you were told by someone who witnessed it, is good training for becoming a newspaper reporter. Writing your recollections of something that happened to you is the basis of travel writing and similar content. Meanwhile, effective storytelling is an essential skill for feature writing, which — as opposed to reporting, which is event-driven — focuses on a person, a place, or a thing, such as a company or...

By Mark Nichol I received the following email message recently. Actually, it went to my spam folder, but other recipients may not be so fortunate — or so discerning about its deceptive nature. But if you read carefully, you’ll find plenty of clues that the writer is not a native speaker of English, much less an FBI agent. My editorial interpolations are in brackets. Anti-Terrorist and Monitory Crime Division. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Daniel McMullen (Special Agent in Charge) Attn: , [Mac, you forgot to fill in my name, or a generic term.] This is to officially inform you that it has come to our notice and we have thoroughly investigated with the help of our Intelligence Monitoring Network System that you are having an illegal Transaction with Impostors. [The Intelligence Monitoring Network System could be a brand-name system meriting initial capitalization, but it also could be — and is, according to an online search — a phrase that comes up only in reference to its inclusion i...

By Mark Nichol Writing a speech and producing an essay have much in common, of course, because one is merely a spoken form of the other, but keep in mind the unique features that distinguish a presentation delivered with your voice and one that others read. 1.  Plan your speech according to the occasion, considering the event, the audience, the tone of the speech (somber, serious, informal, humorous, and so on), and its duration. 2.  Identify the message or theme of the speech, and how you will approach it. 3.  Craft an effective opening that gets your audience’s attention, employing an anecdote, a joke, a quotation, or a thought-provoking question or assertion. You should be able to express your introduction in about thirty seconds or less. 4.  Outline a handful of points to cover, just as you would when writing a persuasive or informative essay; after all, again, a speech is a spoken essay. 5.  Organize the points so that they support and build on each other, ...

By Mark Nichol An analytical or persuasive essay is a capsule thesis, and, like its more substantial analog, it requires a thesis statement. Here are some notes about how to develop that statement. A thesis statement is a sentence (or two) that encapsulates and introduces an analysis or argument. An essay benefits from a thesis statement by concisely expressing the writer’s argument and serving as a basis for developing and organizing it. If you are assigned to write an essay, whether in an academic or professional setting, the topic may or may not be given. If the topic is specified, you can produce the thesis statement by converting the explanation of the assignment into a question; your response to that question is the thesis statement. For example, if you are asked to write about feeding wild animals, you might pose the question “Why is feeding wild animals a bad idea?” You might reply, “Feeding wild animals disrupts natural habits in animals and endangers them and the people who f...

By Mark Nichol It is likely that, at some point in your career, you will be asked — or feel compelled — to write a report. Here are seven steps to producing a successful account or analysis. 1.  Identify the report’s objective: Inform, or advise? If the former, predict, or review? If the latter, persuade or dissuade? 2.  Consider your audience: Are your reader's experts, or laypeople? Are they fellow employees, or colleagues in the same profession or industry? Take into account their educational level and their familiarity with the subject matter to guide your writing style and your use and explication of specialized vocabulary. 3.  Research your topic. If you have been assigned the report, be sure the person you received the assignment from has thoroughly briefed you on its goal and its scope. If you are initiating the report yourself, again, be sure you know those parameters. Then, consult with other stakeholders — those whose work relies on the dissemination of such re...

By Guest Author As the founder of a speech writing firm, Inkwell Strategies, I’ve gotten used to drawing a certain amount of interest from new friends and acquaintances when asked what Ido for a living. After working in this somewhat niche profession for a number of years, I have come to expect questions about what the job entails, and even more frequently, inquiries about how to write a strong speech. There are a lot of different ways to answer that question, but after crafting remarks for leaders in government, nonprofits, and the private sector, I’ve learned that there are essentially five rules that all writers should follow in order to write a winning speech: 1. Read your speech out loud Unlike almost all other forms of writing, speechwriting is designed for listeners. So, when reviewing your text, read it to yourself, and pay attention to how the words sound and feel. Do they flow off the tongue, or are they clunky and awkward? If your phrases make you stumble, they are guarantee...